Wednesday, December 7, 2005

Zara's First Album

How many of us are guilty with not helping with the photo development industry after getting our digital camera? Not having any hard copy photos to show and tell?

My house has a few framed up photos of my nieces when they were young, but none of Zara's. I am so guilty.

I used to develop photos very often when we were still using the good old camera which required films. After we changed our camera to a digital camera, since Nov 2003, not a single photo had been developed even when we'd taken tons of photos. All of them were burnt into CDs or just residing in my HDD.

After seeing Mom2ashley blogged about Pixart, I decided I should get an album done for Zara. It took another 3months before I submitted the files to Pixart. Being kiamsiap (stingy) Wanting to stretch my dollar further, I selected the best photos from Zara's first year and compiled them into a photobook.

You use the pixart software to select a theme, arrange your photos, put in your caption, and then ftp the file over to pixart once done. Payment is made via the web.

There are 2 types of paper you can print on, one is photo print (pages are just like photos you developed in the shop), another is digital print (using 250g paper, which is like those very good quality magazine papers). I chose photo print, because I wanted the book to last as long as it could (photo print papers have been said to be able to last up till 50yrs without fading of colours). For a 17 pages photobook, it costs me RM135 including postage. You should see Daddy moaning, when he learnt of the price, not that he's paying (That's why I can't be a SAHM, he's always 'moaning' even when I'm spending my own money)!

We got the photobook on Monday. All nicely bound up, very professionally done. It is a hard cover coffee table book kind of album.




The cover









One of the pages





The only problem with the printing is the darkness of the photos. Some of them looked darker when printed than it was on screen. It was also my mistake for not brightening them up (available in their software) before submitting them for printing.

Next time, I'll do better.

Added at 7:15pm :
The guy from Pixart dropped by just now to collect my photobook for reprinting of one page (and of course rebinding of the whole book, for free) since they accidentally cropped one of the photo. He showed me some very nice photobook samples for special occasion like a wedding, a full moon party, and photobooks printied on digital print (i.e. pages are like very thick magazine papers).

They are very nice, I think they are nicer alternative to those wedding albums that we traditionally have, what more you can put your own caption, and not those default non-meaningful (or even incomprehensible, sometimes) captions that normally come with the bridal house albums.

Aw.. Looks like I'm going to do more album for Zara, and maybe, just maybe, I will scan all my wedding photos and make a wedding album for myself.

21 comments:

  1. looks cool!
    I am the guilty one who is not helping the photo industry... over 5k photos liao still not yet develope one!
    how much ah?

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  2. I developed for Wien only (for contest purposes :P), Lyon never has hard copy photo so far! Hubby lor, he say no need to develop wan la (stingy!!)
    One day will develop nicer one & frame it!

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  3. The album looks nice, is it something like those wedding photos?

    We stop developing photos after we got our digital cam too..haha..so you're not alone, i guess more and more people are not sending thier photos to the developer as we can do self-print nowadays!

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  4. Very nice :) Might do one for Ivan's First Year too! :)

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  5. i read somewhere that what u get in print is not what u get in screen cause the printer and PC interpret the image in a different manner. technical adjustment is required to ensure wysiwyg (mostly not done by external photoshop). i actually have a bigger project in mind & still in the learning process. currently using apple photobook to assembly my kids' photos album and intend to get HP printer and papers (last u for 99 years)to print as per book layout and get somebody to bind it. capital outlay may be high initially but i guess i still gain in the long run.

    btw, photo adjustment (i.e. brightening) will lower the photo resolution and not advisable for low resolution photos- so, better start using your dSLR :P

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  6. hey, this is very, very nice..... eh, I found out quite recently that you're working near me lah! Too bad, I'll be either shifting office or leaving the company soon.

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  7. Wow.. I didn't know there is such a thing!! The album looks nice!! Bet I'll try it out one of these days!! BTW, RM135 for a 17pg is fair. But do they limit how many pics u can put on one page???

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  8. Oh, that's very nice! For our precious darling, the money spend always worth it! Man just couldn't understand!

    Can share the Pixart's link?

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  9. The photo album looks nice. But the price is a bit high...

    BTW, can print using your own printer. Haha... no need to go to a photo studio :)

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  10. Waahhhh! Like wedding photo album!

