2010-07-30T21:00:00
Rated 3 out of 5
Nice looking minibook, small flaws
Lost Luggage makes wonderful custom book, the Chinle is their Ice Nine "retail" line. Moab just rebranded it and packaged it with their fantastic paper, pre-drilled, pre-creased. The package itself is pretty high value. I use this as my "carry around" mini-book, just in case I meet someone randomly. Carrying a heavy 11 x 14 all the time gets pretty tiring. I am a professional photographer in the fashion/beauty field.
The Moab Lasal Matte paper is great, and the paper is pre-scored and ready to print. Note that your printer may not be able to print full bleed on custom sized paper (especially for Canon). The paper itself, properly color managed will create wonderful prints.
The spine of this Chinle is not quite up to Lost Luggage's standard, the cut is clean but not precise. That said, it looks nice enough for the price (easily 1/10th of the price of a custom book, if not less). It is also not obvious from the picture that the cover is flexible, it is not stiff.
The major problem I have encountered is that the spine would actually leave black marks on the Matte paper. The marks can be rubbed off gently by an eraser, but it would be rather embarrassing for those who want their prints to show perfectly. I have added a piece of semi-see-thru, non-marking paper before I attach the prints. I am surprised that the spine would rub off that much, to be honest. They may need to change the material.
I would recommend this, but only with the "extra paper" modification mentioned above.
Leo L.
