The photos we print are the ones we enjoy the most - and most often.
It doesn’t feel quite right to leave all your treasured photos gathering digital dust on a hard drive, or hunching over a laptop to view them. With a book all your favourites are collected together in a custom layout I’ll design especially for you, giving you a long-lasting physical memento that’s a lot more pleasurable to enjoy, plus you’re far more likely to actually enjoy them more often when they’re printed.
About my lay-flat books
My premium lay-flat photo books come in 10×10 for your main album, with 8×8 copies available for family. They’re made by a lab in Scotland that only serves professional photographers, with pages of heavyweight art white paper that lay flat for seamless double-page spreads. Then they’re bound in your choice of leatherette with your title engraved by laser on the front.
Books start with 10 spreads as standard (20 pages) which is room for around 40-50 photos in most cases. Most people like to have lots more photos in their books and that’s no problem, we can add more spreads up to a maximum of 40 (80 pages, enough space for around 180-200 photos).
Designing your book
Designing a book yourself can feel daunting, but I love it, so leave it all to me. The hardest part for you is going to be choosing your favourites in your gallery!
When you’re done choosing, you just send me the list, and leave the rest to me. I’ll create a first draft design and you’ll get to view it online and ask for changes so we can get it just right in the second draft.
We can do that one more time for up to three drafts, and after that there’s a small fee for the additional design sessions, but most people are very happy with the first or second draft.
How much?
The price includes the first draft design with your choice of photos, and two sets of simple revisions; ten spreads of 230gsm matt art paper (fits 40-50 photos, and expandable up to 40 spreads); an engraved leatherette cover; a cloth protective bag; UK courier delivery and VAT.
All books receive 20% off when you order one with your photography package at booking (discounted price shown in brackets below). You can also order duplicate copies with the same layouts inside and a unique cover, in both 10×10 and 8×8, with a further discount on top of your package discount.
Your main book | 10×10
10×10 (10 spreads) | from £360 (£288)
Extra spreads | £12 each (£9.60)
All prices include delivery & VAT
Duplicate books | 10×10 or 8×8
10×10 duplicate | 20% off main 10×10 price
8×8 duplicate | 40% off main 10×10 price
All prices include delivery with original book & VAT
Duplicate discounts stack with 20% package discount
Frequently asked questions
How many photos can you fit into an album?
Books start with ten spreads (20 pages) up to forty spreads (80 pages). On average, my book designs look best when there’s 4-5 photos per spread (some spreads will have more, some will have fewer, but the average is around 4.5) so you can have up to 45 photos in the shortest book, and up to 180-ish in the longest.
How do we select photos from our gallery?
You’ll be able to select favourites easily in your gallery. They’re saved to a Favourites tab at the top of the screen and when you’re done you simply email me the list. If you’ve chosen more images than originally paid for that’s no problem, I’ll simply invoice you for the extra pages required – including any discount in your original order.
Can we request alterations to the design before printing?
Yes, you get two rounds of like-for-like changes included in the price – this means simple changes swapping horizontal for horizontal, or vertical for vertical. Beyond this, additional drafts and more complex first-round changes (such as adding several more photos to an existing design, or completely reshuffling the design of several pages) may incur additional fees, depending what you need.
What options are available for the cover?
The leatherette cover comes in a wide choice of colours, and a choice of five fonts for the engraved text: Bodoni, Edwardian Script, Futura, News Gothic, and Perpetua. You can have two lines of text – the second line will be a slightly smaller font than the first. We’ll work out the details after you’ve approved the layouts I’ve designed for you.
Can you use our own photos, even if you weren't our photographer?
I’m happy to design an album for you with photos you’ve provided yourself. I’ll need you to choose all the images you want me to use (I can’t choose them for you), and then supply digital copies to me in high resolution – ideally at least 2400 pixels on the longest edge. If you’re unsure of the quality of the images you have you can send me a couple of samples and I’ll let you know what’s possible.
Can you edit our own photos first?
It depends on what editing you want done, and the format and quality of the files you provide. I only offer editing to improve exposure and colour balance, with limited adjustments to minor blemishes. I don’t personally provide extensive ‘retouching’ to change how people look or remove elements from images, but I can out-source these edits to an expert retoucher if necessary. For exposure and colour balance editing I prefer to work with original raw files; please note: I may be much more limited in what I can do with a JPG, especially a low resolution JPG.
First you’ll need to provide written assurance that you own the personal use rights to the original images, and that the resulting edited images will be for personal use only.
Then you’ll need to provide a couple of sample files for assessment of what’s possible. If I can work with the images I’ll ask for a list of the general adjustments you want on each image, or the whole set if applicable. Then I’ll provide an estimate of how long editing may take, from £75/hr depending on what you need. If there’s any unexpected issues that extend editing time the final price may be a little higher but if the sample files provided are representative this is unlikely in most cases.