A photo book, from editor to delivery
A book of my own family, showing how it was made.
Most of what I've written here has been about the part you see: the editor, the price, what happens to your photos. This one's about the part you don't.
Last week our printer photographed one book for us at each machine it went through. It's a book I made on my computer of my own family's year, "Our 2026", so I can show you every step without using anyone else's pictures.
We never use a customer's book or photos without their permission.
When you order, your book becomes two print files, one for the cover and one for the 28 inside pages. The pages are printed on 150gsm silk paper. The cover goes on thicker 300gsm silk card as one long sheet, with the back and front side by side, because the spine is just a fold.
The cover is then gloss-laminated, which means a thin film is pressed onto the outside. Then the cover and the inside pages are cut down to their finished size.
The machine I like best is the stitcher. Cover and pages go in together, two heads make staples from reels of wire and drive them through the middle, and the machine folds the book in half. A flat stack of paper goes in one end and a book comes out of the other. Its counter read 1,839,507 when ours went through. That's a lot of books!
Then it goes into a stiff board envelope marked "Do not bend", and into a Royal Mail post box. When it's on its way, we email you its tracking number, and most books arrive within a week.
Because your email address is optional, we can only send you a tracking number if you provide one.
None of this is unusual for a printer. I wanted to show it because a £10 price can make people wonder what they'll actually get. They get real paper, real staples, and machines that have done this a great many times before.
Every step, with all the photos, is on How your photo book is made.