artifact uprising layflat photo book

just before christmas i worked on a post for well rounded x artifact uprising, giving away one of au’s layflat photo books. artifact gifted me a book in return, and it was perfect timing because steven and i had just decided not to buy gifts for each other this year — and we had never had our wedding photos printed.

i know a lot of people who are interested in these layflat books so i wanted to share some details about the finished product. it’s a big investment, with books starting at $239, so i wanted to show some real life, not studio images along with my thoughts.

the book comes in this sturdy box, to keep it safe. that’s a nice touch.

there are quite a few cover and foil color choices, but we wanted to keep it simple with black and gold. the canvas hard cover and foil stamping on the front is very impressive, though on the smaller stamping on the spine you can see isn’t perfect. i might be nitpicking here, but there are two tiny imperfections. i’m sure foil stamping is hard the smaller it gets.

my biggest qualm with every au product i’ve ordered is the saturation. images they print are always way darker than the originals i uploaded. back in 2015, when i ordered my first of seven au products, i emailed in to tell them i was disappointed that the saturation was so far off. they responded that the eggshell paper i printed on soaked up more ink. i did mention maybe that should be a disclaimer on the site. that still isn’t mentioned on their website and still is an issue, even with this lustre paper. look at stevens skin — it’s orangey red. he is definitely not that color in real life. and if you’ve ever gone disc shooting you know those clay rounds are hunter orange, not red.

overall, i keep going back and will continue to go back to au because their products are the most professional looking you can get as a consumer. but i do wish the printing was more true to color.

would my husband have noticed this if i didn’t point it out though? maybe not.

here’s a look at the layflat component. it’s pretty great, the folds in the middle are about as small as they can be.

and the pages are super thick, which really adds to the quality and professional feel of this book.

overall i am a huge fan of this book. so thankful au gifted it to us, and love having our wedding pictures somewhere tangible.

i added pages to this book, which brought its total to somewhere around $300, which is pretty expensive and out of our price range. BUT here is my big tip for au: they often have sales of 20% off. so go ahead and make your book and keep it in your “projects”. it will stay there forever, every project i’ve ever made is still in mine. then, when you get that discount email, pull the trigger!

tl;dr love the book so much, but saturation is a little too high.