All Please Please Me album sleeves manufactured in Australia between December 1963 and December 1980 are characterised by the following:
The front picture of the Australian sleeve is subjectively 'brighter' than the U.K. original; detail that was obscured in shadow on the UK sleeve is evident in the local version. The reason for this is that due to a Union ruling, EMI Australia was not allowed to use imported film negatives as source material for printing sleeves; so a photograph was taken of an imported UK sleeve and the resulting negative used as the source to produce local sleeves. Unfortunately film is analogous to an analogue format so a photograph of an LP sleeve will have some form of 'generation loss', which equates to compromises to colour, detail and relative brightness of the original. Presumably the image was tweaked to the most acceptable level of presentation and printing plates produced from that 'master'.
Blue text was utilised on both sides of the sleeve; not out of any determination to make the sleeve uniquely Australian but simply because it was cheaper to have blue text than black. It should be remembered that at that point in time, The Beatles were largely unknown in Australia and so EMI Australia was reluctant to spend any more than they absolutely had to on sleeve production - which is why 500 sleeves were imported from the UK to house the first Australian copies of Please Please Me.
Being a photograph of an early UK sleeve, the Australian sleeve features the credit for photographer, Angus McBean, at the bottom extreme-right, visible on the rear flipside of the cover.
Images
Number:1266985 THUMBNAIL Uploaded By:Quad5point1● Description: Gatefold Sleeve Front