Review: Pixart Photo Books
In December 2005, Pixart Sdn. Bhd. launched the first Photo Book service in Malaysia. It lets you creating your own personalized photo book at home. Custom photo books may be a new idea to Malaysian but it is quite common in U.S. and Europe.
Table of Contents
Pixart Photo Books features:
- Stitch binding and hard cover
- Dimension: 11″ width * 8.5″ height
- High quality digital printing or photographic printing (you have the choice)
- Printed on glossy paper or photo paper
- Slection of woven fabric material or simulated leather photo book over
- Various theme designs for page layout
I am lucky to be choosen as the first few Malaysian bloggers to try the Pixart Photo books. Read on for my review.
Basically, it takes three steps to have your custom made Pixart Photo Books delivered to your home.
- Install custom software called PhotoStylist, it is a free download (5MB).
- Create and design your photo book
- Purchase Pixart Photo Book and upload your design
Note: you can only purchase the photo book by credit card via the software. You may want to contact Pixart for other payment methods.
Pixart PhotoStylist
In order to create your Pixart photo book, you are required to install the Pixart Photo Stylist. It is free software but required Microsoft .NET Framework Version 1.1 installed, which means Windows user only.
After launched the program, you get a few tabs at the top. They are the steps (left to right) you need to go through to create and purchase a Pixart photo book.
In the middle is a tutorial to guide you through the whole process. Mouseover the “Step” icons at the top will show you the sub-steps of the process.
The bottom panel is where you keep all the pictures that you are planning to put in the photo book.
Create photo book pages
The “Create Pages” page is divided into three columns. The left column is a simple help. Center column is where you design your photo book page, insert pictures, modify pictures and so on. There are three buttons in the right column: “Add Page Manually”, “Apply Theme”, and “Move Pages”. Photo page thumnails are added under the buttons.
I am not sure why it adds the word “manually” to the add page button. It made me think that there is “Add Page AUTOMATICALLY” button/option somewhere in the software… but there is none.
After adding a photo page, you can start dragging pictures into the predefined boxes in the photo page. Clicking the picture will give you a buttons toolbar, which lets you fit the picture or apply special effects. It is quite easy to use.
If you want to preview the photo page, you may goto “File » Preview Pages”. It would be better if there is a preview button in the right column.
You hardly go wrong with the program. Every “serious” action like delete a photo will be asked for confirmation. The image effect can be undone.
When you are done with create pages and title page (which will take you a few hours…), you can goto the purchase tab, fill in the form, and upload file to purchase photobook. The price is starting from RM69.
It will take a few minutes to upload the photobook, depending on you Internet connection speed. Broadband connection is recommended.
You will receive an order confirmation email very soon after uploaded and purchased Pixart Photo Book.
Good service
I had one of the photo page with bad design which leave a lot white space in the page. I didn’t aware about it but I received a call from Pixart to tell me about it. They emailed the screenshot of the page to me to ask for confirmation. They can even offer to fit the picture for me. How nice!
I received the Pixart photo book parcel within a week after purchased. It was nicely wrapped.
Sample page of Pixart PhotoBook
Pixart PhotoBook’s thick cover
Pixart PhotoBooks
Web: http://www.pixart.com.my/
Price: starting from RM69
My two cents
Some people may think that RM69 is expensive, but it is rather cheap if you have make a photo album at studio or check the other photo book providers.
In my opinion, the price is acceptable. I would make one photo book for my girlfriend (if I have one). Making your own photo book is a very good experience, I’m sure everyone will enjoy it.
However, it will take a few hours to make the photo book. Not that the software is hard to use but there are too many decisions like the page layout, pictures selection, pictures effect and so on. Fortunately, you can save the photo book for later if you are not free for a whole day.
There are some improvement spaces for the Photo Stylist software. It is a bit confusing sometimes. The software should has a help file system, just like many other softwares do.
I have no complaint about the Pixart services and photo book quality. Hopes that they will maintain the same quality services in the future.
Other Malaysian Pixart Photobook reviews
- Pixart Photobook Review — Kennysia.com
- Pixart your photos today! — 5xmom
- Pixart – Photobooks for Your Family and Friends! — ShaolinTiger
[tags]photobook, photo book, pixart, album, gallery, review[/tags]
