The editions
Softbound, hardbound, lay-flat, heirloom
Five build qualities. Each one bundles its cover material, paper stock and binding, so you choose a tier and a size instead of assembling a book from twenty dropdowns. Prices shown are the cheapest size at the fewest pages.
Softcover
Real press printing at the price of a photo order.
The Softcover exists so price is never the reason a book stays on a hard drive. Same press, same inks and same colour management as every tier above it; the difference is a laminated card cover instead of a board case, and a glued spine instead of a sewn one. It lies reasonably flat, survives a coffee table, and costs about what a set of prints used to.
- Offset-quality printing on 170 gsm silk art paper
- Perfect-bound spine, printed and titled
- Full-bleed pages — photos run to the trim edge
- Cheap enough to order five and hand them out
Paper
Silk art paper, 170 gsm
Cover
Matte laminated 300 gsm softcover
Printing
Offset-quality press, 300 dpi
$24.00
from, at 8 × 8 in · 20 pages
Classic Hardcover
The book most people mean when they say "photo book".
A proper case-bound hardback: board covers wrapped in your own photograph, a sewn-and-glued block that opens without cracking, and a printed spine so the book is findable on a shelf ten years from now. If you are making one book a year for the family, this is the one.
- Rigid case-bound board covers, photo-wrapped edge to edge
- Optional printed dust jacket at no extra cost
- 170 gsm silk pages, sewn and glued for a spine that survives rereading
- Spine printed with your title — it reads on a shelf
Paper
Silk art paper, 170 gsm
Cover
Photo-wrapped board, matte or gloss
Printing
Offset-quality press, 300 dpi
$44.00
from, at 8 × 8 in · 20 pages
Linen Hardcover
Woven linen and foil, for the book you do not want to look printed.
Uncoated 200 gsm stock has a quiet, papery surface that reads as a book rather than a print job — no glare under a lamp, no fingerprints on a dark page. The linen is real book cloth, wrapped by hand around the boards, with your title pressed into it in foil. It is the tier people keep buying twice because the first one got given away.
- Book-cloth linen in eight colourways, wrapped by hand
- Title foil-debossed into the cover — gold, copper, blind or white
- 200 gsm uncoated matte pages: no glare, no fingerprints
- Optional inset cover window for a single photograph
Paper
Uncoated matte art paper, 200 gsm
Cover
Natural woven linen with foil deboss
Printing
Offset-quality press, 300 dpi
$72.00
from, at 8 × 8 in · 20 pages
Lay-Flat Premium
Mounted spreads with no gutter. A photo can cross the middle.
A lay-flat book is built the opposite way round: each spread is printed as one flat sheet, mounted to board, then hinged to its neighbours. Nothing is lost in the middle, so a single image genuinely can span two pages — the reason wedding and landscape work belongs here and nowhere else. The pages are stiff enough to turn with one hand.
- Each spread printed as one sheet, mounted and hinged — opens at 180°
- No gutter: a face can sit in the centre of a spread and stay whole
- Rigid pages that hold their shape after a hundred openings
- Panorama trim sizes open to a full 26 inches
Paper
Double-thick mounted board, 200 gsm
Cover
Photo wrap or linen, your choice
Printing
Offset-quality press, 300 dpi
$112.00
from, at 8 × 8 in · 20 pages
Photographic Lay-Flat
Real photographic paper, developed in chemistry. No ink, no dots.
Every other tier is printed — ink placed on paper. This one is developed. The photographic paper is exposed to red, green and blue light and taken through the same chemistry as a darkroom print, so the image is continuous tone: there is no dot pattern to find under a loupe, and nothing for a gradient to band against. It is the difference people notice in faces first — a cheek or a forehead moves from light to shadow in one unbroken sweep. If your book is mostly portraits, this is the one to hold.
- True silver-halide photographic paper — exposed to light and developed
- Continuous tone: no halftone dot structure anywhere in the image
- Gradients, skin and shadow detail resolve smoother than any press can
- Mounted lay-flat spreads that open completely at 180°
- Rated 100+ years behind glass, 200 in an album
Paper
Fujicolor Crystal Archive photographic, 250 gsm
Cover
Book cloth or photo wrap, your choice
Printing
True photographic (silver-halide), 400 dpi
$159.00
from, at 8 × 8 in · 20 pages
Archival Heirloom
Cotton rag, pigment inks, leather and a slipcase. Built for a century.
