Special discount for knowitall.ch clients available until end of March 2013!
A husband and wife team living in Switzerland has come up with the perfect solution for managing your photos.
Operating under the name of PikPerfect, Rushad Vevaina and his wife, Maike, have created an easy-to-use website, which enables you to produce your own, professional-looking photobook, without wasting time using complicated layout software, but instead using PikPerfect's team of highly experienced graphic designers to do the work for you!
Rushad told knowitall.ch, "What makes PikPerfect special is the effort we apply to designing and customising our client's photobooks to their unique and personal tastes. Unlike other photobook providers that provide you with free, but often time-consuming, software to help you design a photobook, PikPerfect's Photobook Design Service will do the work for you! So, in contrast to other companies that just give you the option of choosing between a few basic template-themes, and then leave you to get frustrated working out how to use their layout software, we ask our clients to tell us what they want, e.g. the number of photos on a page, the spacing around the photos, color preferences, etc, Armed with these basic design requirements, our designers will then use their creative skills, acquired through years of experience working in the publishing business, to produce something a little bit out of the norm, something special that will make your book stand out from the rest. Indeed, most of the books we design look very different from each other... and that's good!"
When you first go on the PikPerfect website, you are invited to choose from a wide range of page formats, cover types and paper quality. It is possible to choose any number of pages between 24 and 200 (in increments of 4), so you should choose a number that provides a good balance between your needs (i.e. the number of photos that are to be displayed) and your budget (the price changes according to the number of pages selected.) If you don’t need the extra pages, you don’t pay for them.
On the next screen it is possible to fine-tune your design, by choosing the average number of pictures per page (the screen will indicate how many photos are required according to the number you choose here and the number of pages you choose on the previous screen), the layout of the photos, the spacing between the photos, the background image, the type of photo frame, and the position of captions. If you have any special instructions to give the designer, now is the time to let him know by adding your comments. If you’re not sure what you require at this stage, you are advised to leave the default options checked.
The following screen lets you choose between two options – either sending the exact number of photos (in which case the designers can get started working on your photobook straight away), or sending all your photos and letting the designers choose the best ones for you (called Editor’s Piks). The latter option costs just Fr. 0.04 per photo uploaded – a small price to pay compared to the time spent trawling through all your photos on the computer, and reviewing them time and again until you are satisfied with your selection. If there are any particular photos that you definitely want to be included, then you can let the designer know. You can rest assured that if the designer does miss a favorite photo, that you can exchange it for another when you receive your first email from PikPerfect with the final selection of photos for review.
Before you upload your photos you will be asked to register online. No payment is required at this stage – but it is essential to create an account, if you want to make sure the photos you upload are saved to your account. Once you have activated your account, the uploading process is particularly easy – just select the photos on your computer and let the software do the rest!
Once the designers have received your photos, it takes about a day before you receive your first email asking you to review the photos that have been selected and, if you have a preference, to select the front and back cover images. This done, PikPerfect will then spend another day or two producing the first draft of your photobook. This is the exciting part, when you get to scroll through each of the pages and see what special effects the designer has created with your photos!
As you work your way through the book, you can add photo captions, and make any comments you like regarding the general layout. When you hit the Send button, the designer will review your comments and send through another draft with all your captions and any requested changes. This process can be repeated again and again until you are happy with the final product, at which point you can hit the “No changes, order” button! Once you’ve filled in the payment details, just sit back and wait for your new photobook to arrive! If you can’t wait until then before you show it to family and friends, then you have the added bonus of being able to share your photobook online using email or Facebook as soon as your payment has been received.
PikPerfect are keen to point out that if you don’t like the layout of your book, then you don’t have to order it. It is only when you approve the final design online, that the payment process kicks in. So it really is worth giving a try – you have absolutely nothing to lose, except a bit of time spent uploading your photos and reviewing the design submitted to you.
PikPerfect were kind enough to let me try out their service to produce my own holiday book covering a recent family holiday. Throughout each stage of the process, I was very impressed with the smooth operation of the software, and experienced no hitches at all. It was fairly obvious what you had to do on each screen – but there were help buttons if you were not sure. A small video outlining each stage in the process, so you knew what to expect later on, might have been useful – but would I have watched it before hand? I’m not sure! At any rate, Rushad told me they were open to any suggestions for improvement – the site only opened in September 2012 and is under constant review – so if you have any comments do let him know!
Having received my first book, I am extremely impressed by the results – not just the layout of the pages, but also the quality of the materials used. All the books are professionally printed and bound at a leading German book-binder. I would have no hesitation about using the website again to produce my next holiday book!
In fact, as I write, I am looking at close to 30 boxes of holiday photos covering the last few years’ holidays, none of which I have had time to sort through – one of the hardest things I find about creating photo albums. I can see now that the easiest solution for me is to locate the relevant photo directories on my computer – and use the Editor’s Piks option on PikPerfect to create photobooks for me!
Prices for PikPerfect’s books start from as little as Fr. 85.- for a 24-page book, which includes the full design service and a flat shipping fee. If you consider the cost of buying a comparable “empty” photo album, as well as the photo printing costs, not to mention the time spent choosing photos (if you opt for Editor's Piks) and then sticking them in a book, it’s easy to see what a great option this is for showcasing your photos and keeping a permanent record of them for the future.
At the moment, PikPerfect deliver to Switzerland, Germany, UK and the USA. Other countries are planned for the future, so if you would like to have the book shipped directly to relatives in a different country not currently included, this may soon be an option.
To encourage more customers to try out their new service, Rushad is offering first-time knowitall.ch clients a 25% discount off both their Photo Selection and Photobook Design services. Just enter the discount code KIAP25 when you place the order for your first book on the site. The code can only be used once and is valid until 31 March, 2013.
PikPerfect
Photobook Design Service
www.pikperfect.com
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