Manufacturer: Opus Album
Model: –
Price: £39.99
www.intro2020.com

Every now an again you come across a fantastic idea that makes you slap your forehead in a ‘Duh!’ kind of way. This is one such product. There are plenty of inkjet papers out there, and even more albums and portfolios, but the Opus combines the two brilliantly. Imagine a black hardback A4 portfolio album, filled with 20 sheets of high quality fine art paper which, when you undo the screws, come out and pop straight into your inkjet printer. Then, when you’ve made your prints, you screw them back into the album for the easiest fine art portfolio you’ll ever make.

Perfect Colour

We found printing a doddle. Once we’d worked out how much we needed to offset the image on the page to allow for the holes (about an inch) we were away, and got almost perfect colour straight away, using a Canon i965 printer on the ‘Plain Paper’ setting. The 200gsm acid and lignin-free paper has a pleasant, natural off-white colour and a soft textured surface which really soaks up a lot of ink, so images aren’t as crisp and saturated as a high gloss print (obviously), but there’s a classiness, a hand-made quality that we really like.

Criticisms? Not many. The light grey card slip case that protects the album is a bit flimsy and shows fingermarks too easily, and it would be nice to see some variations on the theme – different colours, a portrait format one and, of course, an A3 version – but we understand these will come. We also think £40 is a bit steep for 20 sheets of paper, even with the album. This places it firmly as a luxury purchase.

Verdict:
Everything you need to make yourself a classy hardbacked portfolio.

Pros:
Classy presentation, ease of use

Cons:
Slip case is a little flimsy

What Digital Camera Score: 90%