As I mentioned in the Black River Imaging review I would be posting a detailed full review of the SmileBooks process. This review will be more in depth and carefully thought out than the Black River Imaging review so it will be broken in to multiple posts. Click through to read the first part of the SmileBooks review, you can also learn more about SmileBooks by visiting the SmileBooks website.
A SmileBooks introduction
I had never heard of SmileBooks until they contacted me about doing a review two weeks ago. Chances are you’ve never heard of them before either, but their name might just be worth remembering. Cheesy sounding name aside, SmileBooks is actually a part of CeWe Color which is an almost fifty year old company out of Germany and is claimed to be Europe’s largest photofinisher although relatively unknown to most in the USA. My first look in to CeWe Color showed that they use HP Indigo printing systems, widely regarded to be the best tools out there for photo book printing.
SmileBooks offers a number of different products. I was offered a Classic photo book which is an 8×11 inch book and starts at around $20. Pages are printed on 135 lb paper and there are a various hard and soft cover options. Other options range from a 5×5.5″ Pocket book to the 16.5×12″ Panorama Professional which uses 200 lb paper and starts at $150. I am considering a Deluxe book myself for the books I’ve been planning for months now. The Deluxe book is 12×12 inches, starts at $69 and uses 135 lb paper. All of their books use heavy duty paper which seems to be both thicker and higher quality than any of the other companies I’ve tried so far.
All of the prices I’ve mentioned for the books are the least expensive possible configuration for each type, and they include 26 pages. Additional pages will raise the price and are available in sets of 8 pages.
Getting started with the software
SmileBooks are created using their free Photo Book software. They have Mac and Windows versions available to download. The Windows version is less than 700KB and downloads pretty quickly, installation is fairly quick as well although the installation process does download a fair amount of additional data (the bulk of the program).
When you start the software you’re faced with a simple and clean interface. In the center of the screen there is a box where you can select which type of book you want to create. Two tabs separate the choices in to large or small photo books. Not all the options currently described on their website are present in the software as far as book types are concerned but I suspect some more software and site updates may be coming to cover all their services.
Once you pick the book you want you just click Create and after a moment you will be taken to the book editor which is where you will be doing all the work.
Creating your photo book
When you start a new photo book you’ll be asked if you want to use something called the SmileBook Assistant. This provides an automated way to build a book by laying out the images you give it according to certain criteria which you can choose such as the events or the file name. Although I planned to make my book in roughly chronological order I chose not to use this as I like to lay things out the way I want to and I’d probably just be undoing most of what the Assistant does anyway.
You can see the book editor above, click on it for a full sized image. In the editor there are a few key areas you’ll be using the most. The biggest part of the screen is the two page spread you’re currently working on. The gridlines can be on or off depending on your preferences, but the display always shows you opposing pages. Just above that is the Storyboard which shows all the two page spreads in the book. Here you can select each pair of pages you want to work on, add new pages (they come in groups of eight) or rearrange the spreads in whatever order you like. The first spread which is all the way to the left and not shown in that screenshot is actually the cover of the book and depending on the kind of cover you choose you can design the layout for that as well.
Left of the page spread you’re editing is an area that can serve three purposes. You can use this area to select from various included layouts for the pages which are organized by the number of images per page. You can also choose backgrounds and images from a selected folder based on the thumbnail display. By clicking on the gray title bar at the top of this and the other windows you can rearrange the SmileBooks interface or even undock them from the main program. This can be particularly useful if you want to have the images you’re choosing from displayed in one and the layouts in another without having to click back and forth between the tags.
Right above the Images/Layout/Background window is the Product characteristics window where you choose the cover type and how many pages you want in your book. There are also various controls along the top and the bottom of the program which provide access to various things like opening and saving book projects, checking book prices and placing the book in your shopping cart.
By right clicking on different parts of the program you’ll get various contextual menus related to what you’re clicking on which can provide access to a number of features that can be quite useful.
To review your book the preview is a useful feature. It can be accessed by clicking on the symbol along the bottom of the program that’s between the left and right directional controls. You can also access it by right clicking on the window area where the pages you’re editing are displayed. This brings up a full screen preview of the book which is displayed spread by spread and you can use it to flip through the book and make sure everything is where you want it to be.
Choose any of the following links to see the other parts of the SmileBooks review:
Part 2: Additional comments about the book creation software.
Part 2.5: Images showing various parts of the SmileBooks software.
Part 3: Impressions of the book’s construction and image quality.
I have actually heard of SmileBooks and made a book for my parents as a Christmas gift. The software was easy to use and I like the fact that it was not an online program. I created my book on a long flight I had to take for business. I found the book to be better quality that Snapfish (the only other place I have ordered a photo book from).
Can’t wait to see your book!
Thanks for your comments!
I have heard of Snapfish but never used them, I somewhat expected they might be similar to Shutterfly but I have no reason to think that.
Unfortunately things got messed up a bit and now I have to wait for tomorrow to get the book. This definitely isn’t a delay I wanted!
I was getting ready to use BlackRiverImaging, but their software seemed too complicated. I’ve done books from Blurb, which I thought were fairly good, but at that time they didn’t have photo covers, which is what I want. Then I’ve used MPIX and liked the quality, but the crease in the cover wasn’t done as nicely as I want. Still hunting. I’ve been reading this review and was hoping for an ending. Surely the book has been delivered by now. How is the quality? I would love to know. I’m making two senior books right now (professionally) and am only charging $150, so some of the more well-known album companies such as Asuka are too expensive to make a profit. I hope I hear soon.
After reading rave reviews on smilebooks I ordered a book printed on photo paper and unfortunately was very, very disapointed with the quality – photo paper is just a heavy glossy card stock – my photos were over saturated and extremely yellow – had to just throw it away – I recommend you look elsewhere
Thanks for your feedback. I did not find there to be any issues with prints being over saturated and wrongly color balanced, but I do wonder whether profile issues might cause that. I don’t know whether they take steps to check and make sure things are looking right before printing.
Regardless, I just placed an order for a book through Black River Imaging, I’m hoping my second book with them is of the same quality as the first. They’re certainly more expensive than Smilebooks but you get what you pay for so it really depends on what you’re after.