Photobook: A New Old Way of Image Management

Cynthia Cheng

Technology in the twenty-first century has brought us highly efficient and effective ways of organizing pictures. Some people upload them online to photo sharing sites like Flickr, others email them to friends and yet others use social networking. However, there are still people who prefer the old fashioned photo album. With old fashioned albums, pictures need to be printed and then placed in an album. This not only takes up a lot of time, but can be devastating to the environment due to the amount of paper used. But no longer do album-lovers have to worry about that. There are plenty of services, including those found at photography shops and big box stores where people can upload, organize and have their images printed and bound in book format. One of these services is Photobook Canada, founded in 2006. It is the Canadian franchise of Photobook Malaysia, launched the year before.

Photobook Canada is very easy to use. The free software is downloaded to the computer from the Photobook Canada website. Clients can then choose the size and style of the book (there are six covers to choose from) and organize their images any way they want. There is also a quick editing format which takes half the time otherwise necessary for the task. The program is similar to other image editing software in that clients can resize your pictures and add text. One drawback, however, is that the font cannot be changed without creating an additional textbox. In other words, italicizing or bolding titles within a caption would be difficult. Pages can also be decorated with different borders. After all the pages are organized, the client gets a preview in PDF format before saving the file and sending it to Photobook for printing. The book itself is usually ready in 7-10 business days. It is also fairly affordable, better priced than sending a file to chain print services. A 40 page book at 8″ by 6″ costs around $30 Canadian for one book.

Photobook is very popular for weddings albums and baby books, according to Photobook Canada’s marketing and communications director, Charlene Callaghan. “We see a surge in printing around November and December, when everyone wants to print their summer wedding photos to show off when guests come for the holidays.” In addition, Photobook Canada is involved with many not-for-profits, including Camp Towhee. Recently, Photobook Canada also printed yearbooks for a Toronto-area elementary school. Some people use Photobook to put together business plans and portfolios. I did exactly that with the business plan for Prospere magazine, and I thought it looked quite impressive.

Incidentally, Photobook is also environmentally conscious. The paper used is certified by the Forestry Stewardship Council (FSC). Everything, including the ink used to print the books is environmentally friendly. In addition, to save paper, no proofs are sent out to clients unless they are a professional group.

While the limited font arrangements may be enough to turn off some people from using Photobook, this is probably more than offset by the relative easiness of the software, price and environmental awareness of the product.