Eco-friendly Photo Books and Photo Printing [Week 37]
My family takes a LOT of photos. Kelly is into photography, I got it from my mother. I also print off a LOT of photos whether those are in photo books or actual prints. I want photos to remember these times with my family. I’d also like to be able to choose products from a company that makes eco-friendly photo books.
Amanda Drews
I print off my photos in two ways; photobooks for the masses of photos I have or ones I can tell a story with, and actual prints for framing and ones that might be useful for collages and what not down the road.
You might say that printing off photos isn’t eco-friendly. That’s true. Consider the materials used for the photographs, the ink, shipping or transportation to the store. The whole photograph thing definitely falls under wants instead of needs.
But how confident are you in the cloud preserving your memories for all time? I’ve had a few friends lose years worth of their kids baby photos because they never printed off photos from their phones. It’s always an oh-I’ll-figure-that-out-later-and-do-it-someday situation. I’m here to prevent that from happening to you. Because if it happened to me, I’d be pissed. Family photographs fall to the very top of the wants list in my life.
The environmental toll of leaving photos on your phone
The other way to look at it from an environmental perspective, is that all your photos that are digitally stored, and all the near duplicates of the same photos you took while trying to find just the right pose to go with your duck face, are all taking up energy.
I’ve heard two sides to this. One side recommends to delete all your unwanted photos so they aren’t adding to the increasingly huge amount of data being stored. The other side says it uses more energy in the end to go through and delete your photos than it does to store them. For me it’s a clear choice to delete unwanted photos just for the fact that I like mine organized.
How to get started going through your photos
If you haven’t been sorting through your photos so far, I know it can be overwhelming. But I believe in you! Apparently, I take more photos over 3 days of vacation than the average person living in the US takes in a year. So if I can do it, you can too!
Carve out some time for yourself. Or next time you go to watch a movie, decide to do this instead. It’s amazing how many photos you can go through if you dedicate a block of time to doing only that. Pick a date to start from (I like to go month by month) and scroll down (because the eye reads faster that way) and identify groupings of duplicate photos. Pick your best one (ok maybe two) from those groups and delete the rest. Then go back to the start and go through each photo critically and ask yourself these questions:
- Is this a photo I love?
- Do I need this photo for anything in the future?
- Would I frame or print out this photo?
- Would I use this photo in a photobook?
- Is this a photo that I will want to show someone in the future?
Eco-friendly photo books and prints
I’ve searched the internet for eco-friendly photo printing practices and companies. They are few and far between.
I’ve made over 80 photo books through at least 6 different companies. And I’m not talking about all small books either. Some of my books are mini ones and others have thousands of photos in them. These top three are considered eco-friendly photo books. In addition, Paper Culture and Artifact Uprising below are companies I use for my Eco-Friendly Holiday Cards.
Mixbook (My favorite!)
According to their website, Mixbook uses “only the highest-quality, heavy-weight papers that are ethically sourced from sustainable forests and certified by the Forest Stewardship Council and the Rainforest Alliance”. I recently used Mixbook to create a vacation photobook and it turned out beautiful! Great colors, many options for theming and a super easy to use editor. With the FSC options and Rainforest Alliance certified paper, this will be my new go to site for eco-friendly photo books for vacation scrapbooks. Check out their website HERE.
Artifact Uprising
Artifact Uprising does both eco-friendly photo books and photo prints . Photo prints from their Everyday Print Set can be ordered in a variety of smaller sizes (like 4×6 and 4×4) and you can chose whether you want them to come out Matte, Satin or Double-Thick and with a border or without. Orders come in groups of 10, 25 or 50. You’ve got to pick the size you want at the beginning because you can’t change the sizes of each print as you go. The prints are packaged in a cardboard sleeve outside and plastic sleeve inside. They are a heavy cardstock like material and I wasn’t thrilled with how they were cropped in. The colors were ok but the images a bit grainy. I will likely not be ordering prints from here again but I do appreciate having it as an option.
