The figure finally replaced the film, leaving the classic “anti -aircraft guns” and “vigilant” to the excess of rare enthusiasts, adherents of manifold dwells and liquid photomulses. Previously, in every family, an honorary place in the closet occupied a chubby photo album-now all the pictures live somewhere on the hard drive "To be" to be ". "Gambling" revives the magic of the old photograph: we suggest you print and reset the real photo album, and then call the whole family, climb the old sofa with your feet and remember the moments dear to the heart together.

In 2000, the company Hewlett-Packard I presented at the exhibition Photokina digital printing machine called Indigo. The bulky device marked the beginning of a new era: the machine allowed to print in small circulations any pictures directly from the Internet. Indigo worked quickly and efficiently, providing wide color coverage, high sharpness, contrast and light resistance. Ready prints could be fed, laminated and varnished.

Before the “indigo” printing quality of the press, only huge machines could offer, requiring a special, costly preparation of images. “Indigo”, on the contrary, made it possible to derive excellent prints with circulations of up to 1000 copies without special preparation – and at a completely acceptable price. Together with the car itself at the exhibition, the concept of printing of any photo albums, calendars, photos directly via the Internet was presented.

At first it seemed far -fetched, but with the spread of digital cameras, everything fell into place. One of the first Internet sites offering to order full-fledged photo albums without the need to drag into the office and communicate with designers already appeared in 2001. The new concept quickly gained popularity.

The algorithm of the work of all services is approximately the same: place photos on the sheets, choose the theme of the design, the cover and binding option, the type of paper and the print quality and, finally, send the workpiece to the printer. It will be printed, dropped, exposed, wrapped and sent to your home. At the same time, the order of the order for each service has its own, and it is not so easy to understand the intricacies. Someone offers to create a photo album directly on the site, someone imposes software for working on their computer, someone completely sells templates at all. Which service to choose – read in our review!

Dinosaur from photo printing

Digi-Labs.Net

Digilabs – One of the first companies in the digital printing market via the Internet. The American resource offers to download the application sharpened under the creation of photo albums or calendars, install it on your computer and already score a plan there. Well, downloaded, installed, launched. Oh my god, we are in 2002! Conditionally paying program My Photo Books With the Windows XP era interface on modern operating systems, it does not work too stable: it slows down and freezes, although it gives the end of the project started.

There is a “photo book master”, which will ask you to choose a page orientation (album or portrait, square), demonstrate options for covers and topics of the design, and then it will be imported for a long time selected photos. The program can automatically have pictures on the pages, you only have to correct the scale. Of course, everything can be done manually – it will clearly take more time, but the result will turn out significantly better.

Books with 20 pages cost from $ 45 to $ 90, depending on the selected cover and additional options, plus a dozen or two dollars for delivery to Russia. Payment, as usual, credit card.

Pros:

• One of the first companies in the market

Cons:

• Top software
• Prices are above average market

Album for the granddaughter of the president

PhotoBox.Co.UK

Site PhotoBox also quite old – this year he celebrates the decade. Here, unlike Digilabs, you will have to work with the album directly from the browser window through an interface based on flash.

The developers of PhotoBox are on the moves of visitors with possible options – here you can order a photo album size from 7×9 cm to 28.5×37 cm (from A6 to A3!). The smallest book stands excluding delivery from $ 10, the largest – from $ 65. Those who want to make a richer album offer thicker paper, matte cover lamination, cover, and even inlaid with Swarowski crystals.

To create an album, a convenient web interface is used with support for the so-called supersonic download: you select cards on a hard drive, press a button and immediately begin to form a book. Photos at this time are gradually loaded in the background. The engine is able to stylishly arrange the pictures automatically, but all our attempts to supplement them with comments ended in failure – the Russian language is not supported here. If it is not fundamental to you, then be sure to try Photobox – this is a stable modern service with many additional options and pretty templates.

Pros:

• Many design options
• Convenient and fast loading of pictures
• Lux Open
• Stylish site design

Cons:

• no support of the Russian language

Corporate approach

Kodakgallery.Com

Manufacturer of photographic equipment and accessories Eastman Kodak , As it turned out, it also monitors the digital printing market via the Internet. The company has developed a slanting service Kodak Gallery and offers everyone who wants to create their own photo album size from 12.7×14.6 cm to 30×35 cm with a dense or soft cover and 14-20 pages. Ask for $ 10 for the smallest album to $ 70 for the largest. For each additional page you will have to pay extra $ 1-1.5 depending on the size of the book-as in the average hospital.

To create a photo album, the site provides a beautiful flash interface scaled under the browser window. Kodak Gallery pumps the indicated photos from the hard drive, asks to answer a number of questions about the cover (with photo/without photo, soft/hard, canvas/leather) and then offers to independently or automatically place cards on still virtual pages. It is impossible not to note the backgrounds that Kodak uses as asses: application and animals for a children's album, pastel colors and ornaments for wedding. And not everyone offer leather covers.

