Print your own digital photo albums

For more information go to www.opusalbums.com

Why pay go to a photo lab and either put up with boring 6x4" prints - or pay the earth for a printed album - when you can produce beautiful bound photo albums on your inkjet printer at home?
There are so many products on the market – however you don’t see too many photo albums for digital printers.

A site which specialises in albums for you to print yourself is www.opusalbums.com.

They have several designs – and have promised more to come.

If, like me, you know what you want then I would recommend the OPUS album. This uses Innova’s paper. There offer three different papers according to your taste. There is a natural white soft textured art paper – nice feel, but it needs careful treatment and if you are printing a lot scuff might be a problem. The alternative is a high white rag paper – very smooth and with really good results. This is more of a photographic paper. These are both double sided. Then there is Innova’s flagship Fiba gloss – which professionals – especially those in monochrome seem to rave about.

To get the best you need to use a semi-professional printer. I have just invested in an Epson R1800 and this is fine. The R800 had feeding problems – it does not really like the heavy grades 250gsm plus.

I would also recommend that you use the Epson archival matte settings rather than an ICC profile. There could be exceptions, but the one I downloaded from Innova was a bit disappointing.

I have also tried the Print & Bind. This is good for the home amateur. It uses a good cast coated photo glossy paper – and you can use the standard paper settings.

OPUSalbums offers ACDSee’s FotoSlate 4 to layout the album. It is an intuitive programme and a doddle to use. A really good presentation album – with foreground and background photos can be produced in half an hour.
It’s worth a try!