Some time ago, the terribly nice people at SAAL offered me a voucher towards the cost of one of their Professional Line books. The voucher was for £100 and this was enough to completely cover the production of a book.
They provide a local software application to download and install. This was a small download and a quick easy install under Windows 10 but provided a slight hurdle for me as part of my working practice is to avoid any local software installs wherever possible. Apart from those where there is no choice such as Photoshop/Lightroom and a few other essentials, I’d much rather use a browser based application. However their application was easy to use and pretty much intuitive.
I selected a 26 page Photobook Professional Line at 30x30cm as this was just short of the voucher value once postage had been added. I chose a linen cover and a heavyweight matt paper. I’d had all manner of ideas about themes and so forth but in the end chose a selection based entirely on personal favourites.
I’ve not made a book before and so my layout, design and sequencing skills leave something to be desired. I kept the layout simple and tried to maximise the size of each image at one per page. This meant that borders on pages were uneven (top vs side) but I was happy to make that compromise to maximise the image size. I do have a real gripe about images that cover two pages (spreads) and feature the fold down the middle but in this instance I selected just one as I was keen to see how well it was handled. Because of the proportions, the selected image would have been very small if placed on a single page.
The use of the software was very simple including alignment help for all the image and text boxes. The warnings about proximity to the gutter were particularly helpful. I added all images as full size jpegs, quality 100 without any additional sharpening. After a thorough check, recheck and double check, I hit the upload button and hoped.
The postage adds £5 but as I’d used the voucher there was nothing to pay.
The order was acknowledged almost immediately by email on the 3rd June. At that point delivery was estimated as June 15th.
On Sat 6th June I received a shipping notification, again suggesting delivery as 15th June.
My book arrived yesterday (June 11th) so 4 days ahead of schedule, delivered very well packaged by DHL. Good packaging meant that the book arrived in perfect condition.
In order of discovery, the overall look of the exterior was very beautiful. The linen cover is exceptional and the printing on it is as good as I’ve ever seen. Before you open a page the book has already conveyed an impression of high quality. There is an option to have the book delivered in a full matching presentation box. These looked beautiful but took the price beyond what I was prepared to pay.
The pages are of heavyweight paper. The finish of the paper, while very fine indeed, is not what I’d describe as matt. It is much more of a lustre, which in fact is my choice for most prints anyway. If you are expecting a dead matt, this won’t exactly match that expectation.
There are arcane aspects to the reproduction of colour images in print that are far beyond my knowledge. However as a photographer, the prints on these pages are outstanding. The colour matching (while clearly influenced by the calibration of your monitor) is as close to perfect as my eye can determine. I thought each page reflected the print exactly as I had it in my eye or had always seen inkjet printed.
I’m delighted with the book, it met or exceeded every expectation I had. I can’t fault the process or the product in any way. The final price of just under £95, while high, does reflect a premium product.
A few additional pages follow
https://www.saal-digital.co.uk/photobook/