Amateur Photographer Magazine

Bob Books Review

Tuesday 11th August 2009

Barney Britton

Bob books
£48.99 (for standard 24 pages; up to 120 available)
Dimensions: 30x30cm
Paper weight: 200gsm (170gsm for smaller size books)
Software: Bobbooks (Windows only)

Printed and bound in Switzerland, Bob Books uses a patented binding system which, it claims, also allows pages to open out flat. Bob Books software is Windows only, although Mac users can create layouts using Adobe Photoshop via a process detailed on the 'download' page of www.bobbooks.co.uk.

Of all the photobook creation software that I used for this article, Bob Books was, unfortunately, the worst. Editing options are surprisingly limited, and it is not possible, for example, to shift images within their bounding boxes in the page layout. Text input is a little clunky as well, and there is a limited range of fonts that lacks a truly 'formal' style but includes – bizarrely – Wingdings. Worst of all is that on my system the software crashed very frequently.

My Bob Books photobook took the longest to arrive, on the 11th working day after I ordered it, but despite the frustrations I had to endure while creating it I am very pleased with the quality of the final product. The construction and binding really are excellent, and print quality is exceeded only by the genuine photo paper of the Cewe book. My only significant gripe is that despite Bob Book's claims, the pages don't open out to be completely flat, and a double-page portrait has suffered from part of my subject's face disappearing into the gutter.

www.bobbooks.co.uk

See our article on Making a wedding album for advice on making an album and our list of the top ten albums

(Prices correct at time of going to press AP issue dated 11 July 2009)

Got an opinion on this story? Why not post a comment on our message boards

Back to index