Is Artifact Uprising the Best Photo Album Option?

Ever since Artifact Uprising launched in 2012, they’ve quickly become one of the top choices for premium quality photo books and beautiful keepsakes. But are their photo albums and prints worth the extra cost compared to less expensive options such as Shutterfly? Read on to see what we think!

Before we dive into the Artifact Uprising photo album options, it’s helpful to first know the difference between the types of wedding albums they have available.

TLDR: The main differences you’ll see between the Artifact Uprising wedding album types are the cover designs/materials, size, and page counts. These can get a little confusing, so we’ve listed out each album type, below. Note that Artifact Uprising has more than 11 different types of photo albums, but for this piece we’re focusing on the best ones they recommend for your wedding.

WGM Says: When it comes to pricing, the “from” price you see below is for the smallest album size (IE: 6 x 8) and 20 pages. Pricing goes up from there depending on the size and number of pages you add.

Hardcover Wedding Photo Book

Note: This is the only non-layflat wedding album option listed here, which means it’s more like a traditional book vs. the layflat, which do exactly what their name implies! Layflat books are bound so you can open them completely flat, allowing you to print one image across two pages with a less intrusive seam. Check out the hardcover photo book in action, then compare it to the layflat pages to see the difference.

• Price: From $82
• Page count: Up to 210 interior pages
• Paper Type: Mohawk Option 100% PC White (matte finish, 100 lb. text, 100% recycled)
• Cover Options: Choose from 11 linen fabric colors and a full or partial photo-based dust jacket.
• Album Size: 6 x 8, 8 x 6, 8.5 x 8.5, 8.25 x 11, 10 x 10, 11 x 8.25

Layflat Photo Album

• Price: From $152
• Page count: 70 page maximum
• Paper Type: Choice of Mohawk proPhoto paper in Lustre finish, or Mohawk Superfine paper in eggshell finish.
• Cover Options: Choose from 12 linen colors and four foil-embossed stamp colors for your title.
• Album Size: 8.5 x 8.5, 10 x 10, 8.25 x 11, 12 x 12, 14 x 11

Wedding Layflat Photo Album

• Price: From $192
• Page count: 70 page maximum
• Paper Type: Choice of Mohawk proPhoto paper in Lustre finish, or Mohawk Superfine paper in eggshell finish.
• Cover Options: Choose from four wedding-themed cover designs or create your own simple text. Available in 12 linen colors and four foil-embossed stamp colors for your book title and spine.
• Album Size: 8.5 x 8.5, 8.25 x 11, 10 x 10, 11 x 8.25, 12 x 12, 14 x 11

Signature Layflat Photo Album

• Price: From $289
• Page count: 90 page book maximum
• Paper Type: Choice of Mohawk proPhoto paper in Lustre finish, or Mohawk Superfine paper in eggshell finish. Includes marbled end sheets.
• Cover Options: Choose from linen (12 colors) or leather (2 colors) for $45 more. You can personalize the cover with four pre-designed cover layouts or a “Simple Text” option, as well as photo inlay and the choice of five foil-stamped color options for the title. Foil colors include black, white, copper, silver, and gold.
• Album Size: 10 x 10 or 12 x 12
• Extra: Add a wood display box

More About the Artifact Uprising Paper

The difference between cheap looking wedding albums and quality ones comes down to the way the pages look and feel. For most of the Artifact Uprising wedding albums (with the exception of the new Hardcover Wedding Book) they use Mohawk proPhoto Paper in either a Lustre or Superfine in eggshell finish. The most popular choice for Artifact Uprising wedding albums is Lustre, which is somewhere between a matte and shiny finish. For wedding guestbooks that guests would write on, they recommend the Superfine. See their guestbook option here.

In terms of paper weight, Artifact Uprising uses Mohawk proPhoto, which is available in 96c (260 gsm). For comparison, MILK wedding books also use 260 gsm paper. However, keep in mind lay flat album pages are not generally measured in weight since they have glue sheet inserts to make a flush mount.

How to Create Your Artifact Uprising Wedding Album

Now that we’ve gone through the different album types you’ll have to choose from, let’s talk about the process of actually creating your album.

Step 1:

First, you need to set up an Artifact Uprising account. Then, using the pricing and design options above, pick the album type the looks best to you.

WGM Says: You can also choose to have one of their professional designers do it for you. You’ll need to pay a $100 album deposit and $119 design fee up front. The total cost for an album with their design services starts at $313 and goes up depending on the album size and style well as number of pages you choose. (You’re basically just paying $119 more than you would doing it yourself).

