Is the Deluxe album worth 3x the cost of the classic?

[Tweets]

I'm currently putting together an album to document my 2 week trip to europe last summer. I've started using the deluxe album after reading through the many posts on the forum and viewing multiple albums (thank you all for sharing the ideas. I really enjoy it.. particularly the south africa, sichuan, tibet, and kilimanjaro albums. you guys take amazing photos!)

At the rate I'm going, I'll most likely need the full 100 pages. Just calculated the cost. It would cost $309 for the deluxe compared to $115 for the classic before any discounts. Was wondering whether this is really worth it? I read somewhere that the album fades in 10 years. :( I've made a classic album before which i love.

Additionally, if i changed it to the classic setting now, would all my photos at the deluxe setting get out of whack? I've already spent may days working on 1/3 of the album.

I'd appreciate your recommendation and feedback.

Tweets

[glennaa11]

I guess it really is a personal decision. What I can tell you is that everyone I have shown my Deluxe book to has raved about it. The large format is very impressive. My book was "only" 50 pages and I thought $150 was a lot of money. But when you figure there are about 150-200 photos in the book, a few of them full page size I think it would have cost a fair amount just to get prints made without the book jacket and hardcover binding, superior printing quality, etc. And when I consider how much money I spent on the trip then another $150 for the document of it doesn't really seem that expensive.

You may also want to consider paring down the number of photos to reduce the number of pages. Do you have a lot of pictures of the same thing where you could pick just one image? Could you maybe create a theme that you could stick to that limits the number of photos? Or use a page with more photos per page since they will be larger in this format than they would be in the Classic book size.

[Tweets]

glennaa11,

Thank you for sharing your ideas. You offered several points and perspectives that i didn't think about before (i.e., considering how much i spent on the trip, you're right, the book doesn't really seem that expensive). I realize it's a personal decision. I'm making the album as a gift to my parents (we went on a family trip together), so I'm also trying to put in a lot of photos with people as well as the details to remind them of our trip.

I do have a number of pictures of pretty much the same thing (eg. various group shots of the Big Ben in London), so that is the primary reason why the London portion of my book is already 60 pages (in the classic size album). I still have to add Venice, Rome, and Paris. My original plan was just 20-25 pages per city to fill a 100 page book.

I've used a few 9 and 12 photo per page layouts.. However, i mostly used the 2-3 page layout because I was concerned that the pages start looking really busy or that it may be too small to see in a 9 or 12 photo layout. Most of my photos are horizontal too, so there weren't many layouts that accomodated 5-6 photos per page.

i really like the albums that folks have shared on this site. It looks like many used the deluxe album, best seller template or had created their own through Photoshop. I love how those were presented. The impact is huge when there's one or maybe a max of 4 pages per page. But I had a difficult time narrowing it down to a "best of" or "highlights" album.

I'll try to add my next city in the remaining 40 pages and then see what else I need to do to pare down or perhaps be stuck in ordering a second book for the remaining cities. I have a hard time visualing how large the photos would appear on a 9 or 12 page layout in a deluxe size book. I would really like to get the entire trip in one book.. Ah!!!

Tweets

[mypublisher]

Hi Tweets - we are now offering an automatic volume discount on orders over $100. It is 40% off orders over $100! :) The discount calculates automatically in the shopping cart.

[MISoccerMom]

I was SO GLAD that I sprung for the bigger book since it shows off my best photos to great advantage. It gives landscapes much greater impact, and all the photos look better bigger. It was definitely worth the extra $$.

I put my travel album together assuming I'd make a "classic" book, but at the last minute switched and ordered the "deluxe" It seemed like all the dementions were exactly the same, so it didn't matter. One note is that the text was much larger than I was expecting, but I think I will appreciate that as my eyes age.

I sure hope that the albums won't fade that fast!!! That would be appalling, and definitely not in keeping with the price paid and the interest in and attention to archival quality materials in today's market.

[PhotoGeek1]

The ink fades in ten years! Is this true?
I appreciate the difficulty of sorting through many photos, looking for the best to use. It is a big job.

[mypublisher]

No, the ink does not fade in 10 years. It should last 50 years if kept in the proper environment! Make sure not to expose them to direct sunlight or store them in a hot, humid place!

[PhotoGeek1]

That is a relief! Thank you.
And is the paper acid free?