Proof Book

A couple of times each year, I have a proof book of some of my photos printed. I just had another one of these proof books printed last week and received it the other day.

I'm always amazed at the quality of my photography when I view the photos in print. Well... I need to put one condition on that... When I have my photographs printed professionally, I'm always amazed at the quality.  

I've definitely had terrible print jobs in the past from many of the "discount" printers...  ie, WalMart, Snapfish, and perhaps the worst of the worst today, Shutterfly. You definitely get what you pay for in prints. There is a reason why these low cost prints cost so little...  crappy ink, cheap paper, low quality printers, and probably poorly paid employees who don't really know anything about color, calibration, printing standards and print qualities. To make this even worse, many of these 'low cost' printers contract out other low cost printers around the country to print for them. I'll never go cheap on print jobs again. 

Of course, "professional quality" comes at a price.  For example, this decent sized proof book containing 50 high gloss pages of Fuji paper cost $100. I'd rather pay extra for quality than to receive a substandard product. 

A professionally printed photograph has a depth to it. This proof book, although only a "proof" book, has some beautiful prints in it. Lukey enjoyed looking at it last night as I flipped through the pages!

Now, I wish I could find a professional printer who provides powerful software for creating a beautiful, high quality bound book too. Actually, I'd like to create a few different high quality coffee table books containing both photographs and creative, descriptive text.