Professional Photo Books.com

Photographers of every level see their best shots as art. The problem is, very few of us have homes that are large enough to display all of our best shots framed on our wall. That means that we need to find another way of displaying our best work.

We’re not talking about shots from other people’s weddings or their family portraits. We’re talking about the shots that you take for yourself: photos from your fall drives through New England or your vacation to Europe; shots that you’ve captured of your own family and friends.

Printed photo books provide the chance to create your own coffee table books.

When you choose printed photo books to showcase and display your art, you’ll find that you’re able to choose the size that’s right. You’ll be able to choose your own cover - whether you print a photo on the cover or choose leather or linen. You’ll be able to customize end sheets and dust jackets.

More importantly, you’ll find that because books are printed with the best quality inks and printers, you won’t have to worry about printing issues or fading. Because the books are bound with both stitching and glue, you won’t have to worry about them falling apart - no matter how many times you, your family and friends or your guests flip through them.

Why settle for using photo books to market your professional work? A well-designed photo book will enable you to showcase the photos that are most important to you.

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Photographers often set themselves apart from designers. As a photographer, you look at light, setting and you capture a scene or a portrait. Though you’ve put the time and effort into honing your skill - from taking photos to developing them, from shooting in digital to after the shot processing - you may still be using a conventional portfolio or a digital album to show off your best work.

Maybe you’ve heard about using professional photo books to display your work, but even with layout guides, there’s still something that stops you from being able to create the book that you’re looking for - at least the first time that you create one.

That’s why Embassy Pro Books also offers design services from a full-service creative team that will work with you to display your best work. The team can consult with you to get a sense of what you’re looking for, contribute some retouching and enhancement services and photo book layout.

You’ll have all of the benefits of marketing with a printed photo book - even without designing it yourself.

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As a photographer, you have choices. Some of them pertain to whether you shoot indoors or outside. Some of them are related to whether you shoot traditional 35mm, large format or digital.

Other choices, however, come down to what you do to market your services. Will you create a traditional portfolio? Would it be beneficial to market yourself with images burned to a CD or DVD? Should you consider using printed photo books as a marketing tool?

With a traditional portfolio, you can show 8×10’s that showcase your style, but the display will be - in some ways - limited. Using CDs or DVDs on some levels makes sense, but there are some concerns about compatibility between PCs and Macs, regional DVD players and the quality of the burn (and, depending on who you are presenting images to, occasionally digital images CD and DVD copies seem somehow flat).

Printed photo books, on the other hand allow you to get the best of both worlds. Like a portfolio of prints, photo books are tangible. Like a CD or DVD of digital images, with a photo book, you can position shots more carefully, create striking layouts and engage your audience.

Though there may be times that a CD or DVD and other forms of digital marketing are appropriate, in most cases you’ll find that marketing your work with digital photo books allows you to show off your creativity and to truly capture the ways in which you see your work as art.

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Pro photographers go nowhere without a camera. Sure, you may not take the SLR with you everywhere, but even when you run a quick errand, chances are good that you have a point and shoot in the car just like - back in the days before digital - many of us kept a 35mm disposable in the car just in case.

As a result, it’s a safe bet to think that whether you specialize in portraits or nature shots, weddings or wildlife, you take a camera with you when you travel. It’s more likely than not that you know how much you can capture with your camera.

But what do you do with your travel photos once you get back? Do you find yourself making prints or creating digital albums? Do you wish that there were more that you could do?

Printed photo books are a great way of doing more with your travel shots. Create your own coffee table books based on your trip to the Caribbean, a week in Yosemite, your safari in Kenya or your summer backpacking in Europe.

Who knows, with printed photo books, you just may find that you’re able to branch out into a new side career: travel photography.

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As a photographer, you do you best to create value for your clients. You invest in the best lenses because you know that the best glass is what makes a great photo. You invest in lighting and metering, great backdrops. You know what it takes to pose a great shot and to make anyone look their best.

The one thing, however, that can truly set you apart from other photographers is the way that you create prints. When you use a customized photo book, you are able to display the unique print layouts that you offer.

In this way, it’s possible to use photo book marketing as an opportunity to create great looks - and for your clients to know exactly what to expect.

Do you offer interesting portrait layouts such as a shot mounted on an angle against a complimentary background that highlights the individual’s interests? Within your photo book, you can display this effect - combining colors, portraits and angles that do more to capture who the person in the photo is.

If you work with models, you can use photo books to market the look of your Z Cards to show how you can help them to market themselves (the same goes for actors and actresses, stylists and makeup artists as well).

In other words, marketing with photo books is a great way of showing your clients what their options are. It makes choosing their sitting easier and helps them to know what they’re looking for when they order prints.

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Once you start thinking that using a professional photo book to display your images and market your photography business, there’s really only one question left to ask: is photo book layout challenging?