Albums created in Kodak Gallery look no worse than that branded photo book with Henri Cartier-Bresson's footage on your coffee table. It is a pity that this site signatures in Russian also does not support.

Pros:

• high -quality and diverse backgrounds
• Many design options
• Convenient web interface
• Professional templates

Cons:

• no support of the Russian language

Know ours

iprintit.ru

Computer owners Apple The most lucky – the "apple" company offers a powerful program iPhoto , able to structure pictures and create photo albums. A total of a couple of clicks with a mouse – and a convenient window with a list of all pictures stored on a computer and an empty album area will appear in front of you.

The program offers to choose the size of the book (from 8.9×6.7 cm to 33×25.4 cm), determine the type of cover (soft or hard, binding naked or on a spring). In a standard album of any size 20 pages. In the iPhoto you can correct the brightness or contrast of the pictures, add effects to the photos. For example, in the finished album, shadows look very original – it seems that you yourself have pasted the photo cards to the pages.

Actually, Apple has its own service of printing and delivery of photo albums, and the application even knows how to work with it, but the Russians are not available to the Russians. Happiness with you is with you, a certain group of enthusiasts was summed up to print books from iPhoto. The finished album needs to be exported in PDF format and send to the site iprintit.ru – There good people will print your project and will gladly send an album to any CIS country.

A book for 20 pages costs from 300 to 3500 rubles, depending on the chosen size, but the average price is 500-700 rubles. Each additional page will cost 5-20 rubles. Agree, very humane.

Pros:

• thought -out Apple software
• Built -in print service
• Image correction functions
• Working with Russian company
• For Muscovites – pickup

Cons:

• Printing through an intermediary

The willpower simulator

Printing-1.Co.UK

Clean European website Printing-1 offers to download the program of its own development for album production at home. Maybe at least here is lucky? Alas, no-again something was puffed up, and the application is extremely tight in appearance, as if it had been begged for a very long time. The interface is also anxure, there are no tips and tips – as you want, do it.

Printing-1 program asks to specify a folder with photos and exports the selected. Pictures are automatically located on the pages-the frames can be dragged yourself, but somehow you do not want to. The program does not offer any size or different covers, although all this is on the site. To top it, Printing-1 works poorly with the Russian language-the letters merge, the words become unreadable.

The situation is slightly brightened up by the fact that the company offers to print a book of almost any volume, even for 250 pages. It is difficult to imagine, however, that there is a person who can put up a thousand pictures through an amazingly clumsy interface.

Book 30×30 cm for 250 pages in a fabric cover will cost $ 400, plus $ 15 for glossy pages, plus another $ 1 for each page after forty-nine and $ 10-20 for delivery.

Pros:

• Printing multi -page photo albums

Cons:

• Top software
• Prices are above average market
• Bad work with Russian

Swimming, we know

Shutterfly.Com

One of the most famous digital printing services, Shutterfly , offers to create a photo album size from 12.5×17.5 cm to 30×30 cm. The site developers did not bother with the list of proposals, so that small albums go only with soft covers, large ones – only with solid.

Books are offered to create directly on the site through a dynamic flash interface. For creativity, two separate modes are available – semi -automatic and manual. In the semi -automatic engine, he himself will upload the selected photos and distribute them along the pages of the book, and you just have to choose the color of the backgrounds, options for the location of the cards, fail the desired pictures and add comments. Shutterfly does not have support for the Russian language either, but here the engine at least modestly reports that it cannot print our symbols. In a completely manual mode, the novice album will have to create a book from scratch – to put cards on the selected fields without the help of automation. By the way, a leather or fabric cover can be ordered only by forming an album manually.

The creators of the resource have developed many very pleasant designs – multi -colored asses with variable color palettes. It is extremely convenient to use the album adjuster. I wish the Russian language … the price of one photo book with 20 pages thick – from $ 13 to $ 55, for each additional sheet you will have to pay from $ 0.5 to $ 1.5.

Pros:

• Many design options
• high -quality and diverse backgrounds
• Convenient loading pictures
• Convenient web interface

Cons:

• no support of the Russian language

New Age

MyPublisher.Com

American MyPublisher – Another service with its own software for creating photo albums. With bated breath, download the proposed software and – a miracle! -Finally, we have a modern pleasant program with a thoughtful interface and full support of the Russian language!

During the first launch, the application offers to start a new project and activates the wizard-assistant for step-by-step up data, selection of styles, type of cover, screenshot. The built -in panel of improvement of photos offers to remove the “red eyes”, automatically fit the size of the picture, automatically fix its contrast and color. Various operating modes are available for users-lazy will be pleased with the capabilities of auto-filling, lovers to do everything will be able to place cards on their own in their own way. Convenient pre -examination regime will allow you to “scroll through” an almost ready -made, lean book.

MyPublisher offers several beautiful thematic design styles (wedding, journey, children, business). The only significant drawback of the service is a limited choice of book size. There are only three of them: 19×14 cm, 28.5×22.2 cm and 38.1×29.2 cm. There are also three cover options: a leather binding, a fabric binding, a photo for the entire cover. The issue price is from $ 10 to $ 60 per book with 20 pages.

