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Hello, ladies, I know I've been promising a review of my Candid2000 flushmount album forever, and here it is! (I just got it a few minutes ago)

It looks fabulous. Seriously, it's exactly what I wanted. It's a flushmount album, 40 sides, 11x14", bound in black faux leather (the only "issue" some people might have with quality... no real leather option, it's all faux leather in different colors), and blind-embossed with our names and the date. The page corners are rounded, the gutter seam is, apparently 2mm wide (if that), and it comes wrapped in a fabric pouch, inside a presentation box. And the cost... $400. $407.50, including taxes.

The color and print quality is great-- I made a big point of buying a few test prints ahead of time, and I wasn't disappointed. All the colors show up true to what was on my screen, and the trimmed edges are exactly where they said they'd be (all pages are trimmed 1/8" on each outside edge).

I put in my order for the album on Dec. 5 and it was shipped on the 10th via UPS. (the issues I had with UPS are another, much longer and more annoying, story, but suffice it to say that it wasn't the printer's fault I didn't get my album until this afternoon)

The site is for photographers and for the general public-- the only difference for albums and composite prints is that while photographers who have real accounts can design their own layouts on the ordering software, regular people are stuck with the provided layouts. I didn't like many of them, so I used inDesign to create my own pages, and then uploaded them as full-page images to the order site.

You do have to download their "Express2K" software, and from there you create your album/print order, and upload it to their site. It's a lot like the Blurb software, though the ordering options can be a bit confusing.

Customer service is really fantastic. They have live online chatting available during business hours, and the people are very accommodating. I submitted my first album order before realizing that I'd submitted the wrong images, and they cancelled it for me, no problem. The only annoying thing is that you don't get provided a tracking number for your package when they ship it-- you can contact customer service and ask for it, but it's not automatic. And if you want to get info about your order outside of business hours, you can't just access it online, you have to wait to reach someone live.

 Anyway, I'll take pictures of the album as soon as I can, and see if the Bees will let me make a guest post about it! So excited and thrilled, it's PERFECT!!!!

The maximum number of pages you can put in an 11x14" album is 40, which is 40 sides and 20 actual sheets of paper. (so, one side for the first page, one side for the last, and 19 double page spreads) They charge you less for albums with fewer pages. You can fit 50 sides in a large square album, though.

As for how many pictures, I don't think there's a technical limit. I mean, there are many layouts available for you to plug different numbers and types of photos into, but you might not like the way they're arranged. I made my own layouts in Adobe InDesign and just put as many images in as I liked. You could also design your layouts in any other program, so long as it ends up being a high-res JPG file.

tanya2s -- Oh!  I am so excited for you and to hear that the results were good!  I can't wait to get our new computer and start designing!!

Question: did you have any text elements or graphic elements (other than photos) in yours?  How did they turn out? (I had poor results on my Blurb album on those...see my extremely lengthy Blurb post in Beehive for details.)  I want to include our logo that I used on everything, but I'm nervous it won't turn out nicely.  For $12, I'm OK with that...for $400, er, not so much. 

Hope Mrs. Bee lets you post as a guest a full review with photos in the blog! 

I had some text on one page, and I put the logo from our programs on the front page. Both turned out fine. Though again, I designed those pages in Photoshop and made the actual image the size of the full page, so there was no pixellation with the fonts or anything. I don't know what it would be like if you tried to put text in through the Express2K software. My logo and text were both in 300 pixels/inch, if not more, when I uploaded the images.

Oh, good news -- sounds like my logo, etc. will work.  (I'm doing design in a combo of Illustrator and Photoshop, so everything is either EPS, TIFF or high res JPEG.)  It's just something peculiar to Blurb 'cause of the way they upload/download to press.  All the other materials I had printed (VistaPrint, etc.) came out perfectly fine.  Just wanted to check that Candid2000 didn't do the same thing Blurb did.

Lilac, that's a great idea! I didn't see that option on there.  I'll have to take another look and try it out.  Thanks for the tip! 

Eugy--

I got the Tuscany, sorry for not specifying. It's the closest to what the other flushmount albums are, from other binders. Photos go right to the edge of the page, rather than having a border around them.

I didn't get the lacquer spray, though did I wonder whether I should have or not. The more I think about it, the more I think I should've just sucked it up and spent the extra $85, but that's just because I'm paranoid. I haven't seen any problems with our album, so I'm hoping that in the end it won't make much difference.

I feel like if the spray were essential to keeping the album in good condition, they'd have made it a regular part of the album and just charged more. So, up to you!