Laying out your photo book is far simpler than learning ISO values, figuring out the appropriate white balance and to know how long to expose the film to capture a full moon peeking out from behind a cloud. If you are already familiar with editing photos using Photoshop, you’ll have no problem using our templates to design your photo book.

Simply download the appropriate layout from the photo book download page. Open the templates with Photoshop. Pay attention to gutter and trim lines that are included. Each image will add a new layer, so you’ll want to be sure to flatten layers before submitting your layout for print.

In other words, laying out a photo book is as simple as choosing the appropriate template and using it to guide your choices. The real challenge, however, will still fall on finding the right images from your portfolio and arranging them in a way that makes sense for the book that you’re designing - rehearsal photos before wedding photos; portraits of a family’s children arranged by age.

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As a photographer, you know that there are things that you do differently. For some wedding photographers, it’s about specializing in outdoor weddings. For some portrait photographers, the key is getting each subject to act natural - regardless of what’s natural for them.

You put the time into finding the perfect camera - whether you’re a Canon guy or a Nikon guy. You spend time finding the perfect lenses: you don’t just settle for putting a conventional SLR lens on a digital SLR - you make sure that the glass and the way light passes through is perfect.

So, here’s a question for you: why would you settle for just any photo book to showcase your work? It takes professional photo books to show that you’re taking your work to the next level.

You don’t want to work with just any printer and binder, you want to be sure that the printer you choose has a library quality printing and binding department. You want to be sure that, when you’re using a photo book to display your work, you are able to showcase your photos - not printing flaws that are beyond your control. You want to be sure that you are working with a company that will stand behind their work - just as you’re willing to stand behind your own.

After all, it’s the attention to detail that sets you apart as a photographer. It’s also that attention to detail that sets professional photo books apart from the rest of the pack.

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There comes a time when every photographer needs to present his or her work to others. Whether your goals include being featured in an exclusive gallery or in a local coffeeshop, whether you take photos of pets or scenic landscapes, weddings or children, showing your work to someone in a position to make a decision is the key to getting your foot in the door.

When gallery owners call for submissions, they may have rigid criteria for submissions, but when you go into a coffeeshop, what’s going to set you apart more: using a printed photo book or handing over a CD of your work? Printed photo books, in these situations just make sense - if only because musicians drop off CDs of their music.

Similarly, when you want to have an impact and show off your portraiture skills, printed photo books give you a chance to give parents, engaged couples and families more than just a demonstration of your best work, but also a sense of how their own photos could be organized - something that will also help to market your services and set you apart from other photographers in your area.

Setting yourself apart and showcasing your work are the keys to promoting your career as a photographer. Why not choose a tool that lets you do both at the same time?

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If you live in a small town, you may be the only wedding photographer in the area and, as a result, marketing your services is pretty straightforward: you take out an occasional ad, hand out business cards and know that word of mouth advertising will bring you clients. But what would you do if another photographer came into town: what would you offer to keep people coming your way?

On the other hand, if you live in a more metropolitan area, you know that you’ve got competition. You open a local wedding directory and find that your contact information is nestled in with the details of twenty, fifty or 200 other photographers. Sure, you can use a blog and website to differentiate yourself. You can provide samples of your work. You can even attend seminars and take more classes so that you can perfect your art. But what if you started to offer something that none of the other wedding photographers in your area did: what if you started to use photo book marketing?

With a professional photo book, you’ll be able to showcase your best work. You may find that designing a photo book that captures all of the styles past clients have selected that you show to prospective clients lets people see that you’re willing to work with them to capture their memories their way. You could also choose to use a photo book as a different type of marketing vehicle - an album package that your competitors don’t offer. Rather than creating a traditional wedding album, a photo book can capture a couple’s special day in a unique and special way.

No matter how you choose to utilize photo book marketing within your business, you’ll find that it definitely has its place.

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Because digital photography is accessible to everyone, more and more people are out there taking great photos. We get out there and capture great shots of family members and friends. We take vacation photos that are so fantastic that they could have been in a travel magazine.

In part, sure, this is because we can see a shot right after we take it and if there’s a problem we can just hit delete and try it again. In part it’s because of the commitment that we make to taking great photos - both in our work and in our personal lives.

But there’s a downside. It used to be that after an event or a trip we’d run off and get the film developed because we wanted to see what was there. Now, though, there are people who never get their photos off of the memory card in their camera - or if they do, those pictures end up on our computers - not printed out where we can share them with others.

Printed photo books not only get those great shots out of the camera and off of our computers, but they give us a chance to share those great moments that we captures with others.

We’ve all looked at coffee table books that feature a photographer or moments in a place. Many have hung their best photos or created albums to memorialize a trip. Printed photo books let us preserve our memories in a great looking album - with them, you can create your own coffee table book.

This is great way of showcasing casual work, not just shots of food or models or other people’s families. It’s a way of preserving our own memories, creating great gifts for family and friends. Beyond that, who knows, a printed photo book with great travel shots might just be the thing that helps you to break into a new market.

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