Everything in this tier is chosen against one test: will it still look like this when someone who has not been born yet opens it? Cotton rag paper has no acid to yellow and no optical brighteners to burn off. Pigment inks sit on the surface as ground mineral rather than soaking in as dye, which is why the fade rating is measured in centuries instead of years. It is inspected by a person, spread by spread, and it ships in a slipcase.
- 310 gsm 100% cotton rag, acid-free and lignin-free
- Pigment inks, not dye — rated beyond 100 years without visible fade
- Full-grain leather case, foil-stamped, in a matching slipcase
- Hand-inspected spread by spread before it ships
- Free replacement if it fades in your lifetime
Paper
100% cotton rag, acid-free, 310 gsm
Cover
Full-grain leather with foil, in a slipcase
Printing
Offset-quality press, 300 dpi
$239.00
from, at 8 × 8 in · 20 pages
Giclée Atelier
Twelve pigment inks at 1200 dpi on Hahnemühle rag, hand-bound in a clamshell.
This is the process galleries and print-makers use, applied to a book. Twelve pigment inks — including three greys and two dedicated blacks — are sprayed at 1200 dpi onto 308 gsm Hahnemühle cotton rag. The extra greys are what stop monochrome work going flat or picking up a colour cast, and the gamut reaches saturated reds and deep blues that a four-colour press simply cannot reproduce. It is bound by hand in goatskin, housed in a clamshell box, and it is the most expensive thing we make by a wide margin. Most people should not buy it. For the book that has to be definitive, nothing else we offer comes close.
- Twelve-ink pigment giclée at 1200 dpi — three greys and two blacks
- Hahnemühle Photo Rag 308: 100% cotton, acid-free, no optical brighteners
- The widest colour gamut and deepest blacks we can produce
- Goatskin binding sewn by hand, in a cloth-covered clamshell box
- Numbered colophon page, and the option to sign the edition
- Every spread proofed and inspected individually before binding
Paper
Hahnemühle Photo Rag, 100% cotton, 308 gsm
Cover
Hand-bound goatskin in a cloth clamshell box
Printing
Giclée, 12-ink pigment, 1200 dpi
$429.00
from, at 8 × 8 in · 20 pages
Side by side
All seven, on one line each
| Edition | Printing | Binding | Cover | Paper | Lay-flat | Pages | Per extra page | From |
|---|---|---|---|---|---|---|---|---|
| Softcover | Press 300 dpi |
Perfect bound (softcover) | Matte laminated 300 gsm softcover | Silk art paper, 170 gsm | — | 20–120 | $0.55 | $24.00 |
| Classic Hardcover | Press 300 dpi |
Case bound (hardcover) | Photo-wrapped board, matte or gloss | Silk art paper, 170 gsm | — | 20–180 | $0.75 | $44.00 |
| Linen Hardcover | Press 300 dpi |
Case bound (hardcover) | Natural woven linen with foil deboss | Uncoated matte art paper, 200 gsm | — | 20–180 | $0.95 | $72.00 |
| Lay-Flat Premium | Press 300 dpi |
Lay-flat (mounted spreads) | Photo wrap or linen, your choice | Double-thick mounted board, 200 gsm | ✓ | 20–120 | $2.40 | $112.00 |
| Photographic Lay-Flat | Photographic 400 dpi |
Lay-flat (mounted spreads) | Book cloth or photo wrap, your choice | Fujicolor Crystal Archive photographic, 250 gsm | ✓ | 20–100 | $3.40 | $159.00 |
| Archival Heirloom | Press 300 dpi |
Lay-flat (mounted spreads) | Full-grain leather with foil, in a slipcase | 100% cotton rag, acid-free, 310 gsm | ✓ | 20–100 | $4.50 | $239.00 |
| Giclée Atelier | Giclée 1200 dpi |
Lay-flat (mounted spreads) | Hand-bound goatskin in a cloth clamshell box | Hahnemühle Photo Rag, 100% cotton, 308 gsm | ✓ | 20–80 | $8.50 | $429.00 |
“From” is the cheapest trim size at the fewest pages. Larger sizes multiply the whole price — see the size grid.
Price it now
Try any combination
Your price
$0.00
No account needed until you order.
Not sure which one?
Order the free sample kit. It has every cover material, all eight linen colourways and a printed swatch of each paper stock, and it costs nothing.