Pros:

• Support for the Russian language
• Image correction functions
• Thoughtful software
• Professional templates
• relatively inexpensive

Cons:

• Limited sizes

Just the best

Blurb.Com

A selection of photographs completes the most convenient and most friendly resource for customers Blurb. The site is happy to talk about its suggestions, shows ready -made books, gives tips and even offers to hire a professional book designer from Blurbnation's own community.

There are books in the size of 18×18 cm to 30×30 cm at a price of $ 13 to $ 60 for basic options (a gigantic album with 440 pages – the maximum Blurb offer will come out of course four times more). You can order a denser paper or use your own logo.

For printing photo albums via Blurb, you need to register on the site, download the application Booksmart or upload a pre -created pdf format file. Booksmart lightweight program calculates the price, helps to choose the style, shows what size the book will turn out in the end. What is pleasant, the developers were not too lazy to indicate the size of the book in centimeters – a rarity for foreign services. You can upload photos in Booksmart both from your own computer and from popular photos services like Flickr , At the same time, the program shows the line for trimming and works great with the Russian language! Delivery to Russia will cost $ 7-50 depending on the size of the book.

Pros:

• Support for the Russian language
• Convenient informative site
• Thoughtful software
• Professional templates
• Support for third -party programs and photos
• Own community of designers

Cons:

• Not found

[Break]] What is scrapbooking

In Russia and the West, scrapbooking is now gaining particular popularity – the art of creating memorable photo books. These are books, not albums: to make scrapbook (“Te cut -up book”), just to decompose the pictures in the cells of the album is not enough.

Scrapbook is a specially designed book, each turn of which is an independent story. Usually one scrapbook is dedicated to one topic: for example, a wedding, birthday or summer journey. On the first sheet of a vacation scrapbook, most likely there are reinforced flights and landing coupons, a route map and photographs of tourists. On the second there is a newspaper clipping, a bus receipt (who knew that you needed to take a ticket?!), small local money, candy candy wrapper, shots on the way from the airport, a suitcase tag. On the third – a booklet and a hotel business card, the first impressions and comments about the local language, a collage of postcards and dried flowers. Each U -turn is a work of art, and more time to create a scapbook can take more than on the trip itself. For scrapbookers, there are even special stores where glue, paints, packaging paper, labels, cardboard, envelopes, ribbons, rings, stencils, cloves, stickers … As a rule, all materials are very high -quality and expensive, because for more than one decade should be preserved.

Not every traveler is ready to sit with scissors and paints, and in Europe they now prefer digital scrapbooks made in Photoshop and printed in the nearest printing house. Thanks to Internet services to create photo albums, Scrapbooking is experiencing a second birth. Moms at nights sit on the network and form albums “The first time in the first grade”, girlfriends will adapt photos for months and giggle over comments. It is especially convenient that many sites offer not only to print, but also to deliver your scrapbook to the specified address. This was how they rested in the summer in an international camp, and then made scrapbook in the fall, ordered a seal and sent friends to Latvia, Moldova and Holland – which is not a gift?

Printers

PrintMYSCRAPBOOK.Com

Despite the directly speaking name, the site Print My Scrapbook Not going to print the photo book at all. He promises to print only pages on typographic machines – on a high -quality thick photo paper Kodak, on which Chilli Reels sister sites the ink has been kept for more than 200 years and do not fade. Two sizes – 30×30 cm or 21.5×27.5 cm without fields.

All you need to do is send files to the specified electronic mailbox. The developers did not even bother to create an automatic registrar – activation of the accounts of new customers is made manually. You need to cut and process photos yourself, send them to ImageFiles@PrintMyscrapbook.Com, wait until they are watched and set by the account, then pay this account, then … what is the most interesting, the creators of the site do not think to be sold cheaply: prints in size of 30×30 cm cost $ 8, 21.5×27.5 cm – $ 4 excluding delivery.

Printing house itself

Epson.COM/CGI-BIN/Store/Landing/StoryTeller.JSP

Company Epson , The famous printer manufacturer decided to stand out in her own way and presented a full-fledged set to create her own photo album- Epson StoryTeller. In a colorful box worth $ 30-40, a disk with the necessary software, empty hard binding and 12 sheets of quality paper in size 20×25 cm are hidden.

Complete program StoryTeller Publisher allows you to have pictures in the right order, choose from six pretty pretens, adjust the image parameters, remove the “red eyes”, adjust the sizes and turn the pictures, add comments. The main thing is not to overdo it with the number of uploaded photos, otherwise the program will begin to slowly slow down even on powerful computers.

It is better to print a sprouted photo album on Epson printers. No, the models of other manufacturers will also cope, but some problems with the location of the pictures or fields may arise. When the pictures dry out, the sheets will have to be intertwined – and those who have already tried, claim that this is not at all as simple as it seems.