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How to Use Technology to Strengthen Family Ties
FREE EBOOK:
How to Use Technology to Strengthen Family Ties
012 The Differences between Making a Photo Book and Selecting a Service to Make It for You
Wednesday, August 4, 2010 @ 04:08 PM posted by rob.dunford
The differences between making a photo book and selecting a service to make it for you are really a question of cost, creativity and time. Consider the following:
Advantages in Making a Photo Book by Yourself
- Although purchasing software with sufficient power to format, paginate, index, etc. book-length projects can be expensive, if you have many books to print with many pages, making a do-it-yourself photobook is likely to be less expensive in total than using a photo book service.
- Having your own software allows you to design your book in virtually any way you want – there are no fixed templates, for example, the you are required to use. You can make your own.
- Your printing and binding options are greater. You can select for example, a printer with the highest quality and lowest printing prices but whose bindery (if they have one) cost or quality is not great, and then use a bindery that may be a different company whose quality and pricing better meets your needs. You do not have these choices with a one-stop photo book service.
Advantages in Using a Photo Book Service
- Purchasing publishing software can be rather expensive, so it is important to determine whether this will have a one-time use or be used for multiple future photo books. A photo book service already has the template up on the screen, so you don’t have to purchase this software, but their per-book printing prices may higher than using a local printer, bindery and your own software. You have to add up the costs to find out.
- An online service is a “one-stop shopping site” because you don’t have to choose software, a bindery, etc. Because most of these decisions are made for you, it is a much faster and simpler process.
- An online service allows you to either post your book on the Internet or print books or both.
We have used both approaches, making as few as five, 30-page books with a photobook service and as many as 450, 300-page books using professional-level software and selecting our own printers and binderies. You will likely be satisfied with either approach. It really is a question of cost, creativity and time available.