Step 2:

Once you’ve narrowed down the album type you like, you can start designing! Artifact Uprising lets you upload photos from your desktop, Dropbox, Google Photos, and even Facebook and Instagram, which is great for all those wedding hashtag photos you’ve shared. There is also an Artifact Uprising app available in the app store, though if you’re dealing with a large amount of photos, I think using your desktop is way easier.

Here are a few of the best wedding album design tips we’ve gotten from professional photographers over the years:

-10 x 10 and 12×12 are the most common wedding album sizes for couples. For the parent books you can go smaller depending on your budget (these make such great gifts). For your wedding album, you’ll want to splurge for a hardcover book, which will last a lot longer than an everyday photo book.

-When it comes to choosing photos, pick the photos you LOVE, not necessarily the ones that you think “have” to go in there (like that group shot). Pretend you’re a magazine editor and go with the ones that really speak to you. On average couples choose between 75-90 photos or more.

-While a lot of wedding photo album services have fancy page layouts available, don’t go crazy. Aim to have 1-2 photos per page, with a couple of your favorite horizontal photos stretching across two pages for a great mix if you’re going with a layflat album design.

-Not sure where to start your wedding album? Thinking chronologically, and tell the story of your wedding day on each page. Be sure to include the “big” moments, like walking down the aisle, the first kiss, first dance, etc.

-Don’t be afraid to do all color or all black and white, or a mix of the two!

Step 3:

Once you’ve selected your design and layout options, make sure you double and triple check your work by previewing every page. Make sure there are no typos on the cover, and that your photos are the right resolution and that they’re cropped properly. If someone’s head is cut off or the image quality is poor, you won’t be able to return your album. You can only return your album if something went wrong on their end and it’s defective, so be sure to check your design work!

Before you check out, be sure to see if they’re offering a promo code. There are certain times of year that they will offer 20%, so it could be worth waiting until you see that offer! (Especially if you’re buying more than one album).

The Artifact Uprising Experience

As someone who has made an Artifact Uprising wedding album, I wanted to share my insights from the experience and what I found when I went through the process online.

Customizations

Overall, I thought the customization options for the front cover were limiting. When making my Wedding Layflat album, I liked the font option when I picked the “Our Best Day” cover choice, however I wanted to customize the wording so I picked the “Simple Text” option instead. However, that particular script font was not available, and there were only three font options to choose from that I didn’t love.

Autofill

In the hopes of saving time when designing my album, I selected the ‘autofill’ option. However, when you do this ALL photos you’ve uploaded into your galleries are automatically inserted into pre-defined layouts. While you can still edit, add, or delete photos that are now autofilled in your album, I found this process to be a little tricky. It would be great if you could select particular ones to use the autofill option with. Next time, I would definitely just reach out to customer service to ask for help (vs. stubbornly trying to work through it myself).

Layouts

You can change the layout of any page in a filled album, but sometimes the software can be sensitive. 8 out of 10 times I could easily change the layout and the existing photos would stay on the page, but there were a few times when one of the photos would completely disappear and I would have to find it again and add it back, so that seemed like a technical issue.

I also encountered a few instances where I would intentionally delete photos and select a different layout, and it wouldn’t recognize the changes. Overall, it wasn’t a huge issue because I could either press the “undo” button to try and reverse what I just did, or I could just re-select the deleted photo within the gallery.

Even though I’m glad there were a lot of layouts, I found the number of choices to be a bit overwhelming. One way I tried to make the process easier was by selecting the number of images I wanted on the page. When I selected two images per page, I was presented with 17 options instead of 87, which felt like a much easier process.

Edits & Preview

You will have to edit the photos at times. For example, I found myself having to move a photo so our heads weren’t cropped, or crop the photo itself so it was centered.

Overall, I found the preview of the completed book to be accurate. It really gave me a true sense of what the product would actually look like! But, what about the quality?

Are Artifact Uprising Albums Worth It?

If you’re looking for a professional, heirloom-quality wedding album, Artifact Uprising should top your list. Considering you could spend over a thousand dollars on an album from your wedding photographer (which also has its perks, but more on that later), this is the next best option. Artifact Uprising is in a league with only a few competitors (MILK Books and PikPerfect are the closest), and though it’s more expensive than Shutterfly or Blurb, you’re getting what you pay for.

With that said, I don’t think you have to go with their most expensive wedding album option. I actually prefer the cover options on their Wedding Layflat Album vs. the Signature, and you’re still getting the ultra-thick pages which make the album feel like it’s worth almost double the price.

Their Lustre paper option really allows your wedding photos to come to life (without being overly shiny), and the foil-embossed titles and linen color options are truly beautiful. So, is Artifact Uprising worth it? Bottom line: If you’re looking for a high-quality wedding photo album you can customize yourself, the answer is definitely yes. Just be on the lookout for discount codes to help you save!

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