It sounded like a fair deal. A 100 Euro voucher from Saal Digital to test their professional photo album service in exchange of an honest review. The latter is what you are reading right now. A few minutes after clicking on the corresponding ad on Instagram, I got everything I needed: a voucher code and a deadline. I decided to make a photo album of my trip to Nice last summer, but of course, I left it to the last moment. Time flies and by the time I realised, I had just one evening left to actually work on the album. I used their software Saal Design, which I had criticised some time ago, but this time I had no complaint. The design process went smoothly and I submitted my order within a few hours. Most of the time went into selecting the right pictures out of the hundreds that I had taken, which is of course the hardest part. Once the pictures were ready, placing them in the album and finalising the layout was a piece of cake.

I was very curious to see how the acrylic cover would look like

I chose the 30 cm x 21 cm Professional Line Photo Book with acrylic cover and silk photo paper. Saal Digital also offers adding a gift box, but I skipped it because it felt quite overpriced. Once the order was placed, the delivery time was amazingly fast. It took them less than 48 hours to produce and deliver the photo book. I imagine that the process is fully automated, but still, I think this is impressive. Even though the shipping company stuffed the book into my mailbox, the packaging was really robust and the book arrived with no damage. I was pleased at how well the acrylic cover turned out and at the high quality of the photo prints. The silk photo paper gave the album a particularly nice look and feel. Overall, I was very satisfied with the result. A professional photographer may disagree, but for me as an enthusiast, the quality felt excellent. The 100 Euro voucher of course contributes to the satisfaction, but still, I have no complaints on the result.

The acrylic cover gives the photo album a nice finish

The binding allows the pages to lay flat, and thus pictures are fully visible

As expected, the acrylic cover does make the album significantly heavier and thicker