Photobook Printing

Thanks for stopping by and welcome to Ex Why Zed.  Congratulations on getting your PDF ready for photobook printing. We are printers of ultra-stylish, contemporary photography books. Every week we print beautifully designed books that receive rave reviews from peers and set the benchmark for putting ink on paper.

We have extensive experience since 2006 so sit back and relax, we’re here to guide you through the process.

Start Your Print Journey! Which step are you at?

At the heart of our easy workflow at Ex Why Zed is the Print Journey. Each of the 5 steps has its own hub where you can enjoy comprehensive guides, illustrated articles, captivating videos and insightful blog posts. These resources empower you to make well-informed decisions about design and styling, propelling your project from an initial idea to a winning Photobook.

We have been doing this a while now and have seen a lot of impressive publications come off our presses.  To give you a head start with your Photobook printing, here are three print specifications which work well (and photos of them, see right).  Each has its own characteristics which have proven to be winning combinations from a production perspective, cost per unit and most importantly, have reader appeal.

If any of our showcase options would work for your project, take a note of the spec and jump on our printed project builder to receive your bespoke quotation. Or ping us an email on hello@exwhyzed.com if that is easier.

Showcase 1 – a professional looking option at a good unit price and ideal for a self-promo portfolio:
A5 Perfect Bound Books
4pp Cover onto 300gsm Uncoated
Matt Lamination to outer
60pp Text onto 115gsm Uncoated
Four colour print throughout
As a guide, you could print 100 copies of this spec for £3.10 a copy or if you print 500 it will only be £2.10 per photobook.

Showcase 2 – an impressive square format for your photography annual or anthology, ideal for a mix of portrait and landscape images:
210x210mm Perfect Bound Books
4pp Cover onto 300gsm Uncoated
Matt Lamination to outer
76pp Text onto 170gsm Silk
Four colour print throughout.

Showcase 3 – a stapled photo book handy for a smaller photo set and easy for the reader to open the double-page spreads completely flat:
290x190mm Wire Stitched Booklet
4pp Cover onto 300gsm Silk
Matt Lamination to outer
40pp Text onto 130gsm Silk
Four colour print throughout
As a guide, you could print 100 copies of this for £3.60 for each copy.

Tweaks you could consider to the print specs:
• Switch the finish from uncoated to silk to make the images sharper and brighter.
• Reducing the cover to 250gsm or 200gsm makes it easier to open.
• Increasing the cover to 350gsm makes it more substantial and harder wearing.
• Switching to gloss lamination for a shiny aesthetic.
• Increase the size to A4 for more surface area for your images.
• Decrease the size to A5 or A6 making it pocket size and also be cheaper to print.
• Increase the weight of the inside pages to 170gsm making it more substantial and prestigious for the reader.
• Pick out some content on the cover to Spot UV varnish, foil or emboss (this is an additional £280).

There are almost infinite possibilities on size, finishing and papers so we offer expert knowledge and advice before your job goes to press, a competitive photobook print quote to make the most of your budget and a high quality standard of printing delivered nationally throughout the UK  and worldwide too.

Jump on our Styling Hub for ideas on what can be achieved.

Match a print spec to your design and budget requirements

Size, number of pages and quantity are the factors that have the biggest impact on your price.  Increasing or reducing these can stretch your budget.

We want to get you into print

You can print one copy if that is all you need, or up to a few thousand copies. Choose from A6 to A3 in portrait orientation and all bespoke sizes in between or from A5 to A4 in landscape orientation. You could even challenge convention and print your booklet at a custom size that suits the photography in your project.

Choosing Binding Styles for Photo Book Printing.

Staple Binding. Also known as wire stitching and saddle stitching. An advantage of a stapled booklet is that all the pages can be pressed completely flat which means the full width of the double-page spread is visible.

Perfect Binding. The inside pages of your book are glued with a square spine. This solution creates a more substantial book aesthetic.

Case Binding. You will know this as a ‘hardback book’ and the process produces a formidable coffee table style book to show off your photography.

For some visual inspiration, take 5 minutes to watch our video on choosing softback or hardback for photobook printing.

The RGB vs CMYK Puzzle 

For the closest reproduction to screen, we recommend printing onto silk or gloss for a sharp, crisp finish rather than uncoated (which tends to soak up the ink and flattens contrast).  The most common issue we have with photobooks is that your images don’t look the same when printed as they appear on screen. We will be honest, from the outset…they never will and there has to be an understanding and appreciation of this fact before the job goes ahead.

We’ll be honest, a specialist fine art printer could get a closer reproduction to the screen but they will be many multiples more expensive than our quote for Indigo digital or litho printing.

Printing black and white photography

If you are looking to print a book featuring images that appear black & white or monochrome on screen but are actually in full colour then our battle of printing black and white images video is crucial to watch, absorb and act on.

Put simply, it can be extremely hard to effectively print black-and-white images in HP Indigo digital or by Litho printing methods. Thankfully, this isn’t our first rodeo so in the video below we take a deep dive into how to get around this and why it is so difficult. This is an issue that you will encounter at every printer, but at Ex Why Zed we are keen to point it out and help before going ahead.

Spend a few minutes looking through our portfolio of previous Photobooks.

We have done our best to give you a huge wealth of information on this page and in our guides but if here are some frequently asked questions to help you get your work into print.

If you haven’t already seen it, do also watch our feature length Definitive Zine Printing Guide and our Hardback Book guide if that is the binding method you havea chosen or watch our FAQs video for smaller, more manageable pointers.