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Cewe photo book review
Looking for a thoughtful, personalised gift to give a loved one? A Cewe photo book is designed to be just that. Cewe is a UK and Europe-focused photo printing company that enables you to curate a collection of your favourite snaps into one well-finished, competitively priced photo book. I built a photo book of my own to see how Cewe measured up against its competitors, and I have to say, I was impressed.
First, let me take you through the photo book creation process. Cewe gives you two options: you can download its bespoke editing software; or you can simply use the web app. For ease and consistency with my other photo book reviews, I opted for the web app version. Note that I was unable to view my finished book in the software after building it on my browser, so it’s best to build your book using one method only.
For my 30 x 30cm book, I was locked into using a hardcover design, but there are more options for different-sized products. Something that was highly customizable, though, was the page type. I could select from a wide range, including: classic; matte; true matte; gloss; high gloss; photographic; or recycled. That level of customisability is something we always look for here at TechRadar in our hunt for the best photo book services.
There are more add-ons, too, like cover page highlights, an integrated memento pocket, and a presentation box. However, I didn’t use any of these, selected the classic page type, and got straight into things.
At this stage, you’re able to select a template from a generous list of options. You can go with a theme like Travel Memories, City Break, Modern Art, and so many more. Most of these look great – but instead I went down the custom route to get this book as close to our standardised TechRadar template as possible.
So, there I finally was, ready to build my photo book – and I was instantly struck by the simplicity and ease-of-use offered by the Cewe web app. There are five sections that are easy to navigate through: photos; layout; text; clipart (yes, that’s still a thing); and background. The only other things to check out are an auto-save toggle, the option to lock when moving or adjusting photos, and a smart cropping on/off selection.
Personally, I really appreciated the straightforward nature of Cewe’s editing tool. Sure, I would’ve appreciated stuff like measurements for photos, and potentially guidelines when moving them around on the page, but this is accessible on the free downloadable software. Uploading your photos is hassle-free too – there’s Google Photos integration, you can add snaps via a QR code, and the time it takes for images to load up is nice and short.
After this, finalising my photo book was (mostly) a breeze. There were plenty of masks, frames, fonts, and colours to make use of. In fact, you can even use a hex code to find the precise hue that you want, something that I’ve not seen from many rivals. You can also alter aspects like brightness, contrast, and more after inserting photos, so I could get the perfect balance across each page.
Having said all of this, the creation process wasn’t completely seamless – there were a few frustrations I had from time to time. For example, rather than drawing shapes, I had to select one that resembled what I wanted from clip art, which just feels so outdated now. The layout options are also a little restrictive, you can’t embolden certain letters – only full words, and I already mentioned the lack of measurements (or guidelines) when adjusting images on the web app, which was a tad disappointing.
Oh, and one more small complaint – if you want to add extra pages to your photo book, you have to do so in increments of four. So, in the case you only need a couple more pages, you’re going to be coughing up extra cash for space you don’t even need. Still, these are decently priced – it’s just £3.99 for extra pages.
Speaking of, the Cewe photo book is priced very competitively. My finished photo book cost £47.98 (including those extra pages), with delivery coming in at £5.25, leaving my total at just over £50. That’s a lot less than the circa £90 my Printerpix photo book would usually have cost, and a huge amount cheaper than our Printique photo book, which was around £112.
But now I’m sure you’re wondering… how did the finished product turn out? Well, great news – it looked fantastic! I couldn’t make out any banding (which is essentially unwanted lines appearing on a finished print), colours were accurate and pleasingly saturated, and I couldn’t see any damage after shipping. Pages were also to a high quality, giving the photo book a more luxurious feel than its price would suggest.
I compared the finished article to our Blurb photo book, which wasn’t quite as bright, yet arguably had more true-to-life colours. The more vibrant presentation of the Cewe does make it a little easier to make out the finer details, though, so I’d put each on equal footing – it just depends how vivid you like your photos.
In the end, then, I can recommend Cewe to anyone that wants to forge a quality photo book at a more-than-reasonable price-point. Sure, the online editing tool isn’t without fault, and it’s a shame you have to add four extra pages at a time. But all in all, Cewe presents a simple creation tool and commendable results at an easy-to-swallow cost.
Should I buy the Cewe photo book?
|
Attributes |
Notes |
Rating |
|---|---|---|
|
Ease of use |
Simple software, plenty of customisability, can’t cross-edit between web app and downloadable software. |
4/5 |
|
Editing tools |
Easy-to-use, plenty of templates, though some restrictions exist on the web tool. |
4/5 |
|
Print quality |
Bright colours, no banding, and high-quality pages. |
4.5/5 |
|
Value |
Simple editing platform, great print quality, low price. |
4.5/5 |
Buy it if…
Don’t buy it if…
Cewe photo book review: also consider
How I tested the Cewe photo book
- Built a photo book to recreate the TechRadar template
- Compared against other websites’ photo books and software
I used the web version of Cewe’s photo editor in order to create a custom photo book, but I also messed around with a handful of templates. Here at TechRadar, we have created a standardised template to recreate across all photo book services, in order to fairly compare each platform. Sometimes, certain elements cannot be recreated – but we always endeavour to get as close to the template as possible.
After ordering the Cewe photo book, I observed aspects such as print quality, colour fidelity, and signs of damage. As always, I compared the finished article to photo books from rivals, such as Blurb and Mixbook. For reference, the photo book I created was 30 x 30 centimetres, had a hard photo cover and used the classic page type.
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