Online Photo-Book Services

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Richard
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Joined: Tue Mar 11, 2014 3:36 pm

Online Photo-Book Services

Postby Richard » Sat Dec 31, 2016 7:23 pm

I don't think anyone has posted this topic yet!

You've old photo's in your computer for storage and want to make a display book to present to someone, perhaps a relative in hospital who needs cheering up.
Many companies offer a 'service' whereby you upload photo's and take your chance...

I have tried the cheapest online photo-book printing service by 'Aldi' and found great difficulty in placing the photographs, as well as losing all my efforts when the 'project'
a) does not always 'save' adequately, or
b) the whole process falls apart on trying to connect to a payment service which re-directs me to a stage which entails a laborious repeat of the original endeavour.

Boots and Tesco seem fairly rubbish too - has anyone had better luck?

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Geoff
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Location: Blacklands, Hastings
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Re: Online Photo-Book Services

Postby Geoff » Tue Jan 03, 2017 7:41 pm

Hi Richard

You may (or may not) have noticed my entry into the online printing market last year. As a graphic designer I was originally quite involved with the print side of things, until the internet came along and diverted my attention in a big way.

It then seemed like an obvious move to combine them both and offer an online printing service. Back to my roots in a way I suppose.

I have not gone as far as offering photo-books and the like, but specialised in the photo prints and posters side of the market.

I agree, the majority of similar services (even from the big boys) offer clunky and often unforgiving web interfaces that are confusing to use and try to offer too much. So my primary goal was to make the print shop website as simple as possible. Choose your print type, upload your file, add delivery details and pay online. Voila... receive your prints in the post.

I can't vouch for any other online print service (I would be silly to promote the opposition) but wish you the best of luck with the photo-book idea.

Geoff
https://www.1066printshop.co.uk

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seahermit
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Joined: Sat Aug 26, 2017 10:53 pm

Re: Online Photo-Book Services

Postby seahermit » Mon Oct 02, 2017 3:12 pm

Whilst browsing, I came across this thread of nine months ago. I was showing some very old photos to a friend the other day - I'm revealing my age here but does anyone remember those funny little square photos from a Brownie box camera printed out with frilly edges ..?!

My friend was fascinated by shots of me aged three on a tricycle .. but I then had the idea of scanning the old ones myself (instead of going to a professional photo-printer) and trying to improve them with very basic software. Even just using simple cropping, lightening, contrast etc., I was astonished at the results - when printed out, the crisp 6 x 4 photos could easily have passed for having been taken yesterday on a modern camera. I'm planning to put together a small album of old photos (family and various memories) and pass it around amongst the relatives - I particularly want to take my brother down a peg or two, his grandchildren will crease up at the shots of him looking a complete twerp in peaked school cap with skinny little knees in grey shorts!

My question is .. would anyone recommend a way of doing this which would yield better results? I should have already downloaded some decent photo-editing software (been very busy this year with photography including seascape stuff) but I'm a bit daunted by the apparent complexity of Photoshop. I briefly had a look at things like Gimp and Photoscape but was put off by the apparent lack of good instructions for beginners. Would a professional photo-printer be able to do a better job? The originals are fortunately not very damaged, marked etc. but some are very faded of course. I'm greatly interested in Geoff's new online printing enterprise - apart from playing around with these small old photos, I have some seascapes etc. which I want to blow up to poster size for framing, so I am looking for the very best quality results I can get.

The only specialist photo-printers I know of in Hastings are Marriotts (unknown quantity) and Martel Print near Asda (good), but both are expensive - the online services seem much cheaper, fast and easy to deal with from your computer desk.


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