My father-in-law has two noses

It's been a mere 16 months since our wedding, 13 months since I ordered our wedding album and  8 months since I started this blog. And here today is the follow up to my very first blog post with details of our wedding photobook. Why the delay? Well as I mentioned in this post, I wasn't completely happy with the first version I received and it has taken this long for the story to reach a satisfactory conclusion.

 

We chose Albelli for our wedding album, and let me start by telling you what I love about our book. 

1. Print quality is excellent. The book looks and feels expensive. Pictures are sharp and colours are vibrant. I absoluely adore the wrap-around photo cover.
2. The Albelli software is by far my favourite to work with. It is easy to adjust the size and shape of your pictures, aligning your pictures neatly is a cinch and you can save and reuse your custom layouts. The choice of design elements is extensive and I particurlarly like the wood effect backgrounds.
3. Price - I ordered my book when Albelli was offering 'extra pages for free'. This was a very cost effective way of having my .. page book printed.

I've ordered books from Albelli before, and they've all been top quality - that is why I chose them for our wedding album. However this was the first time I'd opted for the layflat option - and I have to admit I was disappointed with how this turned out. Albelli described their layflat option as "great for double-page landscape shots". However in my case I found that their print settings must have been off slightly, as part of the photograph was duplicated on both sides of the seam. My poor father-in-law had two noses. To spare his blushes here's a picture of his buttonhole instead. 
See how the pin is duplicated on both sides of the page? Somehow I managed to position him across the seam on two other pages. That's six noses in total.

 

I contacted Albelli, explained the problem and they promptly sent out a replacement, free of charge. But it was identical to the first. Another phone call and they sent another book. Now I had 3 identical books, or eighteen noses you might say! I contacted Albelli, asked them not to send any further books, but just requested they acknowledge that there was an issue with their lay flat binding process. I never got a response.

 

I started looking around for another company to try instead. But everytime I started to create the book I found myself losing interest because I'd already designed it once before. This is one reason to create your pages in Photoshop Elements or Lightroom - it makes it a lot easier to reload them with another supplier. Then in October last year Albelli launched their 'Layflat Premium Photo Book'. This time they explicitly state that "the left and right hand pages flow seamlessly together. Whenever you place a photograph that runs through the centre of your book, this will be printed without interruption". I waited for another 'extra pages free' promotion and gave it another try.

 

And what a difference it makes. See the pictures for comparison, you can clearly see a much smoother transition from one page to the next. My father-in-law has the appropriate number of noses. 

 

If you look at the next picture you will see that the original book has a dark line down the centre. This isn't just the shadow from the seam, there is printing from one of the other pages showing through - another indicator that the print settings were not correct for a book with this number of pages.

 

How did Albelli achieve this turnaround? They appear to have switched their binding method so that each double page spread is printed on one sheet of paper. The paper is then folded and glued(?) back to back with the preceding a and following pages. There is no gap, and no duplication because the image was printed continuously.

 Now that Albelli have fixed their layflat process, I wouldn't hesitate to recommend them.  Layflat options in general are quite pricey, and Albelli seems to have increased the price they charged for layflat pages when they changed their offering - so I'll probably only use it on really special books, or wait for a special offer. I'd also like to try some other manufacturer's versions and have a plan to splash out on a layflat book for our honeymoon pictures. I do, however, think that Albelli could take a leaf out of Photobox's book when it comes to customer service. It often took several attempts for me to reach anyone at Albelli, a few emails were apparently 'lost' and no-one ever got back to me after my final communication with them. I have no idea whether my complaints had anything to do with their decision to change their layflat process, but it would have been a nice touch for them to reach out to me when they launched their new, improved layflat offering and encourage me to try again. They're lucky I believe in second chances (and that I'm too lazy to redesign the same book twice!)