    Like you mentioned, prints clr looks different from screen, so I'm still finding free time to make adjustment to that few hundreds digital photos before sending them to the print shop :P Trying to stretch and make my money worth, hahaaahaa...

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  11. Rm135 for a 17pages album. How many pics in there? For that price, I'm not complaining. I'd be happy if they can provide a good album for that amount. Go give ur hubby a kick in the ass for moaning about something which he's not paying for.

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  12. wha...all the picture in CD, never bother to print it, too many, don't know how to choose.

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  13. very nice album... make it one year, one album lah!

    eh, if not bcos of the flash rosak, i think i am the only one still using the film camera lah...

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  14. Egghead,
    Depending how many pages you have, 1 page is about RM7. Go to their website to check if you are interested.

    Jesslyn,
    Most of us also guilty. You ah, do for Wien, then don't do for Lyon, lagi guilty!

    Blurblur,
    I would say they are nicer than wedding photo album, and you have control of the design, layout caption.
    With digital camera, all the photo development centre all swatting flies already, b'cos not many people develop photos nowadays, all also wants to DIY.

    Sue,
    Better do soon, 2nd one arrives you will have no time liao. Or you kill 2 birds with 1 stone, Ivan's 1st year, baby's 1st month. :P

    Twolittlefellas,
    Wow wow wow, sounds like a big project. When you are done, show us the end product!!

    Baby Smooches,
    Huh? You work near by also? Jasmine told you? Maybe all of us working around here should meet up for lunch one day. What say you?

    Helen,
    They have different templates and theme, so it's up to you to choose which one. One page can hold 1 photo or all the way to 12photos I think.

    Jefferene,
    I just relised I put the wrong link under Pixart, now I'd corrected it, you can link directly from there or just use : www.pixart.com.my
    Yeah, some things men just won't get it. :P

    Jacky,
    You can do your own printing, but in won't be bound up so nicely loh. And this one guarentee no wastage, b'cos if they print wrongly, they replace.

    KY,
    Haha, all of us also want to 'photoshop' our photos before sending for printing hor.
    Hmm, that reminds me, if I want to do any enlargement of the photos, I better go and smoothen those wrinkles with photoshop. :P

    Samm,
    I didn't count the photos, but it's quite a fair bit, you can use different layouts to squeeze as many photos as you have on to one page (I think max is 12).
    My hubby's bum is already very bruised, b'cos he got kicked pretty often. *grin*

    Maria,
    Yeah, the longer you store, the more difficult to choose. :P
    But for you, just get a good printer, you can do it your own, some more so good in design, can even put beads on the album, make it so special and beautiful.

    Annie,
    You use normal camera never mind, you'll get to see hardcopy photos. All of us now only see them on screen, so sad..

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  15. what a great idea! between, i think the price is alright, consider the fact that it's a high quality product. i call it a worthwhile investment. hah, why men are more stingy hah? i thought it's the other way round, it seems like i am wrong, eh?

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  16. i also wanted to make Ethyl a personal year book for her as a birthday pressie...

    But her lazy mommy has yet to develop photos...I shall do it asap...I intend to put photo and some special moments and my feelings as a mommy for the 1st year...

    I shall (hopefully) do the same for 5 years and after that, (hopefully) she will be doing it for me! :)

    Great effort, Agnes...

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  17. Greenapple,
    Yeah, I think it's very reasonably priced.
    Men are generous when it comes to gadgets, and they always thing such things they can DIY.

    Fannie,
    Or you can do what I did, use Pixart. They do international delivery too.
    Hope to see your album soon too.

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  18. cool album..i printed photos of faythe in normal album..now this is tempting :P

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  19. Wow! So cool! Now, it's really tempting.

    I am as guilty as you were as I stop printing Bb's photos ever since he turned one.

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  20. am working on my third photo album for ashley for more than a month now! i still haven't got it printed with pixart yet but they're really good. that guy who dropped by is dominic issit?

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  21. Jasmine,
    Wah, you are one of the few so good even digital photos also printed out.

    Allyfeel,
    it's a guilt that all digital camera users have to bare. :P

    Mom2Ashley,
    yeah, it was Dominic.
    Wow, you are already on 3rd album! Way to go! But they are really nice isn't it?

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