Which album for which prints
Every album in the Pioneer range was made for a kind of print and a kind of keeping: a year of snapshots, one wedding, a drawer of mixed sizes. This page matches the prints to the album.
| The prints | What matters | Our suggestion |
|---|---|---|
| A year of 4x6 prints from the phone or the drugstore | Capacity and a line to write on | A 200- or 300-pocket memo album; 500 for a family year |
| A wedding or a trip, edited to the good ones | A cover worth handing over | A frame-front pocket album or a bonded-leather bookbound |
| Mixed sizes: wallets, 4x6, 5x7, an 8x10 | One page for all of them | A magnetic self-stick album, or a 12x12 scrapbook with pockets |
| Instax and Polaroid prints | A pocket cut for the format | The IS-80 instant-print album |
| A scrapbook with tickets, cards and captions | Pages you build yourself, and more later | A post-bound or 3-ring 12x12 or 8x8 with page protectors |
| A gift for a grandparent | Small, light, and full | A mini album, one print to a page |
| Prints you have not sorted yet | Somewhere flat, dark and dry | A photo storage box with index cards, until the album is chosen |
| An album that is full | More pages, same book | Refill pages for the line, or extension posts |
Two questions first
Two things settle most of the choice. The size of the print, and whether more are coming. Once you know those, the rest is mostly preference.
A 4x6 print fits a pocket album. An 8x10 fits a different pocket album. A 12x12 page takes a scrapbook. The sizes do not mix across lines without thought, so size is the first question.
The second question is about time. A wedding is one day. A year of snapshots is fifty weekends. A trip might be a hundred prints or it might be eight hundred. If more prints are coming, the album needs to take them.
A year of 4x6 snapshots
For a steady stream of 4x6 prints, a pocket album with a memo strip is the working tool. Two hundred pockets cover most years. Three hundred if you print freely. A 500-print album holds a family year, or two quiet years stacked together.
The memo strip is the reason. It sits beside each pocket and gives you a line for a date, a name, a place. Filling it takes a few seconds per print. Skipping it costs you the memory of who that baby was, six years from now.
Pocket albums hold 36 to 504 prints, mostly 4x6, with 5x7 and 8x10 lines as well. The memo lines are on the ones that need them. Some lines have bi-directional pockets, so a horizontal or a vertical print drops into the same slot.
One event, edited down
A wedding or a long trip gets edited. You pull the prints that matter and leave the rest in a box. The album is chosen for the cover as much as the pages.
A frame-front pocket album puts one of your favourite prints in a window on the front. A bonded-leather bookbound album looks like a small book on the shelf. Either one holds 200 or so 4x6 prints, or 100 of the larger sizes. The cover does the first job. The pockets do the second.
Mixed sizes in one pile
When the prints are not sorted, two albums will take them.
A magnetic self-stick album has pages with a clear overlay that lifts and re-adheres. Wallet, 4x6, 5x7 and 8x10 prints sit on the same page, held under the overlay without pockets. The print rests on the adhesive surface of the page, with the overlay pressed down over it.
A 12x12 scrapbook with pockets takes mixed sizes too, in a more arranged way. You choose where each print goes.
The difference is what touches the print. In a pocket album nothing touches the print. In a magnetic album the print sits against a sticky surface. We cannot tell you which to choose for long-term keeping. We can tell you the materials. The pages on every line are made without acid, lignin or PVC. The choice is yours.
Instant prints
For Fujifilm Instax and Polaroid credit-card-size prints, the IS-80 holds 80 of them, two to a page. The cover has a frame for one of the prints. It is the album for that shape of photograph.
A scrapbook with tickets and captions
For a year with receipts, ticket stubs, captions and notes, a post-bound or 3-ring scrapbook is the right tool. Page sizes run 12x12, 8x8, 8.5x11 and a jumbo 11.75x14.
Top-loading page protectors hold the page. A heavy white or beige paper insert sits behind it. The insert slides out while the protector stays in the album, so you can write on it at a table and slide it back.
The spine matters here. A post-bound or 3-ring album takes refills. When the year runs long, you add pages instead of starting over. The album grows with the project.
A small gift album
For a handful of prints given to a parent, a grandparent, or a friend, a mini album is the right size. Capacities run from 24 to 100 prints. One or two prints per page. Small sewn leatherette covers with an embroidered patch, a piped edge, or a printed design.
Prints not sorted yet
A photo storage box holds the prints while you decide. The box has a metal identification plate on the front and index cards inside for labeling. Keep it flat, in the dark, in a dry place. The album can wait until you are ready.
The album that is full
When the album is full, do not start a second one with the same cover. Buy refill pages for the line. Match the style number on the back of your album. For post-bound albums, extension posts lengthen the spine to take the new pages.
This is a guide to choosing between our own albums. It is not conservation advice for a specific collection; for a valuable or fragile photograph, a photograph conservator is who to ask.