Alpha Photography Blog

Digital has changed the face of how we look at our photos - literally.  There are now all sorts of ways to display photos. 

Traditional photo albums have given way to electronic albums, and printed photo books.

Traditional versus Digital Albums

It comes down to personal taste, and budget.  In many ways a traditional album is more versatile, and generally less expensive.  You buy an album you like the look of, and slide your photos, or stick them, in.  Sure there’s the cost of printing the photos, but you can take them in and out of the album if ever you want to.

A digital album, kept on the computer, is less accessible, and relies on the fact that you have easy access to a computer, and requires quite a bit of fiddling to get the photos into the right order, in the folders they’re supposed to be in, etc….  Also, you can’t pass the album around, as you have to be sitting in front of the computer to see anything.  This style does have the advantage of being cheaper - no cost of printing.

Then there’s the printed photo book - retailers offering to turn your photos into coffee table books, complete with graphic designed layouts and text to complement the images.  This is a nice gimmick, and can be a good way of reproducing the same album multiple times.  But, it does tend to reduce the resolution of the images, and then there’s the possibility that the paper won’t last as long as photo paper…

Specialty Albums 

Like with most things these days, there’s also a trend to go even more old school, and that is to hand-make your own albums.  Here are a couple of examples of albums I’ve made to house my photos:

Specialty items are becoming more and more popular, as consumers become spoiled for choice.  So, something that’s different and somewhat unique has its appeal.  They do tend to be more expensive, which makes them a better gift idea.  Or, you can simply learn how to make them yourself!

Scrapbooking

Another trend which has been going strong for a few years now is scrapbooking.  Joining a similar club as quilting and knitting (thought with a younger demographic), scrapbooking can make photo albums as elaborate, or understated as the person wants.  They can look pretty spectacular, but do require quite a bit of time and creativity, not to mention money.  The cost can skyrocket pretty quickly.

The choices these days are almost endless!

This entry was posted on Monday, December 10th, 2007 at 2:00 am and is filed under Photo Editing & Printing. You can follow any responses to this entry through the RSS 2.0 feed. You can leave a response, or trackback from your own site.