See what MNers think of CEWE PHOTOBOOK– Nikon Digital camera (RRP £169.99) prize draw for testers’ feedback!NOW CLOSED

[MichelleMumsnet]

This thread is for the 250 Mumsnetters who tried the True Matte CEWE PHOTOBOOK.

Here’s what CEWE say, “The CEWE PHOTOBOOK is Europe’s no. 1 photo book and recently was rated the UK’s best. With more sizes and formats to choose from than any other, the CEWE PHOTOBOOK offers a solution for everyone for all occasions.
“With our easy-to-use free software, you can create your very own personal book capturing forever those precious moments. You design the book yourself adding text, maps, clip art and even video alongside your images.

“Just recently we have launched our brand new True Matte CEWE PHOTOBOOK. True Matte is unique in the photo book market and offers a luxurious finish to bring out the very best of your photos.
“Whether you want to chart the early years of your little ones or capture this summer’s fantastic family holiday, there is no better way to display and share your wonderful photographs. We are proud to provide the personal touch with a professional finish, giving you a True Matte CEWE PHOTOBOOK to treasure forever.”

Testers, please provide your feedback by answering the following questions. Feel free to also add any other comments you might have.

Q1. What are your overall impressions of the True Matte CEWE PHOTOBOOK and the process of creating and ordering your photo book?

Q2. What do you think of the software you used to design your CEWE PHOTOBOOK? Did you find it easy to use, or not? If so, why? If not, why not?

Q3. The RRP for the True Matte CEWE PHOTBOOK Large Landscape is from £37.99, do you think that this is good value for money, or not? Do you think you would you purchase a CEWE PHOTOBOOK again? If so, why? If not, why not?

Q4. If it came up in conversation, would you recommend CEWE PHOTOBOOK to friends and/or family? If so, why? If not, why not?

Q5. Do you prefer the True Matte finish to more conventional finishes, or not? If so, why? If not, why not?

Q6. If you had used another photo book retailer before, how does it compare to CEWE PHOTOBOOK? Would you now switch to the CEWE PHOTOBOOK? If so, why? If not, why not?

Please also remember to complete the short survey we sent to you!

Everyone who adds their feedback will be entered into a prize draw to win a Nikon Coolpix S5300 Digital Camera (RRP £169.99).

Thanks and good luck,
MNHQ

Updated review: I ended up with three little pictures on the front I didnt realise were there as I changed the front cover picture and thought I'd got rid of three pictures that it had randomly selected on the right side in a row, not particularly nice or relevant ones either. So that did spoil it a little as I'd made the background a picture of the disneyland '20th anniversary' sign all lit up so kind of took the attention away from that. It was probably because it took me so long and I was getting very frustrated so my attention went in the end as I just wanted it done. It definitely needs to be simplified. I didn't even know you could add writing (apart from the front obv) to the photos or clip art so it couldn't have been that obvious. I think im quite technically minded but I really struggled. For this reason I wouldn't recommend it to my granny or my mother as they just wouldn't cope with it.

I answered q1 &2 earlier now I have received my book.
Q3 - it is more expensive than most but it is in the next level of quality so yes I would consider buying one for a special occasion.
Q4 - yes would recommend, the quality of the printing and clarity of images is superior to other books I've had printed (from 3 diff places).
Q5 - I like the matt finish, I think I prefer it to the high gloss and it just seems to be printed really well!
Q6 - yes, next time I get a book done I am very likely to use a cewe matt one.

trikken it took me an age to work out how to add text but once I did it was actually quite straightforward.

They really need a simple demo to start out.

All the clipart and fancy stuff is all very well but they need a basic guide on how to add and change photos and text I would suggest a three stage process - one to add photos and make the layout how you want. Once you're happy with that next screen to add text boxes then a screen if you want to add effects, clipart etc

As it was I'd had enough by the time I'd worked out how to add and move photos and text!

If you were doing more than one book it would probably be better but how many people pay £50 for a book more than once every few years?

Thanks for the voucher- I ordered my book today so it has not yet arrived, but I am really pleased so far with the process of ordering the book.

Q1. What are your overall impressions of the True Matte CEWE PHOTOBOOK and the process of creating and ordering your photo book?

Brilliant- yes it took a little time, but my experience is that is true with all photobooks as it takes ages to looks at all of the photos you have (loads sine we had DD) and decide what you want to include. The software has its niggles but it is really good. Once you work out what you want to do it is really simple. There seem to be loads of features which I did not use, but I think you could do almost anything you wanted. I like that it has clear stages as you order, it was easy to follow.

