My opinions, thoughts and tips
I was given the chance to test a photo book of Saal Digital from their professional line and wanted to give you guys a little feedback.
You will have three options on how to create your very own professional photo book; via PDF Upload, Saal Design Software or Saal Digital App:
I went with the download of the design software as I wanted to have the option to customize my designs and save changes offline. Surprisingly my Lenovo miix 320 tablet was working quite well with this software as I could access my pictures directly from my internal hard drive instead of uploading all of them.
Starting the project
Once the software is downloaded you are given some options lined in a grid. You get to choose what option you want to select next. As I’m going to review a professional line photo book I’m choosing here the photo book category.
In this section you get provided with any applying discounts and options on different photo books you can create.
Step 1 – Size and format
What’s the story behind your photo book!? Make up your mind before you even start creating it! Think about the purpose… Do you want a book just for yourself? Then you would probably go with a different layout than the professional line as it’s more expensive. Is your photo book representing your artwork or do you want to attract customers to order some of your photographs or products? Then you need to blow them away!!
I decided on doing a showcase of my landscape photography as I felt these pictures would just do great with the layout and quality of this book. For landscape photography the 16x12 seemed to work best as mostly all of them will be printed in landscape orientation.
Step 2. – Cover Material
Once you’ve selected the article size, Saal Digital offers you a variation of extra features like cover material, pages (glossy or matte) and even an optional gift box.
For my photo book I went with an acrylic coverage, matte pages and skipped the gift box option as I will use it for my own purposes.
Step 3. – Let’s get creative
The design software is pretty much self-explaining and easy to handle. First you want to deactivate the auto layout function on the top and use the file system on the left side to access the pictures on your computer file or external hard drive; once you selected a picture, the software gives you some layout options on the right hand side. As you have to design each page individually, I would select a background colour to start with. A black background makes the colours popping out even more, but it’s totally up to you which colour you prefer. Also note that your ideas might change during the custom process so begin simple and make changes and adjustments as they come along.
Quick tip: Save your photo book regularly during the process; so you can go easily back at any point.
Quick tip: Press the preview button on the top from time to time as it gives you a great feeling for the progress of your book.
Quick tip: I left the first and last double pages black to give the viewers eye some time to get prepared for the colourful photographs. Also it looks very professional. You can add a text box to introduce the viewer or even write some thankful thoughts to people that are supporting you in your career.
Step 4. – Change of mind
While creating your photobook you always get the chance to make changes. During my process I discovered not only wanted to do a landscape theme, I only wanted to use pictures that had somewhat to do with mountains. So I got to the point where I had more pages than I had pictures I wanted to use. To fix this problem you simply click on an empty page (or any page you want to delete) in the timeline and press the garbage bin button. A nice extra feature: The price adjusts with every page you delete or add to your project.
If you decide to make any changes on the cover surface or the product itself, press the tool button on the right side make amendments as you like or press “convert article” in the left corner to see pricing and page numbers. Press “select” once you’re ready to continue with the designing part. Don’t forget to save your product first before you do any changes!
Press the “add to cart” button when you’re satisfied with your photobook and follow the order instructions. At this point you will also get the chance again to make changes in your cover material and asked again for a gift box
Step 5. – Shipping and Delivery
My order was placed on September 3rd, 2020 and the book got delivered on September 7, 2020 which was incredibly fast for such a fantastic and high quality photo book. I was very surprised.
As I am currently still in Canada I had to wait until now to receive it, as a friend was sending it to me from Germany. The original packaging was tight and space efficient and I couldn’t see any damage to it. As the acrylic top layer is pretty heavy on the book there is one little dent at the top where the glass leaves a gap (see picture) which is a little bit disappointing but regarding the excellent appearance easy to oversee.
If I could mention something to the customer service I would recommend putting a protective film on top like smartphones have, once this looks scratched you can pull it off and have a brand new book again!
Fazit
I am incredibly satisfied with the professional line photo book by Saal Digital and can highly recommend to purchase orders through them. I recently discovered that they also deliver into the US and if they do the same to Canada I finally found my favorite photo book supplier!
The quality of the book is phenomenal; colours and clarity of the pictures are accurately presented, the pages are printed on thick photo paper (which is even a little bit thicker than the photo paper here in Canada) and you can really tell that this is made for professional photography.