The Swiss company Imaging Solutions has installed the first of its FastBook Professional machines, which have been designed for creating perfect layflat photobooks.
The FastBook Professional uses tightly controlled creasing, folding and pressing to bind a layflat panoramic image into every two-page spread. The machine can bind photo books from 8×8 to 18×18 inches, using both common silver halide and digital press papers. It’s also possible to use inserts in different materials and colors to create thicker pages which is particularly useful for wedding albums and other high-quality photo books.
Lars Knäble, marketing manager for Imaging Solutions, explains: “The entire book block is produced in a single operation – with creasing, folding, pressing and gluing. Very little hotmelt glue is required which reduces the material costs and permits the next processing steps to happen right away. So the photobooks can be shipped the same day.”
The first unit has been installed at Cihan Exclusive Albums, based in Izmir, Turkey. The company is one of the largest wedding book manufacturers in Turkey, operating across Europe with an office in Berlin. Cihan produces an average of 100 wedding albums a day in various formats, though this can double in the peak wedding season. This had been done by hand – it takes 15 to 20 minutes for a 20-page photobook with inserts – but the FastBook Professional can assemble the book block in two minutes with the entire book completed in four minutes.
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