Photo Book Software for book4you

Swiss consumers are following the global trend to create photo books using their digital images. Various photo book vendors offer these products, however, they differ enormously with regard to quality, price and software. Tests carried out recently by PCTipp in October 2010 focused on these three important elements.

Nine photo book vendors were considered for the tests and the vendor that received the best ratings for both quality and software was book4you, futureLAB’s customer for many years. book4you, using futureLAB’s software, was the only photo book vendor being classified with the highest rating of 100 %.

A year ago book4you was already listed among the best suppliers and seamlessly continues its success story with the current test. book4you won an award for the best user-friendliness software in Saldo, published in February 2009 and listed as Test Winner of Design Software in PCTipp, published in September 2009.

book4you began working in close cooperation with futureLAB in 2006. The decisive factor was the profound know-how offered by futureLAB, both in the field of software and imaging. In addition, book4you considered the intuitive use of the software, especially the new smart guides, the book visualization, and the drag and drop functions as real competitive advantages in a highly competitive market. book4you markets the photo book software under the name “Bookmaker”, which can be installed on Mac OS X 10.5 or 10.6 and Windows XP, Vista or 7 as well.

The software is characterized by simple and easily comprehensible sequences. As a result, the user is not faced with any complication while downloading, installing, and in particular, when using the software. As an alternative to individually creating each photo book, the user can apply the intelligent book wizard to automatically generate it.

There are a great variety of layout templates and a large range of colors and stock background images are available for creative use. The user’s own images can be chosen for backgrounds as well and even stored for future photo books. Layouts and backgrounds can be integrated by fast and intuitive drag and drop action.

Additional convenient tools allow the user to create individual photo books quickly. For example, images can be rotated, scaled and moved. New image boxes can be added by a mouse click and further images can be included by simple drag and drop. In addition, many options are available for adding text. For this purpose, a WYSIWYG text editor is opened – what you see is what you get. Type and colors of fonts and backgrounds can quickly be changed. A change within the text box itself is also possible.

While editing the text for the book spine, the text is virtually shown horizontally, and as soon as it is entered, the text is integrated into the book spine. Special guides - so called smart guides - allow for very easy positioning, moving and changing of images and text boxes.

In addition, images can be edited directly. Saturation, brightness, contrast, red/blue balance, and transparency can all be adjusted and the color of an image can even be changed to sepia or grey tones.

book4you currently offers “Bookmaker” version 2.5. To maintain its position as one of the best photo book vendors, further improvements of the software are under way, in cooperation with futureLAB.

About book4you

book4you is a registered trademark of Satzart AG with headquarters in Bern. Since 1989, Satzart AG has established itself as a reliable company with compelling ideas. Comprehensive and advanced communications solutions are its favorite challenge. With book4you, Satzart AG has achieved a leadership position in the Swiss market for photo books.

For further information please contact:

• book4you
• Bernhard Amman
• e-mail b.ammann[at]satzart.ch
• http://www.book4you.ch
• Birkenweg 61, 3001 Bern
• phone +41 31 307 78 80

About futureLAB AG

futureLAB is a software development company specialized in designing and implementing innovative, creative and often surprising solutions for customers. In addition to project business, futureLAB focuses on development of products based on non-proprietary Internet technologies and open source systems. The product range starts from enterprise media management solutions and goes up to Internet platforms for millions of users. Furthermore, futureLAB concentrates on novel concepts in the field of data management or control and visualization of devices and buildings. futureLAB consists of a creative engineering team of about 30 talented and experienced engineers with a university degree, supplemented by a group of expert consultants and a management team with a long and impressive track record in innovation and technology development. Its headquarters are located in Winterthur. Currently futureLAB is expanding in Europe and the USA.

For further information please contact:

• futureLAB AG
• Karola Walberer, Marketing Communications Manager
• e-mail marketing[at]futurelab.ch
• Schwalmenackerstrasse 4, 8400 Winterthur
• phone +41 52 260 22 22, fax +41 52 260 22 23