Efficient and good quality finishing is just as important as printing for photobooks. Nessan Cleary surveys some key products.
Photobook production is one of the fastest growing areas in digital print. But it’s a consumer market, driven mainly by easy access to digital cameras and social networking that we all enjoy these days. For print service providers it’s important to establish which part of that market you can tap into, and therefore what type of photobook you want to make. That could mean selling on price with a perfect bound book with a soft cover, or going for a more upmarket premium product with a hard cover.
Either way, the key to producing photobooks lies in the finishing even more than the printing. It makes sense to offer a range of sizes and different styles. The most common approach is to use perfect binding, but many people are also looking at sewing, with the equipment often being both faster and less expensive. There are also quite a few approaches to producing lay flat books, which can display a photograph across two pages with no noticeable break for the spine. And, of course, there are a lot of different options for making and attaching cases or hardback covers. All of these options can be combined to produce some good quality, high margin photobooks.
When trying to gauge the productivity of a device always ask for the actual number of books per hour, rather than letting the sales person quote the number of cycles per hour, which is rarely achievable unless you have a fully automated line. It is perfectly possible to buy a manual binder and casing unit for just a few thousand pounds which, assuming you already have a guillotine and creaser, is enough to get started and producing a few hundred books a day. But you will need to think about how you scale up from this, assuming that the photobook business continues to grow.
Some perfect binders come with a choice of EVA hotmelt or PUR glue. Most people recommend the PUR option for photobooks, as Dean Stayne, sales director for Terry Cooper Services, explains: ‘The PUR is a lot stronger but it’s twice as expensive.’ However, he does say that it largely depends on the stock and the digital printer in question, but pages from printers such as an iGen4 that use more fuser oil will benefit from PUR gluing.’ Mike Biggs, managing director of Encore Machinery, says that PUR is softer and more flexible than hotmelt: ‘It bonds more and so it does lay flat, not absolutely flat but better than EVA.’
PUR also keys better to high gloss and laminated stocks than hotmelt, though some hotmelt binders get around this by shredding the spine edge to allow glue to penetrate the fibres. PUR glue is more difficult to handle than EVA and needs a closed tank to avoid exposure to the atmosphere. Lewis Price, Fastbind product manager at binding systems supplier Ashgate Automation, says that EVA glue is suitable for photobook use. ‘PUR is stronger but you have to leave it for 24 hours to cure and you have fumigation and health issues,’ he points out.
Ashgate has made a speciality of entry level photo book production in recent years, with the Finnish made Fastbind range. This includes the Elite XT, a £4500 hot melt perfect binder. Mr Price claims that the way that the Elite XT lays down EVA glue helps to make the binding strong enough, with the nozzles above the sheets. ‘We pass the glue over the paper so that gravity is helping us,’ he explains. In addition, the binder can put a hard cover on the book which helps give the spine extra rigidity.’ Mr Price says that some customers use this as a casing-in machine for a PUR binder.
Fastbind offers several case making machines, including the CaseMatic, a manual casing-in device that sits alongside the binder. Mr Price explains: Here a self-adhesive cover sheet can be printed digitally, then the backing is peeled off and the CaseMatic is used to apply the boards accurately, which can be any size you want. The process takes about 30 seconds and is designed to handle books of different sizes one after the other without slowing down.’ Mr Price says he has customers producing 300 to 400 books a day with this system and that many customers like the manual approach because it allows them to keep an eye on the quality of the books being produced. On the other hand the largely manual operation means that there’s not much economy of scale for multiple copies, unlike some of the more automated systems.
The CaseMatic can be paired with an entry-level binder, the BooXter Duo, for around £3000, making it a good starting point in this market. This uses an electronic stapling unit to hold the pages together and then attaches end sheets. It also has a mounting system for applying the cover to the book.
Lay flat books
Ashgate also sells a lay flat binder, Fastbind Fotomount. Here single-sided sheets are folded in half and each blank half side is glued back-to-back with half of the net page in the sequence. The combined folds form the hinged spine of the book and the page open completely flat with only a slight crease across the fold. It makes attractive books that can be sold for high prices.
Production is slower than more mechanised systems as it’s primarily a manual process with helper guides, taking about 30 seconds per page pair. ‘But these are the books that are selling for hundreds of pounds for things like wedding albums,’ Mr Price points out. Virtually any kind of paper can be used, coated or uncoated, because the sheets are glued via a backing sheet which can be anything from 200 to 850 microns. There are several models, with the largest and most popular producing books up to 470 x 420 mm. Prices range from £1950 to £4500.
Terry Cooper Services sells the CP Bourg BB3002 perfect binder. This is a single clamp machine, which can be sold with either EVA or PUR glue systems. TCS pairs it with a Norton PUR gluing unit that integrates with the binder, which can then control both units.
The BB3002 will take books up to 60 mm in thickness and can produce 250 books per hour. Sales director Dean Stayne says that this speed is perfectly adequate for the photobook market because the run lengths are so short. However there is a faster four-clamp version available using EVA glue. The BB3002 with the Nordson PUR gluing comes in at £80,000.
TCS also sells the Zechini range of case making machines for hard covers. Zechini will launch a new sewing machine at Drupa. One advantage of sewing is that you can get a book to lie perfectly flat when open, which is often desirable with a photobook. Mr Stayne says that although you can come reasonably close to a lay flat book with PUR, there is a danger of breaking the spine. A sewing machine is faster than PUR, at around 400 books per hour, as well as being cheaper at around £30,000.
Encore Machinery sells the New Bind range of perfect binders, including the Adventure, which comes with enclosed PUR glue tanks, though it can also be supplied for hot melt glue. This starts at £30,000 but there’s a number of options including an end sheet lifter so that you can apply the end sheets in the same process as the book blocks. It can automatically measure the book thickness and set the system up accordingly.
