Print Options — Books & Albums

Paper and print options — books & albums

This page is about the paper and printing options we offer in our books and albums. 

We choose our paper stocks for their quality, durability, appearance, and suitability for particular products.

Each stock's unique characteristics — e.g. texured or smooth, lustre or matte — will affect the look you're after. So will the printing technology it uses — Offset, Fine Art (inkjet) or True Photographic (silver halide). It's also important to choose an option that's suitable for the product you want to create.

Click here to order our paper sampler pack for books and albums.

Please email us if you have questions about our paper and printing options.

Sections

Silver Halide Prints

Six-colour offset prints

Inkjet Prints


Help us to help you! We want to deliver reliable, top quality printing, but we're only as good as the files you send us. No printing device can replicate the range of colours on your computer, and we can't know what those colours are unless you're working with a calibrated screen in controlled lighting. Please soft proof your images and supply them with the Adobe 98 ICC profile. If in doubt please ask us to colour correct your files before printing.


Print Technology: Silver Halide

Traditional Photo Prints are printed using light-sensitive paper and silver-based chemistry, the Silver Halide technology that's been constantly refined for more than a hundred years. Silver Halide prints offer constant colour under different light sources, unmatched longevity (no noticeable colour change after 200 years in albums), and durability. Because images are embedded in the paper they're ideal for loose prints, boxes and albums, where the prints are subject to handling.

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Paper Stock - Lustre:  Premier Lustre paper produces accurate skin tones, with a neutral tone scale from highlights to shadows - ideal for portrait prints. Lustre offers bold rich blacks, clean whites and an increased colour gamut for stronger, brighter, more vibrant colours.

Available for Flushmount, Overlay Matted and Duo albums, as well as in all our box and frame products, and loose prints.


Print Technology: Six-colour Offset

We offer three distinctive stocks for 6-colour offset printing. Offset printing offers several advantages. Unlike other technologies the paper can be printed on both sides, making offset printing ideal for Photo Books. It can also be used on a variety of paper stocks, making it possible to get the "fine art" or "water colour" look of inkjet printing, for example, but with a more durable product and at a more appealing price. All our stocks are pH-buffered to ensure pages and prints remain acid-free over a lifetime.

Paper Stocks Available:

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Tintoretto is a felt-marked art stock with a distinct watercolour texture on both surfaces. Tintoretto has a matte finish, is of exceptional quality and, like our other offset stocks, specifically formulated for our digital-offset press.

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Matte has a deep matte finish like Tintoretto, the difference being that the surface is only softly textured, almost smooth. Colours are appealingly subdued, with somewhat less contrast than true photographic prints.

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Satin (Photo Books only) has a smooth surface with a slight sheen and excellent colour resolution, perfect for photographic imagery. 


Print Technology: Inkjet 

Given high-quality files — we can deliver gorgeous prints and a wider colour gamut than other printing technologies. 

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Paper Stock: Fine Art 

Fine Art album pages are beautiful, offering a deep matte look to your album pages. Our professional, conservation-quality Fine Art stock is natural white with a lightly textured rich matte finish. We offer Fine Art in Flushmounts with thin or medium, and in sizes up to 14x10. Fine Art Flushmount Album pages are always creased at the gutter.

Please note, these albums are slghtly more expensive — and more delicate — than albums with true photographic or offset printed pages. Please read on for important design and care tips.

Design and care tips for Fine Art albums:

All inkjet prints are susceptible to scuffing, and also ink transfer, especially in solid black and dark blue areas. That's why we don't offer Fine Art printing in our largest sizes, and also restrict the maximum pages in the album.

• Highlight the images by keeping the design clean and simple, with white (un-printed) backgrounds.

• Restrict the use of images with heavy use of dark colours.

• Don't include full bleed layouts (spreads). By keeping images 2-3cm (apx 1") away from the page edge you minimise the risk of flaking or scuffing as the album pages are turned.

• If you want your layouts to feature lots of images bleeding to the page edge, and/or heavy, dark ink coverage, we recommend true photographic or offset printing.

• We want your album to look beautiful for many years. Please impress on your clients the need to handle their album carefully with clean hands!