Dale's Rough-n-Ready Photo Book

Fig. 1: Photo books in a variety of sizes from 8.5x11" to 13x19"

I suspect that more than a few amateur photographers secretly dream of having a book of their own prints on the family coffee table, so here's another extremely modest contribution to the perennial problem of print presentation.

What you'll need

1 package 11" x 1/2" Gemex report cover spine bars, TB11-4, or equivalent
2 sheets medium weight cardboard or box board, each at least as large as the prints to be covered. Standard poster board works for books that are approx. 11" x 14" and smaller.
OR 1 sheet cardboard (back cover) and 1 sheet clear vinyl (front cover).

This is one case where being a hoarder pays off. In the five or six years I've been doing photo printing, I've never thrown out the empty packaging that large sheets of inkjet paper come in. Each such pack of paper has a sheet of cardboard cut to the same size as the paper itself; any two of these give me my front and back covers. So, if you haven't been saving your packaging, you might want to start. Another usable source might be the boxes clothes are sold in. Beyond that you'll have to shop around.

Also in my hoard is a package of 13" x 19" heavy-weight clear vinyl photo sleeves. I cut these down to the size of the print, yielding two or more top covers per sleeve. This material needs to be fairly substantial &bdash about the thickness of 300 gsm rag paper. If it's too flimsy it just slides around and bunches up. Alternatively, for 8.5" x 11" books, clear report covers are commonly available in stationery stores.

Fig. 2: photo book, open

Procedure

If both covers are cardboard

If necessary, cut the cardboard into two rectangular pieces the same size as the prints you wish to show. These are your covers.
Stick up to 20 or 30 prints between them, depending on the weight of the paper you've printed on and the capacity of the spine bar.
Slip the spine bar over one edge.
Optionally print a title sheet, then paste it to the front cover.

If top cover is vinyl

If necessary, cut the cardboard and vinyl into two rectangular pieces the same size as the prints you wish to show. These are your covers.
Stick up to 20 or 30 prints between them, depending on the weight of the paper you've printed on and the capacity of the spine bar.
Slip the spine bar over one edge.
Optionally print a title page on the same size paper as your prints. This shows through the clear vinyl top cover. Very elegant.

Fig. 3: slipping on the spine bar

Ideally, your printed images would be off-centre on the paper, so the left margin is wider than the right margin. But all that's really required is that the left margin be wide enough that the spine clip doesn't hide the left edge of the image area on the print – 1 inch of left margin seems to be the minimum one can get away with, but 2 inches is much better.

Fig. 4: off-centre 13x19" print

Fig. 4 shows what I consider to be an ideal page layout: top, bottom, right margins are roughly equal (in this case 1 inch), while the left margin is generously large (2.5 inches). If you see the book as being the primary form of presentation, off-centre margins make sense. If you see the book as being a temporary form of storage for prints that can also be framed, then normal margins are probably better.

Considerations

This form of presentation even has a significant advantage over fancier portfolios with clear acetate sleeves. Sleeves protect the print but at the expense of introducing reflections and clipping a bit of Dmax (the inkiness of your blackest blacks). Viewing a naked print is always superior to viewing the same print behind acetate, glass, or anything else less transparent than air.

Another major advantage is the ease of adding, rearranging, and removing content. If you should ever undertake producing your own "real" book of prints, this is a great way to shuffle your prints until you get just the right mix.

The disadvantage of showing loose prints is the risk of damage due to handling. A sleeveless book/folio doesn't provide as much protection as a sleeved portfolio, but it does provide considerably more protection than simply handling loose prints. To date, I haven't found this to be a problem.

Speaking of protection: if your cover board is rough, insert a blank or title page between it and the first print.

I haven't seen spine bars thicker than 1/2 inch, which puts a 20 or 30 sheet limit on the number of pages per book. This happens to work for me. For years I've been using Itoya Profolios that hold 48 prints each. I've noticed repeatedly that people spend only seconds looking at each image when confronted with that many pictures at a time. Ironically, if someone really likes the pictures, she'll still go through them quickly, then start over to go through them much more slowly. My sense is that 10 to 15 images is a good balance between too few and too many to digest in one sitting.

Still, if you need more than 20 or 30 images per book, use thinner paper stock and/or double-sided stock.

Think small

I find cutting a 13" x 19" sheet in half yielding 2 sheets 9.5" x 13" makes for a very nice sized photo book. I size the images in landscape orientation to 10.5" width with a right margin of 0.5". Standard letter-size (8.5" x 11") paper works nicely too, with an image width of 9". 11" x 14" (if you can find it) and the US standard 11" x 17" also work very well but require 1/2" spine bars to keep the pages from slipping.

Getting fancy

Besides a printed title plate with or without a picture pasted on to the front cover, you can also add pages of text, such as an introduction, and/or print text below or beside the image on any page.

Mat board would make elegant covers; the issue is that it's too stiff to allow the book to be opened. If I wanted to try using mat board, after I'd cut the board to the size of the prints, I'd then cut a 1/2 inch strip from the left edge then use cloth tape to re-attach the strip to the main part of the board. This should act as a hinge.