Q2. What do you think of the software you used to design your CEWE PHOTOBOOK? Did you find it easy to use, or not? If so, why? If not, why not?

It was great, I will definitely use it again. I had one or two minor annoyances. The button which says something like fill book is really promenat as you go through your files of photos. If like me you want to manually fill the book it is really easy to accidentally press this and autofill the oages but there is an undo button so it is not to problematic. Also when ypu try and choose the page format instead of including all possible options it defaults to overlapping images and you have to go to the drop down menu and select all to see all the possible options- just a little annoying. Finally it would be nice if the page formats yo have used are added to favourites by default as you have to scroll through all the options again to find the same image and it can take a few seconds to check you have selected the same one rather than a similar one.

None of these are major issues and overall I think it was good.

Q3. The RRP for the True Matte CEWE PHOTBOOK Large Landscape is from £37.99, do you think that this is good value for money, or not? Do you think you would you purchase a CEWE PHOTOBOOK again? If so, why? If not, why not?

I was slow in ordering so mine has not arrived yet, but if it looks as good as it did on screen I would definitely use CEWE again. £37.99 seems a bit steep to be honest and I would be likely to wait until an offer came up. However, I would say it is comparable with other providers. Photobooks are something I tend to wait until I see a good offer- more like £20 and then I order them.

Q4. If it came up in conversation, would you recommend CEWE PHOTOBOOK to friends and/or family? If so, why? If not, why not?

I will come back on and report once the book arrives, but so far I am impressed.

Q5. Do you prefer the True Matte finish to more conventional finishes, or not? If so, why? If not, why not?

I will come back on and report once the book arrives.

Q6. If you had used another photo book retailer before, how does it compare to CEWE PHOTOBOOK? Would you now switch to the CEWE PHOTOBOOK? If so, why? If not, why not?

I will come back on and report once the book arrives, but in terms of the software I really like it- gives you much more flexibility to do what you want to do.

I'm still waiting for my photobook, and want to wait to answer most of the questions until I have the final result in front of me (I'm looking forward to seeing it!), but thought I should answer q2 while I still remember:

Q2. What do you think of the software you used to design your CEWE PHOTOBOOK? Did you find it easy to use, or not? If so, why? If not, why not?
The software was ok, but I think it could have been better.

Unlike others, I didn't have any problems downloading the software, although the software did need an update at one point. Putting the photobook together did take a long time. Quite a proportion of this was choosing my photos, and I had anticipated this would take a while. I would have liked to have then started putting pages together, reordering them at the end. However, it is only possible to reorder pages in pairs. This meant I had to plan out what I wanted on every page in advance, and did substantially add to the time taken to create my photobook.

I didn't like the fact that the page format kept defaulting back to 'overlapping images'. It would have been nice if it had stayed with my latest selection each time.

The assistant was a nice idea, but I can't imagine spending £50 on something, and being happy for the photos to be added in strictly chronological order without putting any more thought into it. Perhaps it would be useful in a situation where you only wanted one or two photos per page?

1 I had no issues with downloading the software but found it challenging arranging the pictures and figuring out the layout,

1. I did not find it easy and constructing my boom took ages!
2. I think it's ok value but it's dependent on the end result and I have not seen it yet.
3. No because the software is too difficult and time consuming to use

5 I prefer matte for myself but would give gloss if it was a gift.

1. I feel that this has discouraged mr from making a photo book again because of the excessive time imvolved.

Q1. I am very reluctant to download from an unknown source. I did it as I trust mumsnet but otherwise I wouldn't have bothered and would have found an online product.

Q2 The software was easy to download and easy to use. The finished book is lovely (thank you)

Q3. This is the first time I have done one of these so I don't know how comparable the price is but it seems quite expensive. For a special keepsake it is worth the money but it isn't something I would want to buy lots of.

Q4. Yes I would recommend this book as it is easy to use the software and the result is lovely.

Q5. I would have preferred a gloss finish

Q6. N/A

Q1. What are your overall impressions of the True Matte CEWE PHOTOBOOK and the process of creating and ordering your photo book?

I am really pleased with the book, and enjoyed making it. As a previous poster has said, the true matte finish looks good on my better quality photos, they look excellent, but it is rather unforgiving on the poorer quality pictures. If these had been in gloss they would have looked less poor.

Making the book took me about 4 hours, with the draw back that I actually used two similar photos which I had been trying to pick between without noticing - if I had been staring at the screen for less time I think I would have avoided this! But taking this long isn't unique to CEWE books, it always takes ages to make them for me.

