Information about our Photo Books
These are hardcover deluxe coffee-table style books printed on high grade 160 gsm silk paper and have our special HD Satin book cloth cover finish with your pictures on the front and back. Our PhotoBooks are unique because we make by hand and best of all print your images on the cover. Other producers make by machine and cannot personalise the cover - nor do they have human artworkers taking care of layouts and red eye problems.
Contrado's PhotoBook is the classic way to present photos making a unique gift. Handmade with a personalised Satin hard bound cover in three different sizes A5, A4, and A3.
Each PhotoBook is especially planned by our photo layout artists with your photos printed on the pages. The results are stunning - your very own one of a kind hard backed book. We offer FREE red eye reduction but we can't offer blemish reduction or date stamp removal as standard on these books due to the number of images involved. We advise you to select images carefully and if you can, address, blemish reduction or date stamp removal yourself. Alternatively contact us for a retouching quotation.
See foot of page for ordering instructions.
- Each page is 160gsm high grade quality paper
- Your chosen cover photo is printed on front and back of book on Satin as standard. For an additional £9 you can have a different picture on the back
- Landscape shape with spine on short edge. Portrait photos rotated to bleed off page or printed with white border. Portrait A4 book available
- We layout your images in the order you request
- All images bleed off the edge of the page
 Winner of the silver award in Digital Photo Magazine. 5/5 for print and build quality >> read more |
See our Frequently asked questions for more useful information.
Advanced Artworking instructions
We have a page here with in-depth instructions for advanced artworking.
Uploading Images
If you order online you can upload your images immediately after making payment. Upload one image at a time, one image per page.
Ideas for your photobook
See our sister site, Custom Photo Books, for some great ideas for photo books to make - This is your life! Family heirloom Book, and more ...
Artworking
We do not include red eye reduction, blemish or datestamp removal for Picture Books. Nor do we provide a scanning service from prints. However you can accomplish these things yourself and send a CD of the finished selection.
How to submit your images
You can either send your images to us by uploading at the end of the order process, or on a CD by post.
-- By post
In essence we need your CD containing sequenced files. Title the cover photo 'Front', then number your image files with page number 1,2,3,4 and so on. Page 1 is a right-hand page. If you have very large images (EG over 10mb each), this may save a lot of time waiting for things to upload!
-- Online
After you have made a secure transaction, you have the option to upload your images. You will be presented with thumbnails so that you can make sure you have all the pages in the correct order, and a facility for you to include artworking guidance for each image if the re are any areas of concern.
Tip: When you are deciding on which photos to use, make a New Folder on your desktop and copy all the images you are considering for your book into that new folder. Call this folder 'Your Name Picture Book A4' (or A3, A5 if chosen). Then view all the images one by one and look for problems e.g. A row of people all with a datestamp across them! Do you really want that picture in the book? [Note we offer red eye reduction, but not datestamp removal on picture books, so we encourage you to address or exclude images that have problems]. Once you have examined and are happy with your selection, you need to put them in order. A simple way to look at a sequence is to click Views in your toolbar and then click Thumbnails. You can now see them all as thumbnails. Then you can drag and drop the images into sequence. The first image will be the COVER. The next image will be the first opening right hand page - page 1. The next image will be the page two or first left hand page. The next image will be the following right hand page and so on. Once you have the confirmed sequence in front of you, you MUST number them 1, 2, 3 etc. by renaming them (right click 'rename'). 
Finally, for peace of mind and clarity add the word COVER to the cover file name. Add 'front' and back if necessary You do this by right clicking, Rename and type Front. Any questions please call.
Tip: Landscape photos work best, but portrait can work well. We will rotate all portrait photos to fit the page (head to spine) or print them with white space around. All our picture books are landscape opening with spine on the left hand side (on the short edge) - except our new A4 portrait one
Please understand that we will print what is given to us with no adjustments except at our discretion to help achieve best results.
Tip: Don't overcrowd the book with similar shots! Choose the best shots and think about the page sequence.
Tip: If you are considering Text on the front or back cover please make sure it is planned at 18pt size and is not too fine.
Tip: Double page spreads are fine for scenic panoramas but are not advised where there are key features like text or faces that need to meet perfectly in the middle. Our books do not open completely flat and the hand bound process means we need to have some of the image deep in the central bind so no white edges show.
Scanning conventional photos
We may be able to offer scanning service for PhotoBooks depending on how busy we are. If available that the time we will charge £1 per image scanned. We strongly advise you to scan and prepare your photos as much as possible in advance.
For a truly stylish presentation or gift ...
To provide an extra effect why not buy your A5 or A4 photo book in one of our superb hinged silver coloured tins. They set off the photo book in fine style (sorry tins not available in A3 size). We also have handmade presentation boxes for all books, starting at £29.
| Photo display book ready in 10 -14 days |
A5 landscape
22x16 cm
up to 30 images £69
+£1 per extra image
Postage: UK £3.85, EU £12.
other areas £15 |  Add to Cart | |
 |
A4 landscape
31x22 cm
up to 40 images £129
+£1.50 per extra image
Postage: UK £3.85, EU £12.
other areas £15 | Add to Cart | |
|
A4 Portrait
31x22 cm
up to 40 images £129
+£1.50 per extra image
Postage: UK £3.85, EU £12.
other areas £15 | Add to Cart | |
|
A3 Landscape
41x30 cm P&p £3.85
up to 50 images £169
Postage: UK £6.75, EU £15.
other areas £18
| Add to Cart | |
Buy THREE identical photobooks and get fourth one FREE