Photobook Creator from Unibind - Product Review
The Photobook Creator from Unibind is a thermal binding machine and using Unibind’s photo books has the potential to create neat, professional looking portfolios in the format of a book, all in the comfort of your own home! This seems like a great solution in printing and presenting your digital photos into a sleek looking book to keep and to treasure. Not only can you create professional looking portfolios with your digital photos but the Photobook Creator has so many other creative possibilities too! Find out more about Unibind’s Photobook Creator, and creating professional looking portfolio books in this review.
The Technology
The Photobook Creator uses the same thermal binding technology as the other of Unibind’s binding machines and products. Located in the steel spine of a photobook is a strip of resin. Once the book is placed onto the plate of the binding machine, the plate automatically heats up, heating up the resin, and the gluing the pages placed in the photo book in place. Once the resin has cooled the pages are fused into the book, and your book is complete! Unfortunately there is no on and off switch on the machine, I suppose it's on the premise it turns on and heats up automatically as a book is placed on the machine, but for reassurance it would have been handy to have an on/off switch on the device itself too.
The Photo Books
The kit comes with one black linen effect photo book with a rectangular window (kit pictured above also has the 4x6 included) and many others are available to purchase individually. A whole range of sizes, colours and effects to purchase from stockists online, and direct from Unibind. One photo book retails for around $12, and they are also available in packs of 10 for around $80. I think it’s worth bulk buying and purchasing a pack of 10, as that way you save a few extra dollars on the individual purchase price, and I’d recommend the more standard sizes such as the 4x6 or 8.5x11 as they are the most compatible with photo papers and printers on the market, and the books with the window add a very smart detail to the overall impression.
The Software
Included in the kit is the Photo layout software, to enable you to set out and print your photos into pages for the photo book on your computer. The actual software wasn't included on the CD as I first anticipated but the CD takes you to Unibind's Photobook Creator website, where you fill in your name and email address, and once the online form is completed you are then forwarded onto a page of the site where you can download the software.
I was quite surprised with this method, as this is the first time where I’ve not had the software as a standalone item included in the package. But instead had to download it from the manufacturers website, so you'll need an Internet connection to do this. Furthermore at this point I also found out that the software seems to only be compatible with Windows. Macintosh users and others won't be able to use the software at all. You'll also need Adobe Flash installed to run the CD to be able to download the software.
The software called Mybook Photobook Kit, once you get to know your way around, it is very easy and quick to use. The program is pretty basic with a simple interface and as you quickly familiarise yourself with how it all works you really can start producing clean professional looking pages so quickly, as you’re basically picking up your photos from your files and dropping them into the pages of your photo book then altering their layout, size, and position accordingly. I was pleased to see that the software tailors well to compiling your Photo book pages together and with ease so you don't need any great knowledge of digital photo editing to create your own photo book, it's really suitable for anyone to use, and great fun for kids too.
Overall & Some Extra Tips!
The Photobook Creator is a fun machine to have to quickly make up professional looking portfolio books from your inkjet prints all in the comfort of your own home. For best results for a professional looking portfolio book quickly, stick with using your digital/scanned inkjet print photographs to make up the photo book pages, together with the software.
Print onto double-sided photo quality printer paper the closest size matching the size of the photo book. Leave some white space when designing the layout to create a neat border around the photographs, you can also add text captions for a sophisticated edge to your work. Also try to align the pages precisely as you can before binding the book, and secure the whole book together wrapping an elastic band around so the pages don't reposition themselves as the book tends to open a little once seated in the machine.
Where to Buy:
The Technology
The Photobook Creator uses the same thermal binding technology as the other of Unibind’s binding machines and products. Located in the steel spine of a photobook is a strip of resin. Once the book is placed onto the plate of the binding machine, the plate automatically heats up, heating up the resin, and the gluing the pages placed in the photo book in place. Once the resin has cooled the pages are fused into the book, and your book is complete! Unfortunately there is no on and off switch on the machine, I suppose it's on the premise it turns on and heats up automatically as a book is placed on the machine, but for reassurance it would have been handy to have an on/off switch on the device itself too.
The Photo Books
The kit comes with one black linen effect photo book with a rectangular window (kit pictured above also has the 4x6 included) and many others are available to purchase individually. A whole range of sizes, colours and effects to purchase from stockists online, and direct from Unibind. One photo book retails for around $12, and they are also available in packs of 10 for around $80. I think it’s worth bulk buying and purchasing a pack of 10, as that way you save a few extra dollars on the individual purchase price, and I’d recommend the more standard sizes such as the 4x6 or 8.5x11 as they are the most compatible with photo papers and printers on the market, and the books with the window add a very smart detail to the overall impression.
The Software
Included in the kit is the Photo layout software, to enable you to set out and print your photos into pages for the photo book on your computer. The actual software wasn't included on the CD as I first anticipated but the CD takes you to Unibind's Photobook Creator website, where you fill in your name and email address, and once the online form is completed you are then forwarded onto a page of the site where you can download the software.
I was quite surprised with this method, as this is the first time where I’ve not had the software as a standalone item included in the package. But instead had to download it from the manufacturers website, so you'll need an Internet connection to do this. Furthermore at this point I also found out that the software seems to only be compatible with Windows. Macintosh users and others won't be able to use the software at all. You'll also need Adobe Flash installed to run the CD to be able to download the software.
The software called Mybook Photobook Kit, once you get to know your way around, it is very easy and quick to use. The program is pretty basic with a simple interface and as you quickly familiarise yourself with how it all works you really can start producing clean professional looking pages so quickly, as you’re basically picking up your photos from your files and dropping them into the pages of your photo book then altering their layout, size, and position accordingly. I was pleased to see that the software tailors well to compiling your Photo book pages together and with ease so you don't need any great knowledge of digital photo editing to create your own photo book, it's really suitable for anyone to use, and great fun for kids too.
Overall & Some Extra Tips!
The Photobook Creator is a fun machine to have to quickly make up professional looking portfolio books from your inkjet prints all in the comfort of your own home. For best results for a professional looking portfolio book quickly, stick with using your digital/scanned inkjet print photographs to make up the photo book pages, together with the software.
Print onto double-sided photo quality printer paper the closest size matching the size of the photo book. Leave some white space when designing the layout to create a neat border around the photographs, you can also add text captions for a sophisticated edge to your work. Also try to align the pages precisely as you can before binding the book, and secure the whole book together wrapping an elastic band around so the pages don't reposition themselves as the book tends to open a little once seated in the machine.
Where to Buy:
- The best prices for Photobook Creator kit, complete with binding machine, photo book and software is available from Amazon.com
Additional black linen 8x11.5 photo books are also available in a packs of 10 from Amazon.
You Should Also Read:
myphotobookcreator.com
Unibind.com
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