This book is to be a present for my MIL and I am sure that she will love it.

Q2. What do you think of the software you used to design your CEWE PHOTOBOOK? Did you find it easy to use, or not? If so, why? If not, why not?

The software took a long time to download, which made me wonder if I was doing it right at first. In the end I wandered off and did other things, but I was suprised by how long it took.

I wasn't mad keen on the idea of downloading software to my computer, especially as I didn't know CEWE - if it hadn't come from Mumsnet I may have been more reluctant to do so! The way that my photos could be accessed to import into the book was way more convenient than other photo books I have used. I could switch between the folders on my computer easily. This was an excellent function. There were myriad options for customising the book, in fact I felt like I had barely scratched the surface. Things like the clip art aren't for me, and I prefer not to have too much text, but there were loads of options for customising the page layout and background that I did use.

Q3. The RRP for the True Matte CEWE PHOTBOOK Large Landscape is from £37.99, do you think that this is good value for money, or not? Do you think you would you purchase a CEWE PHOTOBOOK again? If so, why? If not, why not?

I had the two lots of extra pages so my book came to about £50. I think that this is too much to pay, and if those extra pages hadn't been there then I think the book might have looked rather thin. I appreciate the way that the book looks but I wouldn't pay full price. Perhaps this is because they are always on offer somewhere so I have never paid full price for a photobook. If there was a suitable offer I would happily buy another.*

Q4. If it came up in conversation, would you recommend CEWE PHOTOBOOK to friends and/or family? If so, why? If not, why not?

I would, because it is a lovely product, but probably not to someone who was wary of technology as I can think of people I know who would find it offputtingly complicated.

Q5. Do you prefer the True Matte finish to more conventional finishes, or not? If so, why? If not, why not?

See above. I would only use it in the future for a book of perfect pictures, where it would look lovely, as it is less forgiving on poorer quality pics.

Q6. If you had used another photo book retailer before, how does it compare to CEWE PHOTOBOOK? Would you now switch to the CEWE PHOTOBOOK? If so, why? If not, why not?

I found the photo importing much easier, so this may sway me, but ultimately I am going to go by cost at the time I am ready to make the book.

Oh and thank you very much for the chance to try it - I am really pleased with the end result and think it makes an excellent present (although I would quite like to keep it!)

Q1. What are your overall impressions of the True Matte CEWE PHOTOBOOK and the process of creating and ordering your photo book?
I like the book with the matt effect. It was a bit smaller than I was expecting though. I was going to design the book from scratch but tbh it was too faffy so I just used the auto one. Even then I had to go through and jiggle the pics around a bit

Q2. What do you think of the software you used to design your CEWE PHOTOBOOK? Did you find it easy to use, or not? If so, why? If not, why not?
I didn't really use too much of it as the edit functions were too many and not easy to work out

Q3. The RRP for the True Matte CEWE PHOTBOOK Large Landscape is from £37.99, do you think that this is good value for money, or not? Do you think you would you purchase a CEWE PHOTOBOOK again? If so, why? If not, why not?
*I'm not sure if I would purchase for the full price. People like Photobox etc have offers on all the time, so I would probably get one on an offer

Q4. If it came up in conversation, would you recommend CEWE PHOTOBOOK to friends and/or family? If so, why? If not, why not?
Yes I would tell them to get one if they were on offer

Q5. Do you prefer the True Matte finish to more conventional finishes, or not? If so, why? If not, why not?
I liked the matte version, it seemed to make my phone pictures seem better quality

Q6. If you had used another photo book retailer before, how does it compare to CEWE PHOTOBOOK? Would you now switch to the CEWE PHOTOBOOK? If so, why? If not, why not?
I've used Photobox before. Their system was easier but I do like the matte from Cewe. I'd probably see which one had the best offer on at the time

Just squeaked in my order after spending all evening putting my book together tonight (no chance before now as away without PC/internet over half term). I used the assistant and on the whole found it reasonably intuitive, though I couldn't work out how to swap pictures onto other pages, only within the double-page-spread, which was a bit annoying. Perhaps it's not possible. ANyway, deleting and re-importing the pics in the place I wanted them worked okay.

I found the framing of pictures a bit poor, I would have hoped for more smartness about e.g. putting portrait pictures into portrait-shaped holes on the template, and maybe positioning within frames around people's faces etc. But on the whole, it seemed good, stable, and better than other such interfaces I've tried.

