photobook Saal digital photobook review.

[Bsmith]

Saal digital put up a action on their facebook page that they were looking for photographers that were willing to give a honest review of their a photobook that the person would be able to put together him/herself, so I signed up and well here we are, with a honest review of my Saal Digital photo album.

For the people interested in seeing the video review you can find it below, be ware though, I usually don't do reviews so I'm quite nervous!

This is the first time that I had been able to put together a photo album of myself so at first I didn’t know what to expect, but I tried to keep an objective view and be honest of my experience throughout the process of receiving and reviewing this album.
Software:
So, let’s start off with the software, in one word, it’s amazing! Really it contains template’s for all their products and even shows estimated delivery dates when you are selecting the product you want. For everything they have multiple templates you can choose from, it’s even possible to start form nothing but a few pages and work out from there making the whole book your own.
The only few nitpicks that I have about the software are that the software doesn’t support RAW, which would make this software perfect, but being realistic that would be nearly impossible to do so. My other personal problem is that it doesn’t have an auto safe function, something that I could consider a must for software like this.
But then again I have to give extra kudos for things like automated filling of the album after selecting your content and the very important quality checker that checks the quality of each picture you put in.
What I used was actually just their normal software that is meant to be usable for everyone, for professionals they even have adobe photoshop and adobe Indesign plug-ins that allow you to change the whole set up of the book to your likings and work with it in software you are used to, although the reviews of the plug-in aren’t very positive.
The product:
So I ordered the photobook without changing too much to the stock lay out that I had been given, my choice was a hardcover book with 28x19cm lay out, which is the same size as a A4 page, on glossy paper.
The first thing that I noticed was how thick the pages where, it was only 26 pages, but incredible how thick the pages are, the paper they use is high quality Fujifilm crystal archive album paper, which I know out of personal experience is truly high quality paper, although everyone has its own preference when it comes to this.
The decorative bars/blocks that are automatically added can be a bad idea if you ask me, they can look nice, but they look better on screen then in the book, although when matched up with the content they work as an extension of the whole.
The first page is actually glued to the cover, which is not likeable and not mentioned beforehand, which makes it a bad location for a full page photo like I did, sadly I wasn’t aware of this, the thought didn’t occur to me, although it is logical afterwards.
The glossy paper really works good on darker subjects and black/white photos, but on content that enjoys a bit more colour it really works against you. This was a struggle for me since I wanted to have a nice dark background throughout the album, something that works out pretty good on both glossy and matte prints. The paper quality is something I want to mention more in depth, it really feels like you are holding a high quality photo, it’s thick, it’s sturdy and it doesn’t leave behind fingerprints! That is a major point if you ask me, finger prints can ruin every album. Sadly the paper’s thickness is also a downside it quickly feels like you skipped a page, while you didn’t and then this is the normal version, they also have an XT version, which is EXTRA THICK!
Text sizes are something really tricky here, they don’t fully seem to perspective of what it really is, but that could be my fault of not checking up good.

Conclusion time, would I do this again? I’m not sure, Although the quality is good and the software works amazingly well it would really depend on what kind of content I would use or the reason for the book. I certainly would love to try this again but then with matte paper and without those coloured boxes. When it comes to price they are a bit cheaper compared to local services, although the other service’s don’t ask a premium for glossy paper like Saal digital does.
So if I had the chance to do this test over again with a matte paper album I would certainly do it, but otherwise? I’m not sure, to be honest the quality did not blow me away like my photobook from a European photo competition that I joined. I know it are two different worlds, but I would likely recommend Saal digital to someone to print their holiday photo’s, but not really for professional work with my current experience.

the complete review can also be found on my site http://thphotography.nl

 

This was actually my first real review, I probably screwed up with the video, but I did my best.
Let me know down below what you guys think!
Cheers.