Our S$13.80 bet..

We had send in the artscow photobook with tone down contrast photos & added a few pages. S$13.80 for a stitch bound, custom wrap photobook is just too hard to resist.

Aftering some testing, Zeek found that if you use photos out of camera without adding contrast or color adjustment, and your photos must not be under exposed, your shots with artscow photobook should turn out great.

Here's a possible turn out of the photo on artscow photobook;

Out of camera

From Agnes & Zeek Wedding Log

Possible artscow photobook

From Agnes & Zeek Wedding Log

Will update how the book turn out once we get it in 2weeks time.

artscow preview settings

It seems that artscow has really poor customer service, but it is expected as the price is so low, likely they are under manpower with the massive orders. They aren't going to do adjustments to their printer settings. The powerbook price is just too low to miss out, so I did a bit of testing.

If your photos are contrast like what you see in our blog, most likely your photos will be too red and too contrast if you print their photobook. The setting I'm using now with photoshop (or any image editing software) is set the brightness of the photo to +20 and contrast to -50. If you can tune saturation, -3 will be good.

If you have photoshop or image editing software that allows you to convert your photo to CMYK color, then you can preview how the photobook will turn out. After u convert you photo to CMYK color, set the contrast to +100 and your brightness to -15 or -20.

Going to try reprint the ROM photobook again. Hope it'll be better this time round^^ Wish us luck...

artscow photobook arrived.

Kinda disappointed with the printing, as the prints came out underexposed and too much reds. Heard about their reds problem, but didn't think it was so bad. The binding is really good, it's stitching binding and the book pages open all the way, unlike just1book. just1book is gives faster service and the paper is better.

Top is just1book and bottom is artscow;

For the price artscow is offering, it's still worth printing with them. But it also means you'll need to do some color adjustments before sending them for printing. Like more exposure and lessen the reds/contrast.

So what's the price difference? just1book for 8x8" 20pages photobook with custom jacket/cover is $69 if they have 20% promo it'll be $55.20. artscow for 8x8" 20pages without promo is US$9.99 + US$7.99 shipping (total around S$27) with promo or free credit, it'll only be $12.

Also Zeek's 12R photos came in today. artscows prints are still up to standard. They look great, but since they aren't wedding related shots, we won't share here...

If you are interested, our referral link is http://www.artscow.com/?Ref=520451

Also if you are going to make a photobook with just1book. Try look for johnson, says Zeek the dog photographer introduce. You may get a 10% discount.

Maters of wedding photography

Many of us had seen others wedding photos, but how many of us had seen those magical ones? Zeek came across a vid sometime back featuring real wedding master photographers. The shots and moments they captured are pure magic.

To Zeek anyone can be an event/wedding photographer if they have the required equipments. But there's one thing you can't buy, that's the photography eyes. If you have that, even the photos you took with compact cameras can be magical. It's a talent or came from years of experience.

Anyway, those who feels that wedding photos or photography is important to them should try get this DVD.
http://www.mastersofweddingphotography.com/

It'll help set a standard of the type of photographer to look for, but it won't be cheap...

artscow Craziness!!!

So you might had heard us mentioned about new members get 1200 prints (50x 4R & 50x 5R) a month and 3 free 8x8" photobooks that you'll need to clear within 2 months. Along with other free stuffs like calendars, playing cards, etc.

The 3 free 8x8" photobooks were good but a pity ours expire before our pre-wedding photo shoot in Shenzhen FREE12XBOOKS (should expire on 31st Jan 09 - expired)

They are giving away 12 8x8" photobooks, they'll be spared out into 2 per month for 6 months^^ US$7.99 for ea book shipping, meaning less than S$12 ea^^

Some other useful coupons Zeek found;
FREE40PHOTOCARDS (expire unknown) - 20x 5x7" photo cards + 20x 4x8" photo cards to be used within 1month
FREE800 (expired) - add 50x 4R + 50x 5R prints each month for 8 months. It'll be added after the last month of 1200 prints new member gets
FREE4XPUZZLES (expire unknown)- 2x rectangular jigsaw puzzle + 2x heart jigsaw puzzle to be used within 1month
FREE100WALLET (expire unknown) - 10x 4wallet prints each month for 10 months
FREE8CARDS (expire unknown) - 2x hearts playing cards + 2x round playing cards + 2x single design playing cards + 2x 54 designs playing cards to be used within 1month
24FREE12X18S (expire unknown) - 2x 12x18" prints each month for 12 months

These coupons are to be validate in Credit & Discount.
Our referral link is http://www.artscow.com/?Ref=520451

Some new codes;
FREE10BKS (expires on 2/28/2009) - 5x 8x8 20pages photobook each month for 2 months
FREE600PRINTS (expires on 02/14/2009) - 100x 4X6" prints each month for 6 months

artscow SURPRISE!

We admit that artscow sounds too good to be true... The old saying is whatever sounds too good to be true, isn't. BUT surprise, surprise. We recieved 2 packages in the mail today^^

We ordered these on 29th Dec 08 ain the night. They have them printed and shipped out in the afternoon of 30th. We recieved today, minus the 1st being New Year, it took 4 days to reach us^^

The quality is good, but not as good as those photolabs that amature/pro photographers visit. They are all printed on FujiFlim Crystal Archive paper for Frontier. These are prefered photo paper of many local photographers^^

Good local photolabs normally charge $0.30 ea for prints under 100-500 (FujiFlim Crystal Archive paper). The cheapest I'd heard is $0.20 for those that print 1000 prints. artscow offering US$0.06 for each print, and for 100 prints the shipping is US$5.99. So the price for each print is less than S$0.20 when u print 100 prints. But the promo now for new member is 600 4R prints & 600 5R prints & 3 8x8" photobook & many more. From the 600 prints it's divided to 50 prints a month, so it'll last for 1 year^^

We printed these 80 4R prints (50 were free) and 5 8R prints (free also) at the price of US$12.34 (include shipping) Which is less than S$20. Local photolab would charge us 80x$0.30 + 5x$2.50 = S$36.50

The photobook we ordered from them on 30th is still being processed. Hope we'll get it next weekend^^;

So if anyone is interested, please use our referral to sign up^^
http://www.artscow.com/?Ref=520451

This will help us earn some credits for more prints^^

just1book Photobook collected

The photobook Zeek sent in on Monday was collected today. Really impressed by their service, Zeek ask them to try get 1 book ready this weekend (Thur was New Year), they got both book ready.

The prints are great, paper is good too, but the most impressive part is the service. We dropped by today without any notice, just to try our luck to see if the book is ready. Even forget the invoice or the order number. The staffs were busy sorting the newly arrived books, stopped what they are doing and attended to us. Found the books in the stack of new arrivals, and help us check. Many thanks to them. Agnes really love the book, guess it's Zeek best Bday present to her, next to having the ROM on her Bday. lol

Only thing Zeek doesn't like is the book are glued, Zeek likes the books to be threaded. Think artscow are threaded, so we'll see how it goes.^^

Since they are offering 10% off for repeat customer, also having 20% off with Citibank & SMRT CC promo now. It'll be very likely we'll print some of our works with them.^^

Vinsy specials

Just MSN Yuki from http://www.vinsy.com/ She promised she'll help get discounts or free gifts for those whom we had refer.^^ You'll need quote our invoice number VS-199.

Those interested to view their clients private gallery and album layouts, do email us zeek@zmoment.com

曼城印象 also has a new promotion for referrals. http://www.szmcyx.com/news1_302.aspx