I will come back and comment on the book itself once it arrives.

There was one part of the ordering process which I was not impressed by, which any right-thinking company would surely want to fix:
when asked for my personal details, I selected title: "Dr", then gave my first and last names. On the next screen, with billing/invoice details, I appeared as "Mr Firstname Lastname".

Just spent hours trying to pull mine together, ended up doing it by hand then my code doesnt work! not too impressed

any idea what format the code looks like as mine keeps saying wrong format

Unfortunately I have been unable to create a photo book despite several hours of trying. I managed to download the software on my laptop but it crashes when trying to access my photos. I tried on my iPad, however I can't get the software to download. If it hadn't have been for this trial I would have given up long ago and tried another company.

Im gutted, Ive left it too late (been away over half term) didnt realise how long it would take. It looks great :(

buffy fairy - ive sent you a message

Okay, having received my photobook I can add some more details for review.

Q3. The RRP for the True Matte CEWE PHOTBOOK Large Landscape is from £37.99, do you think that this is good value for money, or not? Do you think you would you purchase a CEWE PHOTOBOOK again? If so, why? If not, why not?

I think it is a fair enough price, a little high for my budget but it is a really nice item. Hardback makes it feel like a real book and all the options for editing make it possible to make it a really special momento at a fraction of the cost to produce this by a photographer. A budget wedding album may be a real possibility with the software, once you get to grips with it.

Q4. If it came up in conversation, would you recommend CEWE PHOTOBOOK to friends and/or family? If so, why? If not, why not?

Yes, I would. The software installed well, if a little slowly, and the worst bit of the whole process was choosing the photos to include. The finished product arrived less than a week after ordering. All good!

Q5. Do you prefer the True Matte finish to more conventional finishes, or not? If so, why? If not, why not?

I think I quite like the matte finish for the book I ordered, makes it look like a picture book rather than photos, which is quite pleasant. If I wanted photo finish I would have a photo, this actually looks kind of cool, like being published

Q6. If you had used another photo book retailer before, how does it compare to CEWE PHOTOBOOK? Would you now switch to the CEWE PHOTOBOOK? If so, why? If not, why not?

Never used one before, may now though.

Thanks again for this trial. I absolutely love the book, its a unique and personal item that I may never have thought to have done without this. Love it!!

Another one here who (just) missed the deadline. After several attempts on previous evenings where all photos were lost. I had a clear out to create more memory but even with photos already organised it took too long due to initially attempting to use the assistant but finding it was deleting whole pages of photos, then once I'd switched to manual finding that Facebook photos were inaccessible despite the option being available. Finally, when I completed the book it stole window focus, meaning I couldn't access the pop up window with the choice of whether to save or just add to basket or my email to get the voucher code. I eventually managed to get to checkout at 10 past midnight, when obviously the voucher code had expired. This is partly my fault for leaving it so last minute, but very frustrating as I do like the photobook I've created and I would have had plenty of time without the aforementioned issues.

Another one here who has missed the deadline - I thought I'd carry on and try to finish creating it just to see how it looked - and I've just looked at the time and realised it's 2am which is crazy and time I need to go to sleep.
However, the main things that have stood out for me when doing this have been - so far:

• Needing to get photos really well organised before starting. I'd whittled my photos down to about 2000 (I know, I take way too many photos!) thinking I would select the best ones for each page as I went but it just became too time consuming as the images were too small to see quality or it took time to open and review each one.so I needed to go back and whittle them right down out of the Photoworld app.

I also take pictures using several different cameras which all have their own numbering system and so when I have a lot of photos it's good to be able to sort by date and I couldn't find a way to do this. Which meant it was back out of Photoworld and doing some sorting by date and then renaming so everything would be in the right order - except it didn't even seem to then sort them properly in name order (although it was better than before) which meant I was still taking a long time to double check I'd got all the photos I needed for a page. As others have said - it crashed quite a bit which meant stopping, restarting the application, recovering the photobook, redoing any lost bits (I tried to save after every page and sometimes more frequently but sometimes just initiating saving caused it to crash) and then starting from where you were but it always takes a little while to get back into it when you are interrupted so lots of crashes means it feels like you don't get into a good groove for it. Worst is when it crashes your entire PC as that takes much longer to kick back to being able to carry on with your photobook. Also would have liked to use my own pictures as backgrounds which I've done in other photobooks (they look great when made pale and / or blurred) but couldn't see how to do that. There's more but I'm too tired now so will post again tomorrow.

