Wedding Photography & Photo books

[Bob_Defly]

A friend of mine is looking for a wedding photographer and has found one that produces photo books, which is great. But I think she's a bit disappointed with the amount of photos she will get in a book, I know she doesn't want hundreds of shots but what is a realistic number for a photobook?

Are they any different to albums in the number of shots you can fit in one?

Also do places like Blurb/mpix et al produce photo books of a good enough quality for this sort of thing? Or should she be looking for someone who uses a specialist printer?

Last question (ignoring the book thing), if she is looking for quality shots, what is a realistic number, I know some people just shoot thousands and put them on DVD which isn't what she wants, but she has no idea of what a "reasonable number" of high quailty (i.e. possibly some PS work) shots is, personally I would say around 200-250 max. Is more than this asking too much, i.e. regardless of cost wouldn't they all start to look a bit samey?

[Simpo Two]

Hi Rob,

I'm not sure if you're talking Canada or UK, but I have this page on my site with links to several photobook suppliers: www.blokewithacamera.co.uk/albums.htm

As I understand it you can choose the number of pages you want, and pay accordingly. You can have one or several photos on each page, depending on your design/template. From feedback on this forum, it seems that the quality ranges from good to very good. I haven't used any myself - there seems little point in doing something that my customers can do themselves for less, and also combine guests' photos as well if they wish.

Number of photos - I find that a full day, typically from preparations to first dance plus half an hour, normally gives about 500 images including any groups required. Of course they're not all 'exhibition quality/over the mantlepiece' photos - that would be impossible - but enough are, and it seems a waste to delete the other images if they're technically good. I usually have about 15% that don't make the grade for various reasons.

Any help?

[Bob_Defly]

Thanks for the reply, that's very helpful. Question is, can you fit 500 photos in a photo book? That would be a very thick book!

Would she be better off asking for say 200 good ones in a book, and the rest on DVD?

[Cotty]

Bob_Defly said:

A friend of mine is looking for a wedding photographer and has found one that produces photo books, which is great. But I think she's a bit disappointed with the amount of photos she will get in a book, I know she doesn't want hundreds of shots but what is a realistic number for a photobook?

What is the average wedding photo album size, numbers wise? Would you really want 500 pictures in it. Perhaps have the images on disk but only put the really good ones in the album.

I had a photoshoot for Total BMW Magazine in January. Previously a guy asked the photographer if he could do a wedding style book for his car pictures. It turned out really well so he offered the service for anyones cars he photographs.

I went for it as it was only £80 (magazine paid for the shoot). I got 31 pictures over 20 pages (some pages 1 photo others 2 to 3 photos), they are only single sided pages. If you could do double sided pages that would be 60 shots on 20 pages.

Its a fantastic keepsake

Edited by Cotty on Monday 2nd November 19:57

[Simpo Two]

Cotty said:

Would you really want 500 pictures in it. Perhaps have the images on disk but only put the really good ones in the album.

That's a good idea. You'd need to have the images on disk first to choose, then tell the tog which ones you wanted in the book and get him/her to design it and order it for you.

But this brings me back to my original point - by the time you've got that far, you may as well do it yourself! (unless you want a really swanky leather album which only togs can get as they're trade-only items)

Incidentally Snapfish have just been voted top on the Gadget Show - photobooks starting from £19.99: www.snapfish.co.uk

[Ed_P]

I use Loxley Colour for all my printing. I just looked at the specifications for their top Bellissimo range. They are sized from 6" x 6" up to 16" x 12" and with up to 40 pages (80 sides). Their designer software includes templates of up to 16 images per page (although I can't imagine that you would want many of those) and background and foreground layers.

So to answer the earlier question, yes you could (technically) have over 500 images in an album. From a design point of view, I would imagine that an average of 2 or 3 images per page would be typical, particularly with the smaller albums. This range of albums is also very expensive and Loxley usually only deal with client photographers, not the general public. I don't have experience of other suppliers, but I imagine they would offer similar products.

[Cotty]

Ed_P said:

From a design point of view, I would imagine that an average of 2 or 3 images per page would be typical, particularly with the smaller albums. .

Mine is a small album here is a pic of two pictures on one page, the Zippo lighter is in shot for scale



As said earlier I do not think you would want 100's of pictures/pages.