Photography question

There is this talk of the coffee table/digital album, could someone please explain to me and the rest of the brides what this is??

Here is a thread on the BHB side of some pix that I found. I would like to know more about this type of photography and album

THanks

Digital Album

The 'digital album' means that instead of sending pictures to the album company and mounting those pictures on a page with mattes around the pictures, photos are digitally printed on the page of the album and the album company simply adds the covers. In other words, if the album is 11x14, then 11x14 pages with the pictures 'exposed' and designed and manipulated are all that the album is composed of. DO NOT BE FOOLED!! These albums actually cost LESS to produce then the actual pictures that are mounted by the album company. Also, be careful that the digital pictures are on real photographic paper and NOT ink on non-photographic paper. The difference is that a real photograph is made from the paper itself actually becoming the picture. Inkjet means that ink is sprayed onto the paper just like the printers that everyone has (the more expensive printers simply do a better job of spraying the ink.) No one knows how long those pictures will last in comparison to real photographs.

If you don't want the kind of album that your parents had, there are many neat alternatives besides going the digital route.

Mark, thank you for responsing. I will post this response on the thread. I still love the album that we have and the actual pix.

I have one more question then Mark, if one chooses a digital album, are there no actual proofs/negatives that one has in hand??? Are these pix taken with a regular camera or a digital camera??

hi! the types of albums i make for clients are digital albums, and they are beautiful, archival, and modern. there are a lot of companies who try to do digital albums that come out looking cheap, but i searched for a long time to find a company that does a fantastic job. i design the files myself in photoshop, laying out the images according to what style of design my clients want, and the album company prints the files as real photographs on real photographic archival paper, then sprays, mounts and binds the book.

i chose this route because i wanted to offer clients something different and more modern than the standard albums with mattes. the prices are very reasonable and the finished product looks like a book you'd buy in a bookstore that just so happens to be the story of your wedding. it's very high quality and archival.

i do shoot primarily digitally, but i also include in the album prints shot on film, printed and scanned.

any other questions feel free to ask!

Shamma,
In response to your question of digital album, Mark is correct in his posting. It is very important to make sure that the photos be made on Photographic paper, and not with an inkjet printer.
The photos can be made from film base or digital images.
The cost, with the company that i use, is quite a bit more than conventional albums. It is dependant on your likes and style.
Proofs can be made and supplied on photographic paper, CD, or DVD.
If the price of a digital album seems to be too good to be true, it probably is. However, you can put some digital images in a conventional library album without going to a totaly digital album.
i hope this answers your question.
Dan

The original pictures can be taken either with film or digital. All film pictures (or negatives) can be scanned to digital. There is still much controversy concerning film vs. digital. I find for myself that I still prefer film to produce proofs for each exposure since I average over 1000 pictures at a wedding and that would be too many to see as thumbnails on a screen. Since all film pics can be digitized, I prefer light through a negative exposing a photograph and choosing different films in different cameras with different lenses. That's still my biased preference. Many photographers are switching to digital and are happy about it.

Soooo.... to more directly answer your question, the digital album is made with digital prints that can be produced from either film or digital cameras. It's a pretty neat alternative to the matted album (with photographs mounted) and I'm working on offering it as a lower cost alternative. Check out the choices and decide what you like. There are many possibilities available.

We do digital albums scanned from negatives and then manipulated in photoshop then printed on photographic paper (not inkjet) and mounted flush in albums (no mats). It is a little more expensive than the same album not digital. If done nicely, you're paying for the time and computer work of digital enhancement. If photographs are taken well, there is little need for digital 'fixing' unless you like a lot of special digital efffects added to the original photography. Although we offer both, we find good photography done right the first time is more popular and less expensive than digital. You can also get 'digital and computer' effects and enhancement on a few photos and not the whole album if desired.