Together with my friend and colleague Jikang, I spent the day exploring some places along the Baltic coast. After a two hour drive, we started our Journey in Wismar, where we mostly pilgered from one church to another. We haf a view into St. Georgen, but did not take the elevator to the observation level. On towards St. Nikolai, we had a view into the Heiligen Geist church, which impressed us quite a lot with its beautiful wooden roof. Also St. Nicolai was very impressive. Unfortunately, we did not had the time for a tour into the vault.
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For 10 years now I have been creating a photo book every year. It all started with a voucher from Cewe, which I got when I bought my first own camera. Because I wanted to save money, it became the smallest format and the book was created with the in-house photobook software. Thanks to templates this was done quickly and easily. I also designed the next two photobooks in the compact format, but since the third one I have been using layflat binding consequently since then. In the fourth year I not only changed the format but also the manufacturer. PosterXXL was simply cheaper and I was satisfied. I ordered a photo book in A4 format six times – interestingly, the last two are even a bit bigger than the books before. Due to small misprints (which were hard to detect in advance with the in-house software) and the much too dark print, the next book should be from another manufacturer. By a very funny coincidence I came across an ad from Saal Digital, who were looking for a product tester. I then applied with this website. To be honest, I had not really thought about it.
In fact, I was then selected as product tester for their Professional Line photo book. I could have designed about 44 pages without extra payment, but in the end it became a lot more.
Admittedly, my biggest disappointment with the previous photo books was always connected to the screen of my laptop, because it was simply not colourfast. So when I built a new desktop, I got myself two screens that cover at least 100% of the sRGB color space. The pictures I have developed since then with Lightroom would most likely be ok with the other manufacturers, the final product at Saal Digital simply convinced me. The pictures are just as I wanted them to be.
The Professional Line photobook itself is high quality. The pictures are shown to their best advantage. I was very sceptical about the acrylic cover until I ordered it, but a product completely bound in leather would be a bit too simple for me. When I held the book in my hands after a little delay I was more than surprised by the cover. The depth effect is just terrific. The book looks very high quality and attractive at the same time.
One of my biggest criticisms is always the software of the manufacturers. To be honest, Cewe does not take much to Posterxxl. But with Posterxxl you can at least rely on the fact that the software constantly crashes during larger projects. Actually, I should have switched to Adobe InDesign long ago – but the subscription is definitely too expensive for me in addition to Photoshop and Lightroom. So to keep up the comparison, I also used the software of the manufacturer for the new photo book.
Surprisingly, this sets it apart from the other providers. It is very professionally structured. You can create your own layouts without much effort and yet the software is understandable even for the layman and absolutely easy to use. So it’s quite fun to create your own photo book and even make it a little more creative. The partly really cute templates I can imagine well with other projects.
I at least know now already with whose software I will continue to work in the future. Saal Digital is certainly not the cheapest supplier for photo books, but what I have seen of the company so far speaks for itself, which is why I am already considering other products. Since I have only finished my Australia Tour photo book so far, I have to make a photo book for the rest of 2019. But this will not be a Professional Line photobook – that would be a bit too expensive for me personally – although I don’t want to exclude it in the future; after all it is my best photobook so far. At least I am grateful to have found out about Saal Digital through the product test.
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You can see that Merlin Entertainments is a little more professional than the medium-sized company nearby. It is therefore less surprising that the Heide Park Resort is also making exemplary progress in its implementation of the Corona measures. The entrance including instructions on how to wear your mask in the park simply works smoothly. In the park itself this is a different game, as many visitors do not want to follow the rules. Masks can be worn at will, often they only cover the mouth and not the nose. Also keeping distance is often an unsolvable task during the course of the day despite existing and clearly visible ground markings. Only in the attractions themselves the rules are respected. This is a pity and only ensures a large number of announcements.
Despite maximum capacity, the Corona measures taken result in longer queues at each attraction. The staff is visibly trying to keep the operation running at its best despite the measures taken. In this respect I would like to thank all the ride ops in the park; you guys are really great!
But as the queues were partly too exhausting for myself, I enjoyed the day with only a few rides. Especially because of that it was a quite relaxed day all in all, where a lot of videos but also some photos were taken.
