I can say that is has been a pleasure to review the photobook I ordered from Saal Digital. The whole process was near seamless and very professional, much as you would expect from a German photographic printing company. I am impressed with the finish and level of quality on the product and I will definitely be using them again.
Image Captured from Saal Digital website and subject to their copyright
I started off by coming across an advert for photographic product reviews for Saal Digital. I was instantly interested and applied.
Once I had confirmation that I was to be part of their product reviews programme, I set about finding the right images for the job and getting them ready.
This took a while but once I had my images ready, I downloaded the product design software from Saal Digital's website. Whereas I had anticipated this being a difficult process, this made the process of creating the product a genuine pleasure and allowed me a large range of freedom with the design, allowing me more freedome to use my creativity.
Around a week later, the product then arrived around a week later via DHL courier and was pristine.
The product arrived in a protective cardboard box with additional packing material inside to protect the product. There was a further soft protective sleeve to prevent moisture from damaging the product. This I am now using for permeant protection of the linen off-white cover.
For the photobook, I chose to go with the padded off-white linen cover, with a matte finish to the images, printed on Fujicolor Crystal Archive Album Paper. This provides a fantastic finish and the clarity on the images is incredible.
Here are the selection of images I used for the photobook. I am putting them here for comparison between the true image and the book, so you can see the clarity and brilliant colour reproduction of the printing process.
For the professionals out there, there is the option to recieve a few test cards from Saal Digital prior to your purchase, so you can evaulate the colour reproduction accurately from your screen to the finished product. This is an excellent feature that I have not seen offered by others, and for those high importance works, this will be key.
I am really impressed with the colour reproduction and the use of the Fujicolor Crystal Archive Album Paper for the images, with each page glued to the back of the next, providing a decent thickness to the pages (0.34mm), although there is the option to increase this to 1.08mm if you want thicker pages again.
The overall finish of the book exterior is very good. I chose the off-white padded linen cover, as it provides a simple and clean look, whilst also showing up any marks very visibly. I am glad to say that it was pristine when i recieved it and is not showing any signs of getting grubby any time soon.
Full Disclosure for this review: I recieved a discount voucher, for the majority of the cost of the photobook I ordered, in return for this review, however I have not left any part out and if you have any questions that this review, or Saal Digital's website does not answer, I will be happy to answer your question.