A couple weeks ago I reviewed 5 Online Wedding Photo Book Apps and my favorite choice was Pinhole Press. I got some really great tips and feedback from some of you, and a couple of you mentioned Artifact Uprising. So before I created my book, I took some time to play with Artifact Uprising, and really liked their app. However, I still went with Pinhole Press, and I thought I’d share my findings and what ultimately swayed my opinion.
I set out to design my photo book on both systems at the same time. This way I would see exactly how the products differ and if one had more problems in one area over another. Practically right away I encountered a HUGE problem with Artifact Uprising. They would not allow me to upload any photos larger than 12MB. Yes, 12MB is a very large file size for upload, but Pinhole Press didn’t have this road block. They allowed me to upload as many huge files as I wanted and the upload time was pretty fast. So I was forced to resize my photos if I wanted to use them on Artifact. Now, I know how to do this because I know photoshop really well, but I would wager to guess that the average user does not know how to downsize their pictures, and would give up at this step. Please tell me if I’m wrong.
Going through photoshop to downsize photos not only takes a long time, but also might compromise the quality of your pictures. For print, you always want to use the highest quality, largest files possible. So obviously it made me nervous to downsize my precious photos (saved as copies of course) not knowing how the print might turn out.
As far as features and general usability, the two systems are very similar. The Pinhole product is lovely white and minimal which I like, and the Artifact layout is a dark interface and has a lot more buttons, weird double click edit tools that I found slightly cumbersome. Overall, they’re pretty similar, and I did like the font choices Artifact gives you.
Major problem #2 was the ability to have a photo span a 2 page spread. This creates a visually stunning layout and was something I was adamant about having in my book. But alas, Artifact Uprising doesn’t allow you to do this. At Pinhole Press, you have to choose the “Panoramic Book“, which gives you a flat inseam on the binding. It’s a bit more expensive, but definitely worth it to me. We had so many beautiful, wide photos I wanted to show off. This is when I stopped using Artifact Uprising, and finished my project with Pinhole Press.
Now, if you don’t care about the 2 page photo spread, and you don’t have super large photos over 12MB, then I really think Artifact Uprising is a great tool—probably better because of the different color cloth bindings, the interesting book jackets, and the font choices. Also, they’re slighly cheaper.
An 8.75 x 8.75 inch photo book with 61 pictures at Pinhole Press is $84.99.
An 8.5 x 8.5 inch photo book with 50 pages at Artifact Uprising is $69 with the ability to add a pages for $1 each.
For those of you who don’t know, I actually get hired to design these kinds of complex creation tools, so it was really interesting for me to dig deep into the usability of these 2 great products. And, I actually know what I’m talking about when I rate them!
I hope this helps you choose the right product for making your next book project. Photo products like the ones Pinhole and Artifact offer are amazing holiday gifts, and as you may have guessed from my timing, that’s exactly what I used them for! But no more, or else I’ll ruin the surprise…
