Why Digital Portfolio?
Before I start, I must state that in terms of providing the ultimate judgement of photographic quality, an A2 or A3 print portfolio is king. However…. whilst it may not be the best acid test of image quality, there is no doubting the flexibility, portability and ultimate convenience of presenting your work on a tablet type device. Therefore like most photographers these days, when I meet with both new and existing clients, I always go armed with my iPad – as a minimum!
Last year I upgraded to an Apple iPad 3 specifically to take advantage of the new Retina display! When files are sized and sharpened specifically for the device, image viewing is superb and for digital its hard to beat the clarity and detail provided by the iPad’s very high pixel pitch (264 ppi) which has more in common with print (300 dpi) than it does with a traditional screen (102 ppi on iMac 21.5”).
Why I choose the Foliobook App
After a bit of research, I opted for the Foliobook App because it allowed me to add the professional touch to my image portfolio. Sure, Apple’s iPhoto is a decent app for basic image b
rowsing and viewing, but I wanted something which was a slicker and more presentable and something that could properly integrate my branding / logo etc. I personally think that dedicated portfolio Apps like Foliobook allow the viewer to concentrate more on my images, opposed to being distracted by the hosting application. Therefore, after reading around the subject online, reading reviews etc, I opted for Foliobook and I’m very happy with my decision.
Foliobook Official Website - http://www.rocketgardenlabs.com/
Creating my Digital Portfolio within Foliobook
Before copying my portfolio images to the iPad, I resized and sharpened them to the native resolution and aspect ratio of 2048×1536 for optimum image quality. I wanted most of my images to fill the screen so this step is especially important. I personally do not take advantage of the fact that Foliobook allows you to load higher resolution images and zoom but I can see that it could be useful for others. Once I had the images on the iPad I then experimented with the app until I had it configured how I liked it. One of its strength is that you can have a top notch menu and intro configured quickly, it is also very flexible in terms of how you configure the user experience i.e. transformation speed and toggling certain options on an off. Perhaps the best feature is its ability to be used in locked mode, which means that the view is restricted to view only and any configurable areas off the application are hidden – again making it a better experience for any client.
Foliobook - Start Screen, which I start by touching the central banner
Foliobook - Screen Showing Thumbails
What I like about Foliobook
- Very easy to create a professional menu page
- Navigation for Each of your portfolios from a single menu
- Customisable in terms of transition effects and speed
- Useful lock facility
- Easy to add and re-arrange your work
- The ability to display images and video content from within the same App.
Next Steps for Foliobook – My suggestions!
What I personally would like to see the the Foliobook App include in future versions:
- If possible add a bit more clarity to the initial setup navigation,
- Add more menu and navigation features, i.e. include the ability to branching off from a particular image in a portfolio – to see other similar or related images which the client/agency may ask to view – based on image ‘tags’ – i.e. ‘advertising’,'fragrance’ returns all images which have been tagged with these keywords.