Cewe photobook review

Below are my comments on this. I have not yet received the item as I only managed to finish creating it yesterday, so will comment more once I receive this.

Q1. What are your overall impressions of the True Matte CEWE PHOTOBOOK and the process of creating and ordering your photo book?
A - I was very excited as it looking really good an fun. Overall it took far longer than I planned (all day). I had 50 photos to decide on. I did have trouble at the end trying to order as when I tried to log in it said it wasn't valid and when I tried to register it said I was already registered. I had to create a new account using a different email address, which ended up having the same problem. I did realise I had put the password in wrong.

Q2. What do you think of the software you used to design your CEWE PHOTOBOOK? Did you find it easy to use, or not? If so, why? If not, why not?
A - At first I was a bit confused but managed to easily work out how to use it. I would have found it useful to have had a quick tutorial. For some of my photos I had cropped them before uploading and it would have been better for me not to do this. When I was using the option to decide how many photos etc and then added a photo into this, the photo view would change and I may not be able to view the full photo. I got around this by just having a blank page and dragging the photo myself. I had to be careful when increasing the size as a similar thing would happen. Also I had some photos I chose to use the full page, but there was a yellow warning ! on, I wasn't sure what this meant and again had to go back to the method of deleting then dragging the photo myself on the blank page. However there were only a few of them that I had this problem with. I would have liked to have more editing choices in the software. There was a photo I wanted to use, but I would have liked to blur the background, but the option was to only blur all the image. The only other problem I had is where I had designed pages then I noticed they had all changed, my comments and the photos had disappeared etc. I rang the helpline and the woman I spoke to said it sounded like there may be a problem with the software and to save, close and open it again. I didn't do this so can't comment more on this.

Q3. The RRP for the True Matte CEWE PHOTBOOK Large Landscape is from £37.99, do you think that this is good value for money, or not? Do you think you would you purchase a CEWE PHOTOBOOK again? If so, why? If not, why not?
A - I may only purchase this for a special occasion.

Q4. If it came up in conversation, would you recommend CEWE PHOTOBOOK to friends and/or family? If so, why? If not, why not?
A - When I see the final result I can comment more. I think it is a good idea and would recommend it but the negative is the time taken to produce this.

Q5. Do you prefer the True Matte finish to more conventional finishes, or not? If so, why? If not, why not?

Q6. If you had used another photo book retailer before, how does it compare to CEWE PHOTOBOOK? Would you now switch to the CEWE PHOTOBOOK? If so, why? If not, why not?
A - I have not used another retailer before.

Q1. What are your overall impressions of the True Matte CEWE PHOTOBOOK and the process of creating and ordering your photo book?

Ordering was fine. Software download was easy. I struggled though to get the layout the way I wanted and found it really hard to use. I have used photobox before for a much smaller album and it was a breeze

Q2. What do you think of the software you used to design your CEWE PHOTOBOOK? Did you find it easy to use, or not? If so, why? If not, why
I would have said I'm pretty literate with computers but boy I struggled. I used the assistant but I couldn't get the pics in the order I wanted and kept starting again. The whole process was a chore and I finished it quickly as I was conscious of the voucher ending. However I was still optimistic I would get a decent book from it. Not the case. Loads of photos with heads chopped off. I'm embarrassed. It's like the worst wedding album ever

Q3. The RRP for the True Matte CEWE PHOTBOOK Large Landscape is from £37.99, do you think that this is good value for money, or not? Do you think you would you purchase a CEWE PHOTOBOOK again? If so, why? If not
If I was paying myself I wouldn't have baulked at the price. This was my wedding album. Maybe I would have spent more time. However to be honest I would have given up and tried a different company.
Q4. If it came up in conversation, would you recommend CEWE PHOTOBOOK to friends and/or family? If so, why? If not, why not?

No. No chance of my parents or I laws managing the software. Plus I'm so disappointed with the result.
Q5. Do you prefer the True Matte finish to more conventional finishes, or not? If so, why? If not, why not
Personal preference would be glossy but the Matt does look expensive.
Q6. If you had used another photo book retailer before, how does it compare to CEWE PHOTOBOOK? Would you now switch to the CEWE PHOTOBOOK? If so, why? If not, why not?

The one I used before was easy as. My only issue was it was much smaller than I expected. This was a stressful frustrating nightmare and I am so disappointed with the result. I will have to do another one. Safe to say I will try an easier one From a different retailer

Q1. What are your overall impressions of the True Matte CEWE PHOTOBOOK and the process of creating and ordering your photo book?