Everyday Photo BookI haven’t ordered any of their photobooks because they don’t allow for large amounts of photos in the book. They have a specific layout and you can’t edit the size or placement once your photo is in. You can use the Full Bleed layout if you are using a third party editor but I would just want to make my books in the program itself. It seemed easy enough to use if you are looking for a minimalistic look but for me the price tag isn’t worth what I’d be getting out of it.
Even though their product might not be exactly what I’m looking for, Artifact Uprising might be the most eco-friendly of the photo book companies I found. According to their website, they use 100% post-consumer fiber from a family-owned mill for the interior pictures of their photobooks and they match the electricity used to manufacture the paper with “wind generated electricity”. They also use the printing press method instead of the silver halide method.
Paper Culture
Paper Culture offers a 100% recycled paper eco-friendly photo book. Plus, according to their website, “the carbon footprint of the manufacturing and shipping process is entirely offset. And, a tree is planted with every order.” You can print some sizes of prints here but they are stylized with frames or into stickers or calendars. Using a new photo book editor always has a learning curve to it but the Paper Culture editor was easy to pick up once I realized you have to click to either adjust the size or zoom. The other big ah-ha moment was that you need to grab the photos by the corner square when you are in Transform mode in order to change the size. Trust me, that will make a lot more sense once you’re in the program!
I found that my batches of photos loaded the fastest in this program (I put in over 600!). And it never once froze up on me. You can only put in 4 photos at a time or hand place them before doing Autofill. I wish there were better options for placing in layouts for more than 4 photos. The autofill did a very good job quickly of placing my photos and even seemed to get them framed right. However, when I received my photo book, I wasn’t thrilled with the final product. The pages seemed darker than what they should be with a matte feel. I chose background colors that were coral and mint and they turned out a dark orange and tealy green. If you’re not picky, the product is fine and while I like Paper Culture for holiday cards, I won’t be using them for photobooks again.
Other printing companies I have used (not eco-friendly photo books)
Picaboo
Picaboo may offer eco-friendly photo books but they are my go-to for large collage style photo books. Sometimes I just want some nice pictures, other times, I want to tell a story. With Picaboo I can add in the details of my story without having to print them out into photos. Yes, you may want the photo of you and the girls at the beach, but the margarita, the waves and the toes in the sand help add to the story. You don’t have to leave all that out in a Picaboo book. Plus, there’s plenty of room to add in text if you want to make it more of a journal or label pictures.
Picaboo doesn’t have the theming down like a Shutterfly or Mixbook does but they do have some theming options. If you’ve got thousands of pics that you want to cram into a book anyway you like for the cheapest price and best quality, use Picaboo. Just for the fact that I can get so many pictures into a book means I don’t have to create and ship multiple books like I would have to with other companies. Here’s a hint- if you’re doing a large book, make it and then wait for an unlimited pages coupon to come around. In the past I’ve even gotten unlimited pages and free shipping but I’ve only seen that a couple times over years of getting weekly emails.
Shutterfly
Shutterfly is in the OG group of photo book companies. I would not consider them eco-friendly photo books but I do occasionally use them. They often give out coupons for free 8×8 books, so I will use those for short vacation books.
They are easy to use, have endless options and styles and are decently priced. If you have a book with a really specific theme, Shutterfly seems most likely to have it. Some of their theming costs more, like if you want to make a Disney themed book from a trip. I prefer to use Snapfish for printing off photos because I feel like the cropping would always end up a bit off on Shutterfly prints.
Printing companies I have not used
Milk
Milk Handcrafted Photo Books- Milk uses FSC certified paper that are acid free. They offer 5×7 art prints in sets of $12 starting around $30. I gotta say after about an hour of trying to edit a photo book, I gave up. It wasn’t intuitive and was really hard to customize and use the text feature. The options were there, it just didn’t make a lot of sense how to use them. There were options to put in layouts of up to 24 photos and my photos uploaded quickly. Check out their website HERE.
