Vendor Spotlight : Unibind PhotoBook Creator

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This is the first of a series of articles highlighting the Unibind PhotoBook Creator, a great product we discovered at CHA Summer, who generously supplied some of our reporters with one of their PhotoBook Creator starter kits. Here's a blurb about Unibind in their own words:

PhotoBook Creator is the first low-cost do-it-yourself complete photo binding system for consumers. PhotoBook Creator makes it easy to create instant hard-cover personalized photo albums in only a few seconds. It is perfect to create photo albums for weddings, birthdays, graduations, vacations, baby showers, gifts, party mementos, and for scrapbooking. Priced at only $99.99, PhotoBook Creator features a sturdy steel spine that creates a perfectly bound hardcover of up to 220 pages in a variety of colors and finishes. Albums are available with a window allowing the first photo to be viewed through the cover.

Unibind PhotoBook Creator is available retail and includes the PhotoBook Creator binding machine, 1 hardcover PhotoBook, and software to layout pages. Additional photobooks are also available for purchase priced around $10/book. For more information, see the site website at:www.myphotobookcreator.com.

So, let's see what our reporters thought...

Reported by Julia Stainton

Now and then you discover a new product and think…now THIS is cool! In my opinion, the PhotoBook Creator by Unibind is one of those products. Until a couple months ago I had never heard of the PhotoBook Creator but once I did, I was quite intrigued. I’m so excited to have had the opportunity to try it out.

What is the Unibind PhotoBook Creator? It’s a fabulous binding system that lets you create your own hardcover bound books at home. I’d long been toying with the idea of ordering a bound book of digital images but all that uploading of photos just took up so much time that I didn’t get past one evening. I also like being able to create and design exactly what I want to put in it. I like having as many options open to me as possible. Unibind’s PhotoBook Creator allows me all that and still a completely easy and professional look. I love it.

The PhotoBook Creator comes with everything you need to get creating.

• One PhotoBook Creator binding unit

• 1 Black, linen, 3mm PhotoBook

• Layout software to download

I pulled it out to read the instructions and figure out how it all worked. What really impressed me was how easy this is to use. I’m used to having to play around with a machine or tool to really get a good grasp of what it can do. There are no buttons or settings on this machine. It does it all for you. Simply place your pages in the PhotoBook, plug in, lay the spine of the binding on your machine and the unit will turn on all by itself. A red light turns green when it is safe to remove the book. It just couldn’t be easier.

I also took the time to check out some web sources on this product. I found that you could add in extra pages and rebind the book if necessary. Wow! That is a winner in my book…sorry about the pun! I have to tell you, I experimented on a little press book that was included in my package after all…I just had to be able to tell you if this would work. I was thrilled to see that I could indeed unbind and rebind these books. How many times have you finished a project and thought…hmmm…I should have included such and such?! If you’re like me…quite a few. This feature really impressed me!

The PhotoBook Creator uses a thermal binding to create a beautiful hardbound book in literally minutes. Inside the binding of each book there is a steel U shaped channel that is filled with resin. As the resin melts, it binds the papers together and gives a strong bond.


The PhotoBook Creator has a wide range of book options available for purchase. I loved the elegant linen finish and the black is so classy and professional looking. I was amazed at all the options available when doing a little internet searching for the options. While not every option is available in every size, here's a short overview of what's available.

• sizes: 12x12, 8x8 landscape, 8.5 x 11 landscape, 5x7 landscape, 4x6 landscape
• colors: black, white, cabernet, navy, smoke, camel, ebony
  
• finishes:premium linen, faux suede, standard
• thickness: 3 mm, 5 mm, 7 mm, 9 mm
  

There are so many ideas for using this great binding system. I have a lot of digital layouts stored on my computer that I was so thrilled to print out and bind into a beautiful book. I’ve also found the perfect Mother’s day gift for my mother-in-law. I can’t wait to create a page for each of her loved ones and give it to her this year. Each time one of my children graduates I make them a special scrapbook of their school memories. This June, I’m totally inspired to create one that will be bound in a PhotoBook. How about weddings, recipes and quotes, mini gift albums, even special school projects? Wouldn't it make a fabulous portfolio of photographs or sketches? My next order will be for quite a few books to have on hand.

If you're new to creating digitally, you can download the PhotoBook Creator. Honestly...I wasn't that impressed with the software. It was extremely basic, the images a little dated and offered little flexibility. Of course...I've spend a lot of time learning Photoshop Elements and much prefer to create my own. If you don't own Photoshop Elements or another photo editing program, you may want to consider going this route as it will make a nice album and it is very user friendly for someone who has little digital skills. If you do own a program you like, I can tell you that it really isn't worth your time and money investing in the program. Simply use your own program, print and then bind. This is the only part of the product that I was less than thrilled with.



All this digital talk may have you a little skeptical about this product if you're more of a paper scrapper. Besides using these books for different occasions, there are many different types of paper and materials that can be bound in these books. Not only can you bind photo paper, you can also bind cardstock, transparencies, layout sleeves, flocked paper, embossed paper, patterned paper and the list goes on. The PhotoBook Creator would be a fabulous way to bind scrapbook pages to create a beautiful finished product. I cannot wait to try it.

For a test project on this product, I was thrilled to finally print out my digital pages and get them into an album. Now my pages were designed in a 12 x 12" format and the Photobooks I have on hand are 8.5 x 11". What to do? Well I certainly was not going to redo all my pages. That would take forever. Instead I simply opened the files, and then printed at a 60% format as well as turned them 90°. It was a super quick fix. One dilemma I did run into was exactly what to print the pages onto. I have beautiful photo paper for my ink jet printer but it says Epson on the back. Hmmm....I didn't want that ruining the look of my album. I found some great double-sided paper at Staples and it worked like a dream.


Pros:

• Professional quality binding
• No waiting for shipping…make up your book and immediately use it or give it away
• Incredibly quick and easy to use.
• You can bind almost any kind of paper you wish in it...almost endless possibilities
• Easy and compact storage
  

Cons:

• initial investment makes this something you'll want to use more than once
• Software is not my flavor..not a deal breaker for me as I hadn't planned on using it anyway
  
• depending on your area, you may be only able to purchase these books on-line
  

The starter kit is available:

• $99.99 from Amazon.com
  
• $119.99 from Target.com
  
• $125.99 from Digital Scrapbook Place
  
• $99.95 from Adorama ships to Canada too!
  

The Unibind PhotoBook Creator is a great product that would appeal to crafters, photographers and almost anyone who loves pictures of their loved ones. It makes a great coffee table book, is fun to create and I feel is good value for the money if you're planning to enjoy creating quite a few books. The PhotoBook Creator gets a 9 out of 10 from me and I can't wait to create another one. Ordering a large quanitity of these books to have on hand is at the top of my to do list.

So...... Is the Unibind PhotoBook Creator as cool as I originally thought? Absolutely! Fun. Easy to use. I love it! Craft Critique actually has a fabulous You Tube Video here for you to check out. What do you think? Cool or what?

Have you created your own PhotoBook? We'd love to hear your thoughts too!