I LOVE our book. I found it relatively easy to make, although i didn't realise you could add more pages, or use text and clipart, but i was doing it in a huge rush! The end result of even just the simple version is amazing.

Q2. What do you think of the software you used to design your CEWE PHOTOBOOK? Did you find it easy to use, or not? If so, why? If not, why not?

It downloaded about a million things on to my desktop which was a pain, and it wasn't easy to uninstall. The most worrying thing was my anti-virus said that it was a dangerous file and i had to override it to download it. Once it was downloaded i found it easy to use.

Q3. The RRP for the True Matte CEWE PHOTBOOK Large Landscape is from £37.99, do you think that this is good value for money, or not? Do you think you would you purchase a CEWE PHOTOBOOK again? If so, why? If not, why not?

I think its a fair price actually. I think it was worth it.

Q4. If it came up in conversation, would you recommend CEWE PHOTOBOOK to friends and/or family? If so, why? If not, why not?

Yes as its such a good result.

Q5. Do you prefer the True Matte finish to more conventional finishes, or not? If so, why? If not, why not?

I have never had another photobook so can't compare it but i think it looks really good.

Q6. If you had used another photo book retailer before, how does it compare to CEWE PHOTOBOOK? Would you now switch to the CEWE PHOTOBOOK? If so, why? If not, why not?

Never had.

Thank you very much for the opportunity to test this book, I used it for pictures of my nephew who was extremely premature and to see how far he has come in this lovely book is inspiring, thank you very much.

Q1. What are your overall impressions of the True Matte CEWE PHOTOBOOK and the process of creating and ordering your photo book?

The book is gorgeous, and I'm so glad I was chosen! We've just returned from a 10 day trip to New York with our 11m old daughter, and I wanted to make her a journal as obviously she won't remember any of it! If I hadn't been chosen, it would have remained one of those things I kept meaning to get round to, so I was super happy to have the push to actually do it!

HOWEVER, I didn't create it using their software. I tried, I really did! I wanted multiple photos and text boxes on each page and varying layouts - and I couldn't do it using the supplied software. I'd be interested to know if the people saying they found it easy were just putting photos in or if they were attempting different layouts?

I used an iPad app to create my pages (the Project Life one!) and exported them so all I had to do was drop each page I'd created on to a page. Just using one image per page, I found the software fairly quick and intuitive, and I think if I'd been trying to do something simpler, I would have been able to make the whole thing in the supplied software.

My only criticism of the quality is that some of the images have slightly off colouring - most noticeable in the photo of my arm! Husband suggests this could be due to my photo having more colours than CEWE can print?

Q2. What do you think of the software you used to design your CEWE PHOTOBOOK? Did you find it easy to use, or not? If so, why? If not, why not?

As mentioned above, when I was just inserting single images on to a page, it work d fine! I just found trying to get the look I wanted a bit tricky. I tried using the wizard and the DIY version and could have maybe done with a quick tutorial on them to show me what to do!

Q3. The RRP for the True Matte CEWE PHOTBOOK Large Landscape is from £37.99, do you think that this is good value for money, or not? Do you think you would you purchase a CEWE PHOTOBOOK again? If so, why? If not, why not?

I think I might do, now I've figured out a way to get the look I want easily! It does seem to be on the high end cost wise, but it really is beautiful.

Q4. If it came up in conversation, would you recommend CEWE PHOTOBOOK to friends and/or family? If so, why? If not, why not?

Hmm. Possibly. I doubt my parents would be able to create a book like this, but if they just wanted a basic one with one or two photos per page and no text, then maybe! For people I know who use software such as the Project Life app where you can export a finished page much easier I would definitely recommend it based on the quality!
Q5. Do you prefer the True Matte finish to more conventional finishes, or not? If so, why? If not, why not?

Q6. If you had used another photo book retailer before, how does it compare to CEWE PHOTOBOOK? Would you now switch to the CEWE PHOTOBOOK? If so, why? If not, why not?

I've not!

This seems a bit negative, but I'm thrilled with the finished item! I've attached a couple of photos to show what I made, which may go some way to explaining the difficulty I was having!

Oh i forgot to add, i didn't use the assistant.

I received my book in the post today. It is lovely! It was wrapped in cellophane type stuff - like a magazine - so would look quite professional as a gift. (was in a card envelope as well so well protected!)

I really like the matte finish as it does look more like a book rather than just a photo album.

I would use CEWE again and would recommend them. Although, I would maybe wait to buy until I found a discount code.

Thanks for picking me to try this though as I love my book!