Velvet Raptor
If you are looking for more of a chic scrapbook that you can place photographs in, Velvet Raptor makes velvet covered books with pages made 100% post consumer waste paper that is SmartWood certified. They are a MN company. Check out their website HERE.
Etsy
Not satisfied with what you’re finding? You can always check out Etsy to see what’s on there like THIS fair trade, eco friendly photo album for scrapbooking.
Pixum
If you live in Europe, Pixum offers both photo books and photo printing. They are FSC certified and have a 100% carbon neutral printing lab in Germany. They’ve joined together with ClimatePartner to help prevent deforestation in the Amazon. Check out their website HERE.
The Nature Conservancy put out a guide to greener photographic paper in 2008 that highlights some of the things you want to look for when printing more environmentally friendly photos. Here’s a summary below and the link HERE.
- 100% cotton rag papers are best. These are considered sustainable because the material comes from the cotton linter from the seeds of cotton that are removed in the first step of the ginning process in the textile industry. It’s therefore a recycled by-product that would otherwise be wasted and the process of using this material isn’t any more environmentally destructive than using wood pulp.
- Fiber papers should have a minimum of 30% post consumer content and virgin fiber should be sourced from FSC certified trees.
- They warn against “tree-free” labels as sometimes bamboo forests are clear cut and workers treated in a less than Fair Trade manner.
- Look for non-resin alternatives as resin coated papers are petroleum based and are not recyclable.
Looking for pro photo printing or corporate swag?
Below are all companies that I’ve never used but are more for artists printing off prints or corporations that need printing done in bulk. I have never used any of the companies below.
Life Photo
Life Photo offers prints to be made into art and they also do calendar and planner printing as well with bamboo or cotton fibers. Check out their website HERE.
Hemlock
My pro photographer friend says this company does well with standard printing and their prints have the most endurance with sunlight than other companies. They are all sorts of certified, FSC, Rainforest Alliance, Ancient Forest Friendly, and zero carbon neutral. This company is more for the pros and the marketing team.
Photo Innovation Lab
Photo Innovation Lab- Fine-art quality prints. I have never used this site as my photo habits tend to be more for remembering the moments vs the artsy factor. It looks like this site is more for professionals or people that want to transform their favorite photo into a quality print. They make their paper from alternate sources such as cotton, bamboo, hemp, agave and mulberry bark fibers according to their website. It also says they don’t use “Optical Brightening Agents (OBAs) for extended archivability.” Their “tree-free” papers are recyclable and don’t need the resin coating that most photo prints have. They also create their prints without the use of chlorine or chlorine derivatives (which can release VOC’s such as dioxins when combined with wood pulp according to Eco Visual Lab). Their website gives a great overview of the sustainability of their product. Check it out here.
Greener Printer
This is a site that does printing for companies. Think business cards, folders, books, brochures, and presentation folders. I did look, the minimum order for books is 25 (business card minimum is 250). They use paper that is either post consumer waste recycled paper, Kraft paper, FSC certified or Ancient Forest Friendly. Check out their website HERE.
Overnight Prints
Another printer for the professionals. They have business cards, brochures, postcards and more. They claim to be the only waterless online printing company. Overnight Prints is FSC certified and process chlorine free. Check out their website HERE.
Ecoprint
One more in the professionals and office people of the world category. They say they use sustainable produced or post-consumed recycled paper as well as eco-inks. For every job they print, they donate 2 trees to Forest Planet. Check out Ecoprint’s website HERE.
Depending on if you’re a pro or a hobby photographer, there are some options for a more environmentally friendly photo.
- If you have a ton of photos, you may want to opt for a photo book from Picaboo in order to get more bang for your buck.
- If you are looking to only print out a few photos and don’t mind that they aren’t the same as a standard glossy photo, Artifact Uprising may be the way to go. With bulk printing, Snapfish is more budget friendly but I would not consider it an eco-friendly option.
- Pros- above are the options I found for you. I’d love to hear if you like or don’t like any of the companies on that list.
