Review: Albelli photo book

Albelli allows users to create photo products such as books and calendars. Unlike similar websites it doesn’t offer such things as mugs and magnets – instead it specialises in paper-based products.

Again, unlike some websites Albelli doesn’t allow users to upload photos to its website. Instead it’s necessary to download the company’s Photo Book Creator Extra software.

This might seem like a hassle, but it’s actually a good thing. Software on your computer is usually more reliable than a web-based service and it also has more customisation options.

And instead of having to first upload the photos you want to put in the book, you can choose from any picture on your hard disk. The software then does the hard work of resizing and uploading them.

The program was a little on the slow side, but worked well, and allows lots of customisation in terms of resizing and rotating photos and adding text to pages. The book itself, which arrived about a week after ordering, was very impressive, with a good cloth binding and hard spine.

The 30cm square one we ordered, at £35 for 34 pages, was a pretty good deal, and smaller books start at only £10 – still with 24 pages.