Reviews

I don't think photo books have replaced traditional albums in the UK to anything like the extent that they have in the US, but at least there are a few companies here doing them now. I spent a few hours tonight checking out the seven services that I could find and surprise surprise they're not very impressive…

• Yophoto: I think these are the big guys in the States but their software is horribly limited. For example there doesn't appear to be any way to align elements on the page, no grid snapping, the font selection box is buggy to the point of being unuseable… need I go on? Good selection of book sizes and styles at very reasonable prices but I can't imagine ever being able to create an attractive book using their frustratingly basic software. According to the documentation, when you transmit your order the book is sent as a PDF file, so why not allow people to create the PDF file in a different package with better features?
• Album Factory: Uses the same software as Yophoto so suffers from the same limitations. Slightly better selection of book sizes and styles but that's a moot point considering the weak software.
• My Photo Book: Instead of using native Windows software you design your book in a Macromedia application. I could only find square and portrait-orientation books, nothing landscape. Placement is pretty much limited to placing pictures and text on the page using a tiny preview, so little chance of accurate positioning or intricate design.
• Bonusprint: I had high hopes for this service as Bonusprint served me well for two years before I started doing all of my own printing. They may be "uncool" because they're mainstream but the bottom line is that they're reliable and their prints are good quality and reasonably priced. The software download is considerably larger than those from the other services I tried so I was expecting an all-singing all-dancing page layout application. But no, it just crashes. Doesn't even get to the title screen. (WinXP with service pack 2 and all updates.)
• PhotoBox: Uses a web-based application which immediately strikes me as a bad idea. Slow and discourages experimentation. Very basic layout tools, even more limited than the others.
• Foto Insight: The best of a bad bunch. The software has more advanced features such as arbitrary rotation of pictures, and at least the text editor works, but still there's no sign of basic features such as alignment or grid snapping, so no way to judge positioning other than best guess.
• Jessops/Snapfish: Jessops book printing is done by Snapfish which uses another web-based interface. This is the most limited of all as it appears you can only place pictures and text in pre-determined positions, so useless for anything creative.

This is a relatively new market but the trend is already being set: Basic features for undemanding customers. Not good! Several of these companies would have a winning service if only their software had a few extra basic features, crucially a way to accurately align page elements.

The companies I tried were thrown up by a Google search for "photo book" and they're the only ones listed for the UK. So where do you go if you want to design a photo book, not just drag-n-drop images and text and then line them up approximately?

If you're serious about producing a photo book that people will be proud to own and want to show everyone then you need decent layout software, or at least the option to do the layout in a DTP package. Suggestions gratefully received!