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brentravelaphoto · 4 years

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Product review: Saal Digital Printing

I was lucky to get the opportunity to test a new product line from Saal Digital, the Professional Line Photobook. I designed a PhotoBook using their software and was delivered a high quality printed book. Below is a review of their Professional Line Photobook product and the service I received from Saal Digital.

Disclaimer: Saal Digital paid for my Photobook, and I paid the cost of shipping. I've endeavoured to keep this review objective, but at the same time I value honesty and transparency.

The printed product

Saal Digital sent me a wonderful printed product. I was honestly highly impressed with the quality of the prints, the paper, and overall finish of the product.

Saal Digital offer a variety of options for print quality and paper quality, as well as a variety of cover options. I chose a Leather finish for my cover, with some simple custom text printed on it, they offer acrylic covers which allow you to print a photo on your cover. I also used matte photo paper. Glossy paper, high end matte paper, and art paper are also available.

The PhotoBook I recieved was beautifully presented, and well bound. The leather cover has a very ncie finish and the text I used for the title of the book printed very nicely.

The quality of the photographic prints inside the book was outstanding. I've worked as a print graphic design, so I can be very fussy about print resolution and colour reproduction as well as paper quality. I process all of my photos in Adobe Lightroom and do some limited colour-grading to get my images looking exactly how I want them to. The photo book I received reproduced my images perfectly, they printed at high resolution and looked sharp, and the colour was perfect. The tonal range of my images was very well preserved and I didn't loose any detail in my shadows, while overall contrast of my images was maintained. Basically what I got on a calibrated screen was what I got in print.

I printed an 84 page book, and many of my photographs were designed to be double page spreads. I was expecting to loose some of my images to the biding of the book, where the pages join in the middle. I was delighted to find that the book opens flat, and none of the image is lost on a double page spread. Given the already impressive print quality this made for some impactful prints and really set the standard of quality for the product very high.

Everything was printed on high quality thick paper, with a slight texture. While the paper is matte it does have a glossy feel to it, but without any shine. I've browsed through my book several times and despite my best efforts I've left no finger marks on any of my images.

Overall the quality of the Professional Line PhotoBook was fantastic. This is a beautiful product and very reasonably priced. I'd be happy printing a few more of these. They would make a great gift for family and friends, and I can definitely see these being used commercially by wedding and event photographers. Saal Digital have an option to purchase a gift box with your book, which again would make these perfect for weddings.

The software

Saal Digital offer their own bespoke software for designing and typesetting a book. Given past experiences I was prejudiced towards the software, and I really wasn't expecting much from it. However overall it was relatively easy to use and had a small learning curve.

The software is limited, professional designers or serious commercial photographers may want to use professional software like Adobe InDesign or Affinity Publisher... however those kind of users are probably going to use that kind of software anyway. Personally I'm highly familiar with InDesign, however I was surprised to find that the software provided by Saal Digital wasn't as limited as I expected. I could do everything I wanted, in particular the typographic controls were more advanced than I expected. The software allows the typographic leading to be customised. The software comes with a limited selection of fonts which aren't (in my opinion) great quality. I used my own fonts, which I enabled in the settings. I did experience an issue where my own fonts weren't available untile I restarted the app two or three times which was a small bugber, however once I had them they were fine and the fonts printed as I expected. The software comes with a spellcheck which for me was essential.

The grid options are limited but good enough for basic design tasks. Snap to grid didn't always work consistently, and I would have to zoom in quite far to ensure objects are aligned properly.

While the design tools are a bit basic, for a personal photobook they are more than good enough and very simple to use

Print guides such as page bleeds are clearly marked, and the software will warn you if an image or text is too close to a bleed line.

There is an option to export as a PDF, but you get a low resolution PDF with a giant "preview" watermark on all pages. Not really a useful feature.

Pro's might want to consider their own DTP apps, but most probably will anyway. The website has plenty of information and support on how to set up your own documents and submit print ready files with the right colour profiles. As someone who has worked as a graphic designer in the past however I was happy with the result I got from the SAAL software. I really wanted my book to focus on the photography and for any text to be nicely set out and clean and minimal, which I achieved easily.

The ordering process in the software was easy and quick. I had to change to my browser to make a payment via paypal but this was easy and I was prompted. The ordering process was painless.

Service

The book was delivered by DHL, during the coronavirus pandemic just as the UK Governmnet annouced it's policies of self-isolation. Despite this the finished book was delivered earlier than expected. I received an email from Saal Digital when the book was printed and ready for shipping, as well as emails and SMS messages from DHL regarding delivery. I received the finished book about a week after ordering.

You can order your own PhotoBook on the Saal Digital website - https://www.saal-digital.co.uk. I’d highly recommend them, the Professional Line PhotoBook is an amazing product which I feel earns the title of Professional. Saal Digital also offer a range of other products, including posters and fine art prints.

#saaldigital #printing #photoprinting #photobook

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