I received my photobook a little while ago and I promised I'd write a review for Saal Digital as they were kind enough to give me a voucher for their product. I have to say I was overall impressed! It's one of those things that if you got to see one in real life before you ordered, you would do things slightly differently. I love the material the cover is made out of. It's acrylic and would be stunning for a wedding album. If I had seen a book before I ordered, I probably would have chosen a different photo for the front cover of my book as the colours are a bit muted on the one I chose and I think they could be amazing with the right photo, but that's not their fault. The inside pages are a thick glossy cardboard which feels very substantial and good quality. The colour quality is also really nice. I printed a few of my photos as double spreads and they looked nice as the book lays flat when open and the photos are seamless down the middle.
The only slight downside is you can't upload photos to their software from the cloud, they have to be saved on your hard drive or an external hard drive which I found a little frustrating as I keep all of mine in the cloud. It was a minor frustration and just meant an extra step of copying them over to my computer first. It took me a little while and an email to their customer service to figure out why I couldn't upload them from my OneDrive. The customer service was very good as they came back to me right away with a response. They also have a decent selection of layouts and fonts to choose from and their software was easy to use and has a tutorial you can watch if you need extra help. I didn't watch it as found it pretty intuitive but perhaps could have made something extra stunning if I'd taken the time to watch it.
Would I buy another photo book from them? Yes, I think I will use them for future projects. I'm now interested in seeing what their non-premium product is like although I'm sure all future photo books will feel a bit naff after this one as it is very good. Is their premium product worth the cost? That depends on whether you want quality or quantity. I made a 16 page book and it would have cost over £100 without my voucher. Personally I wouldn't pay that much unless it was a super special occasion. It is a lovely product and very tactile and would make a lovely wedding album, but for normal holiday photos or a family album, I would probably personally just go with a lower end product.
I will always have a soft spot for them because any company willing to offer the opportunity to create a beautiful photo book for free will have my loyalty. I wish I had a massive social following so this tiny review could actually make a difference for their company but I'm fairly confident they will be a success without me as their product is great and so is their service.
My quote for today is by photographer David Alan Harvey, “Don’t shoot what it looks like. Shoot what it feels like.”
My photo for today is of me and my Saal Photobook.
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