Make & Print Photo Albuns - pro quality - HELP

[jgmcnet]

Dear Photo enthusiasts

I am an amateur with reasonable skills and equipment that joined the digital world since about 4 years, once the Nikon D70 come in, enough cheap for an amateur test. I progressed on equipment and technique, but realize now, that photo sharing by the web, or on shows are not enough, with people requesting big photos and photo albuns.

I guess that the following subject has already been addressed here but I did not found the thread.
Question is, where in Europe do I found the "best" software for editing an album, preferentially on a mac, together with a high quality printing servicing ...
I know of few services and programs, but I must say that they are all quite limited and not user friendly and the printing quality of the providers is also not satisfying.

In addition - if you want to do big (~1m) amplifications ... on a final rigid support with photo quality ... where should I go?

Many times I look at the advertising nice prints you can see everywhere and never find the name of the manufacturer.
I leave in France, but if quality would be guaranteed, I do not mind to afford higher shipping costs.

The problem, is that the offer is big when you "google", but most of what I find looks junk, and my personal experience is quite disappointing.

Thanks & cheers

 

[Big Mike]

Check out Graphi Studio. They are out of Itally and make some very nice albums. I believe they have design software that you can download, but I've never tried it.

 

[jgmcnet]

Dear Big Mike
Thanks, I'll check. Actually the best service/software I heard about (popular photography) was Mpix.com - Home but they do not ship to europe. I am trying booksmart from Make your own photo book with Blurb, it looks great quality on printing, but the software is not really friendly (fast) nor enough versatile. I also have used few others, like Livre photo et developpement photo en ligne avec photoservice.com, with a reasonably fast and friendly soft for windows, but poor printing resolution.
I find surprising, maybe because I am out of commercial/professional circuits, how the majority of the service providers invest so little on really good software to compose the books. Maybe because they sell enough keeping low profile.
Kind regards
JG