I made myself a photobook!
Dec 09, 2005 in Diary-writer
The guys at Pixart asked me to do a review of their services; in return I'll get a free photobook to keep. Got free things woh, of course I take the offer lah.
Besides, I had wanted to give my cousin a better gift than the pewter frame I bought for her wedding. So I decided to do a photobook of the photos I took at the ceremony and dinners lor…
I had to go to their site to download the Photostylist first (one thing though, you need to have Microsoft .NET Framework Version 1.1 for PhotoStylist to work on your machine, and its quite a huge file so I waited for a bit to get the thing down). After that it was a breeze all the way lah… you get to select from several themes to implement into your photobook (so that it looks damn pro liddat). I've got only two screenshots of the stuff, don't mind me yah.
When you select and print photo adi you can edit the photo summore… quite nifty, the application. HOWEVER, Dominic, it would be great if there were an 'UNDO' or 'REVERT' option to the editing functions. Still, its great.
It's pretty fun to do photobooks… seriously I could do the same with Photoshop, but then, you probably wouldn't get the quality of the end product that Pixart supplies. For less than 100 bucks, you get to have a customized A4-size photobook, that is thread-bound with a fabric/leather-woven hard cover.
The paper quality is pretty good too, if you choose the digital-quality print (my choice), you get 10 pages (double-sided makes it 20) of beautifully printed, magazine quality back-to-back printouts of your photos in an ultra classy layout. See?
Service was pretty fast too… it took me about 2 hours to do my photobook compilation (take my time to select the photos and plan the layout and the captions mah. But after purchasing the thing online (can pay by credit card), it took just 3 days for delivery. Pixart promises delivery within 5 days, so this quick delivery service is great!
The cover is really cool. There's a die-cut window in the front, so I can show off a nice photo that will help me identify the contents of this particular book. See, can double up as a photo frame some more!
I'm planning to make more yeah. I'm looking forward to things like my first trip overseas with Eric and Ma next year, then my cousin's first kid's birthday lah, my own wedding if it ever happens, my first baby's photo collection… wahhhh. MINISHORTS IS DEFINITELY GOING TO BE A RETURNING CUSTOMER.
Ya, ya, I know lah, RM 70 to RM100 sounds A BIT pricey, but if you think about it, when you have 20 blank pages to play around with, that's really a good deal! I had a collection of over 100 photos, and after sifting out like 30 not so nice one, I had trouble filling up the pages!! If you really thought about it, you could try developing your photos for 40 sen each (one size only, mind you, no effect some more), and then get a nice album (nowadays photo albums also quite ex, yah?)… this is WAY WAY easier lor…
So, Dominic, how? Should make some privilege cards for returning customers lah, special discount or something like that. 
Wishful thinking hehe, but seriously, if you guys don't know what to give to your friends, or you're thinking of a way to present your printed photos in an album, do something differentlor. Can try Pixart. It's pretty good.
