Review: Zno's Layflat Book

I like to do photo album, digitally or not. The process of browsing and handpicking photos, attempting to layout the pages chronologically and flipping through the pages back and forth is therapeutic. And the outcome of the hard work is... pleasing, because of the achievement of memory-calling and collating sets of photos into a book. 

When I chanced upon Zno, I decided to try my hands in making the Layflat book. I was drawn to its thick pages of high quality printing. The pages of the book are not just done on conventional paper quality, but it mounted on thick inner substrate with silver halide photo paper, which gives the book an excellent premier characters. The uniqueness of no bulging and no gutting when layflat is another special feature. Think grand and once-in-one's-life-time high quality wedding album, but in smaller and manageable scale. What's more, the special offer - $5 Trial was very attractive. 

The special offer is not just for its premium flush mount photo album but also wood custom photo frame and canvas print.

Eligibility: 1 trial item per household/account;

Note: Shipping & tax (if any) not included.

Here, I am sharing some tips of making a layflat book via Zno.

But, before that, please create a new folder in your computer. Do the photo selection off-line. The maximum possible number of photos that can squeeze into one 20-pages 6" by 8" book is between 60 to 70, judging from my experience.

For my book, I've picked our previous family trip to Sydney (back in 2013).

1. The Start

Once you've registered yourself an account with Zno, click into "Get My Trial" under the $5 Trial. It will lead you through to start your photo album project.

Pick a product you want. In this case here it is either the Layflat Hard Cover 6X8 or 8X6. My pick was 6X8 - landscape format.

2. The Cover Page of the Book

What will welcome you is the blank cover page of your future layflat book. Ideally, pick one or two powerful photos to give the 'bang' impact to the book. In this book, I've selected a scenic photo from Koolewong Foreshore Reserve, NSW.

Prior to the start of  making the book, there are 3 tabs on the left sidebar, one of them is for you to upload all your photos- as I've indicated on the top left corner of the snapshot above.

2.1  Click "Upload" to upload photos into here . 

2.2  Once done, select a layout and photos that you want for the cover page.

2.3  For book title, add text by clicking "T"on the top setting bar. 

Do note that Zno has very limited font type to choose from, it does not allow Chinese Characters, it has no artistic hand-written font either.

2.4  Once done the above (even if you are not fully satisfied), click "save" as often as you can.

3. The Arrangement of the Photos

On a blank new sheet (consist of 2 pages when layflat), first select a desired layout to fit-in your photos/images. It can be 1 photo per 1 sheet, up to maximum 15 photos (as shown in the snapshot above). 

3.1  Sometime, it is hard to decide how many photos to fit into a sheet, but that's the fun of it!

A good start is 7 or 8.

3.2  There is a button for bringing 1 photo to front or send to back, if there are photos overlaying each other;
3.3  There is also an "clean up" button, if you are not satisfied with your entire attempt in 1 sheet.
3.4  There are some simple stickers/ graphical on the left sidebar allow you to decorate the pages.


4. An Example of Too Many Photos in One Sheet

11 photos, here below, including one as background.

As a result, the photos became very small... except the one that was intentionally being bigger (Sydney Bridge) size than others.

Side note: In the above sheet, there was 10 photos in one layout originally. I added one more empty frame to add in one more photo, and so the entire sheet became 11 photos and more balancing in term of visual effect.

While you can re-arrange the layout in a sheet, you can too, re-arrange the pages for the book. All you need to do is go to "Pages" on the left sidebar and drag/move the intended pages.

5. About Texting

I don't do much story telling in my photo album, but I wouldn't skip labeling name of place and date for one particular photo or a series of them. I found out that font size 10 is the ideal size for texting; whilst font size 8 suitable for 'date'. 

5.1  Click "T"on the top setting bar.
5.2  An pop-up box for "text"will appear randomly on the current sheet.
5.3  After typed in the text, move to your desired place in the sheet.

Of course, you can up the size of the font or rotate it.

The above snapshot of the sheet is an example of not-optimising-the-page, where I wanted one photo as focal point for the sheet, and another as secondary. Do note that I took the suggested layout of 4 (arrow pointed at the left bottom corner above), but I enlarged each of the frame to the max i could.

6. Adding Border to One Photo

When one photo overlay the other, I usually would outline the front photo(s) by adding a thin white (or black) frame as border to the photo.

For the background, there is only colours available to play with. No pattern paper or special effect. The only creative way I can do is, enlarge one photo to the max, fade or blur it and then send the photo to back. It will ultimately become a background for the page/sheet- like the one above.


7.  An Example of Customised Background

7.1  On the intended photo, click on "Properties".
7.2  Adjust the level of Opacity, Brightness, Contrast or/and Saturation to the desired effect.

Don't forget to click "save" constantly.


8.  Preview

Lastly, you can get preview of your work. See all the red line or invisible guidelines no more?

^  ^  ^  ^  ^  ^  ^ 

The process of learning a new online software was a little bumpy at first. For Zno, there are some fun features unavailable, for example, variety of font to choose from, pattern papers as background and instagramed-effect to the photos. Being an avid digital-scrapbooker, I scratched my head. But, I got the hang of it eventually. The limitation keeps things simple, and simplicity help me to focus to produce a sleek and chic layflat book.

The page is intentionally lifted up standing, to show its thick quality. 

I am not kidding, no one is knocking my work. But then again, perhaps it is due to the impeccable stunning printing quality. 


Zno (Formerly known as Artisan State) is in the process of improving its product line and offering sales from time to time, i.e. upcoming Father's Day Promotion. However, grab the best deal - $5 Trial if you are first timer to Zno! (if you don't mind the small book, that is)

Do feel free to let me know if you have question about Zno's layflat book. I will try to help.

Disclaimer: In exchange of doing this review, I am accepting free sets of layflat book. No monetary compensation for this post. All opinion are 100% mine.