Become Your Own Bookmaker

Most of us photographers are perfectionists. Finding the perfect portfolio presentation for our images among the hundreds of options is daunting. We all know packaging is everything. I once heard it’s the sizzle and the ambiance that sells when you walk into a restaurant, not the food itself! I don’t know a photographer who doesn’t secretly hold this fantasy of having his or her own coffee-table book that actually looks like a coffee-table book—you know, as in the kind you buy at Barnes & Noble that just exudes elegance and prestige, making egos explode with pride.

I had this vision for years and along came the online bookmaking services. There are dozens upon dozens of these companies on the Web. I was so excited I jumped! After three weeks of waiting I got the book back, heart racing, tore open the box and there it was—mediocre printing and cheap bookbinding. Gravely disappointed, I sent it back and tried a considerably more upscale company that boasted of high quality printing. This time the printing was great but the pages were as thick as cardboard and the book weighed a ton. I searched further but every bookbinding company’s products all looked the same for the most part. They all offered colored linen covers with a window cut open and the largest size available was a 9 x 12 landscape. They just screamed of “mommy homemaker,” not pro photographer. I needed to separate myself from the crowd and define my own style. I was lost and frustrated. This isn’t the coffee-table book I had in mind.

I knew what I wanted; top-quality printing (like actual prints from high quality scans) that had the same depth, detail, color saturation and thickness. The pages had to be double-sided of course and both lightweight and durable—thin enough to flip through quickly, but strong enough so pages wouldn’t fray on the edges. The pages also had to be archival to withstand fading and color shifting from UV light exposure, and the book had to be lightweight, not more than an average-sized coffee- table book. The most important element had to be the cover, impressive enough to establish my credentials as a pro photographer and intriguing enough to seduce the viewer to open it. Lastly, I’m impatient and didn’t want to wait three weeks to get the book produced and sent back to me.
Since I have several different collections of work I knew I would need several different books. My work is a combination of antiqued vintage-looking images as well as colorful, warm contemporary images so I was seeking the right presentation for each one of these collections. My existing portfolios had these horrible pages that looked plastic and scratched easily. Inserting two prints plus the plastic made the pages extra thick and the book super heavy. Placing even two books into my carry case to take to a client resulted in numerous trips to 
a chiropractor!
Somehow I just knew I had to take the ball, or book, into my own hands, literally. After doing some research with my assistant, Wayne, we found this bookbinding machine for $100 by Photobook Creator from Unibind (www.myphotobook
creator.com). I wasn’t hopeful. Thoughts of having to mess around with something complicated in my insanely busy life were not appealing. We bought the machine anyhow. It’s everything and more than expected—small and lightweight and the instructions for use seemed almost too easy to be true. All you have to do is plug it in, wait for it to heat up and that’s about it! Currently, a 12 x 12 book spine is the largest option available; all spines cost $8.50 each. I’m still waiting for a larger machine to be offered so I can make a vertical 11 x 14 book with a full image bleed.
My vintage image collection “Timeless Lifestyles” needed a completely different design. This was not to be a coffee-table book but something that looked like an old, weathered family heirloom from centuries past. I use Brewer Cantelmo bookmakers (www.brewer-cantelmo.com), which make a variety of custom leather portfolios. I chose an 11 x 14 book with screw posts (about $300) that allows the insertion and removal of pages by simply unscrewing the posts—a very common portfolio book design system. I then selected a pale natural leather cover and had a custom name stamp plate made, which cost about $80, and can be used again for other books. It was a fairly easy process. To weather or age the leather exterior I scratched the surface a little with a metal wool pad and then used Fiebing’s Antique Finish leather dye and simply blotted the putty-like substance on the leather very gently with a scrunched textured rag, waited 10–20 minutes for it to set in and blotted it again with a dry cloth to create a very patina look.
 
Paper
The next hurdle was creating the pages. In a quest for ultimate image quality and long lasting archival purposes, (after all I wanted something to trademark my lineage with) I simply decided to print the pages myself from my Epson Stylus Pro 4000 with Ultrachrome pigment inks. Why not? These are the best quality prints I’ve ever seen. For my 12 x 12 coffee-table books I use 13 x 19-inch Inkpress Luster Duo, double-sided paper (approx $2.50 per sheet) and trim the pages to size with my professional Rota Trimmer (about $300 new but I’ve seen them on eBay for $100). Using this paper, the book holds about 30 double-sided pages (this will vary depending on the paper and book cover thickness you choose).
For my 11 x 14 vintage book I use Moab Entrada Rag Natural 190. These pages are inserted into the book’s three-ring peg spine by punching holes in a hinged, double-sided cloth tape folded in half. The result of the hinges creates a slightly uneven page stacking, which adds even more to its vintage appearance.

Designing
The books’ page layouts are designed in Adobe Photoshop. Each book is a collection of specific ideas that illustrate a specific theme that sort of tells a story. I pay close attention to the overall look and feel of the collection in terms of image style, color tones and page design. It should flow from page to page and have a trademark stamp. I like a consistent simple design mix that rotates between people and their complementary relationship to 
inanimate objects.

Printing
The pages are numbered in the order I want them to appear then sent to a print queue for printing in Adobe Lightroom. Lightroom is awesome for printing large quantities of different files because you can edit the print sizes to match the paper and select specific files to print in the queue. I select all even numbered files, print them, let them dry a few minutes (allowing the ink to set into the paper) then flip them over, reinsert the paper back into the printer and print the odd numbers. It’s as simple as that.
Binding
The PhotoBook Creator is easy to use and the binding process is very fast. Place your photos, cut to the correct size, into one of their hardcover book covers and place it into the machine spine down. A red indicator light comes on to indicate it’s in progress, and 90 seconds later the light turns green to indicate that it’s done. Let it cool and your book is bound. The heat-set glue used to bind the pages is really strong and holds the pages in the cover very well, however, as added security, we usually put my books through at least twice since we use pretty thick paper, and we allow it to cool down for 10–20 minutes so the glue sets properly. If you need to remove a page you simply reheat the binder and slide the page out immediately before it has any time to cool.

Book Jackets
Once the books are bound, the jackets are applied. To give the books their coffee-table book look a printed cover is necessary. Carefully measuring the cover as well as the spine, the entire book jacket is printed on one piece of paper and, if needed, trimmed down to size. To reduce the amount of scratches from the general wear and tear of handling, the covers are sprayed with several coats of protective spray, (I use Krylon UV-Resistent Clear Matte Spray coating, approximately $10 per can), and let dry completely, about 10–20 minutes. The final step is then to spray adhesive on the backside, (I use 3M Super 77 Spray Adhesive, $10), and the jackets are very carefully wrapped around the book covers and that’s it!

Elizabeth Etienne has over 20 years of experience as a wedding, advertising, portrait and interior photographer with her images appearing in numerous magazines, ad campaigns and fine art galleries all over the world. She is the author of the soon-to-be-released book titled From Snapshot to Cashbox. For more info go to: www.eephoto.com. For more information on Elizabeth Etienne’s workshops you may visit her website: www.dreamteamphotoworkshops.com.