New case making range
Encore has just taken on the UK dealership of Italian case making company, Samed Innovazioni. These machines range from semi-automatic hand fed up to fully automatic case making machines. Mr Biggs says they are aiming at the mid market and cost £20,000 to £70,000.
He also sells the Korean Kisun range of casing machines, which are aimed at the entry level of the market.
Watkiss says its PowerSquare 200 is suited to this market too. This is a saddle stitcher that forms a square spine on the books that can have a spine title. Key account executive Chris Page says that it’s a lot faster than a PUR binder and potentially cheaper, with the basic model starting at £38,500, going up to £72,000 for a nearline version, and with an online option also available. Mr Page adds: ‘It gives the look of a perfect bound book but with the security of a stitched spine so that the pages are guaranteed never to fall out.’
Watkiss also sells several perfect binders including the 420, which derives can take a 420 mm sheet. This can be sold as with hot melt or PUR glue, for £9000 or £25,000 respectively. The PUR version recirculates the glue to improve performance and help cleaning.
Morgana sells the DigiBook 300, a PUR machine that can produce around 200 books per hour. It automatically detects the thickness of each book and takes blocks up to 50 mm thick, from 100 mm up to 450 mm along the spine. Morgana will introduce the DigiBook 450 at Drupa, which will have an automatic cover feeder creasing unit.
Duplo sells a small entry-level machine, the DB280, for up to 200 books per hour. It takes soft covers up to 250 g/m2 and book blocks up to 40 mm thick and up to 320 x 400 mm. There’s a larger DPB-500, a single-clamp machine with both hot melt and PUR versions.
Then there’s the Horizon range, distributed in the UK by Intelligent Finishing Systems, or IFS. The main offering is the BQ270V, a single clamp system that uses a built in calliper to measure the next book block as the book in production is cycling. This allows it to cope with books of different thickness from 1 to 50 mm. There’s an entry-level model, the BQ160, a single clamp machine that can also do lining binding for casing in. There’s a much faster four-clamp machine, the BQ470 which can run at 1350 cycles per hour and takes books up to 65mm thick and up to 301 x 310 mm.
Friedheim distributes a couple of perfect binders from Tecnograf. These start with the ANT250, a single clamp machine that can accommodate both PUR and hot melt glues. It starts at around £35,000. It automatically measures the thickness of each book block and adjusts the settings accordingly, from five to 30 mm. ANT500 has an automatic cover feeder and book delivery, and a much faster six clamp machine called the ANT2000.
Tecnograf also makes the Easy Tower series of casing-in lines, which have automatic cover feeders and a semi-automatic book block feeder, with a fully automatic option. In addition, there’s a manual range of casing devices branded Mini Tec, with one unit for each process such as rounding and backing or casing in.
Perfect Bindery Solutions is UK distributor for a number of new products that are due to be launched at Drupa. Ribler will have a new machine for short run book production up to 30 mm thick, which will be suitable for most large format photobooks up to A3 landscape. It’s a semi-automatic machine, as BPS managing director Steve Giddins explains: ‘The machine measures the book and then sets the alignment automatically so the operator just has to put the book in the clamp and it is then transported through a spine preparation unit. There’s a special primer and then the actual glue for the cover or a liner paper for casing in.’
It uses water based cold glue, applying heat to dry it for faster production. A primer prepares the fibres of the paper so that the glue bonds deep down with the paper for a binding that’s strong enough to be laid open flat. PBS sells another Ribler machine that feeds pre-collated, pre-folded sheets through a gluing unit which then glues the sheets back to back for a perfect lay flat book that allows an image to be printed right across the fold without interruption. This uses the same cold Ecoglue, which has no warm up times and is easy to clean.
The company is also UK distributor for the On Demand Machinery (ODM) range from the USA, which makes semi-automated equipment to produce ‘library quality’ case bound books in short runs or one-offs. A complete case binding line comprising the Casemaking system XXL, Sticker XXL casing-in machine and Smasher XXL building-in machine, would cost about £50,000. Using this, three people could make about 800 books in an eight hour shift. Super Sticker is a more automated casing machine for conveyor feeding. It can be linked to Super Smasher, an automated building-in machine.
Super Sewer, as the name suggests, is for thread binding, to produce highly durable books, mainly A4 to A3 formats up to 12.5 mm thick. ODM has just introduced a larger Super Sewer XXL, for A3+ landscape and portrait format books up to 25 mm thick. Its first user, Momento Pro in Australia, commissioned it to cope with demand for lager books.
Smyth will be showing a new semi-automatic sewing machine at Drupa, designed for ultra short runs. There will also be a new B2 digital sewing line, which will do folding, collating and traditional thread sewing.
Photo book slitter
Finally, Rollem has developed a device for slitting sheets, specifically for the photobook market called the Photoslit. Colin Pears, director and co-owner of Rollem, explains: ‘We have a pile feeder that can load a stack of up to 3000 sheets. They are then fed to a rotary slitting device that cuts the sheets to strips and then cuts them to finished items. We can run at about 4500 per hour.’ It works with all paper types, from 60 to 700 g/m2 as well as board and even plastic.
Mr Pears says that it can be used offline, or inline with a printer, or even with a collator feeding pages to a perfect binder. It can be used for other items such as business cards and postcards. For drupa, Rollem will add an auto lay setting so that it can register to something in the print or a mark in the border rather than to the edge of the sheet.
In conclusion, there are many binding options and this is not an exhaustive list. We’re likely to see newcomers at drupa, including some aimed directly at the photo book market, given the growth potential in this sector.
