Hi all,

To say lockdown has been a very ‘unusual’ time for all us photographers would be a massive understatement. We are having to find new ways to continue our art and to maintain our businesses in times where photography has been placed temporarily on the back burner.

Having seen an advertisement for SaaL Digital photo books, I was lucky enough to be selected to trial their products and having been initially sceptical (we all get worried about phishing and online safety in this day and age) I am absolutely overjoyed to find that this is a fantastic company offering beautiful quality printed books.

I had somewhat unusually received a few requests from previous clients asking me to create their Wedding photo books in time for Christmas (this was in the 2nd week of December!). I am not specifically a wedding photographer and therefore the photography would not be my own. The clients had informed me that their photographers had very sadly gone out of business due to Covid 19 and could no longer honour the contract to create their wedding books for them.

I was happy to rise to the challenge and hopefully save the day. I had made a few books before for customers but had always been very disappointed with the turnaround time, delivery and lack of layout options that some of my previous printing providers had offered. I immediately thought of my SAAL digital trial and downloaded the software onto my Mac.

I was instantly struck by how easy and intuitive the software was to use. The layout options ranged from easy, where the software drops your images in to beautifully spaced and perfectly graphic designed boxes to a complete free reign for those with more advanced layout skills.

With the time constraints involved and having been so disappointed with missed deadlines before, I chose the former. I wanted to allow as much time as possible for the books to be delivered so that I could check them over before offering them to my customers.

After a LOT of to’ing and fro’ing of images and revision after revision (remembering that I had no idea about the Weddings, the family members or the chronology of the photography on the days) I finally had the go ahead to send them to print.

My customers chose two of the 30x30 sized and one 21x 21 sized professional line photo books in linen and dark grey leather. The books are also ‘lay flat’ which means that even if you have a full double page spread, the image is perfectly readable and with no horrible curved crease to the middle.

I placed my orders on the 17th and 18th December respectively and was given an approximate delivery date of the 24th December. I informed my clients that I couldn’t promise them a before Christmas delivery as I had never used Saal before and I also new that the Post Office was struggling to meet it’s Christmas postal commitments.

I was absolutely over the moon to take delivery of my first photo book on the 21st December! I am still completely amazed that they turned my order around in the time that they did, what an incredible service!

I delivered the book to my client and they were completely speechless as to the quality and finish (as was I) The natural linen cover, font and typesetting was beautiful, the printing and chosen semi gloss paper was perfect and the layout was exactly as I had curated.

It was beautiful.

The 2nd and 3rd orders arrived on the 18th December and were also of exceptionally high quality like the first, and so much better than any other service I have ever previously used.

I really cant rate Saal Digital any higher, they are a 10 out of 10 service- for design, quality and delivery. I highly recommend them to anyone who would like a lasting keepsake of a special event, memento or a creative project.

I liked them so much I even created one of my own wedding for my husband for Christmas. It is a lasting, quality book that we will have in our family for a lifetime and beyond, our children love to look through it and we have received so many compliments from family and friends!