Photo Books

Interface is a bit slow on my works laptop... but then again everything is slow on this damned machine

I was thinking about Blurb for my next photobook. I've used Photobox, and when they are good they are very good, but they have too many QC problems which they are happy to sort out....

Love the pictures John

I'm interested to hear how it turns out. I have done quite a few photo books at http://www.fotobuch.de/ and I like the quality of these.

Having the option to put the photo books up for sale sounds quite tempting. I was planning of doing a "best of" book sometime (two holiday trips to put in books first), this could easily be done in a "proper" way. I guess it won't be selling like hotcakes but it would be interesting to see if it sells at all.

This brings me to another idea: If the quality is adequate, how about making a Pentax User Forum photo book with the proceeds going to a charity? We could easily make one with all competition winners...

BTW: John, I do like the "simple" layout of your book. And that preview thingy really gets you to want to see more...

Prieni

I have made a few books from blurb. See the links below

http://www.blurb.com/bookstore/detail/594715
http://www.blurb.com/bookstore/detail/574215

My opinions are a bit mixed. I recently ordered the Image Wrap version with premium paper and the paper quality is so much better. But Blurb print on matte paper and they pictures usually come out darker that on screen so bear that in mind. Also, books for delivery in Europe are printed in the Netherlands and according to the forums, printers in Europe are much better than the US equivalent so it explains why many US buyers complain about quality.

The software is not bad and they have Mac and PC offerings. It is not easy to do two page spreads though so you have to do some magic on your own but there are tried and tested techniques on their forums.

Jessops (yes the same Jessops who don't sell Pentax) were offering a massive discount on their books about a month ago and made one using their software and the results were very good in my opinion. The standard Jessops paper is not as good as the Blurb premium but much better than the standard Blurb paper. Jessops offer photo paper as well and I am yet to order a book with that paper. I think it will be better than the Blurb premium paper though. Jessops also print on gloss paper which is quite nice. Can't say yet if I prefer gloss or matte. Jessops also offer Mac and PC software but crucially you can create double page spreads very easily with the Jessops software and the Jessops templates are customizable and you have access to plenty more predefined templates than Blurb. In a nutshell, Jessops offer more flexibility. And to set your mind at easy, you don't have to use Jessops per say. You can go direct to the company Jessops outsource to cewe. I used Jessops as it meant I could pick up the book from the store and save on delivery. Software is the same.

Blurb is cheaper that Jessops at the moment. A 120 page book cost £50 with Jessops and ~£30 with Blurb (premium paper and image wrap). The Jessops books are also bigger in that the standard portrait book is A4 with Jessops compared to the 8x10 of Blurb. Of course both offer larger books.

I like Blurb in that I can always order more copies quite easily as they store the book on their website and I can also sell my books if I want and family can buy multiple copies. That is a real winner. With Jessops you have to store the book locally and software updates may not be compatible with previous versions so you could lose the ability to print your book unless you create it again.

Both have pro and cons but I think in general Jessops (rather Cewe) offer better books in terms of colour rendition and print quality. But Blurb offer a better after sales package.

Have you seen this from the Pentax-Discuss Mail List on Blurb? Pentaxians think alike Saw it the other day. It is a great idea Prieni. Of course I would like to win a competition so I can get my picture in there too!

Now, this throws my age back in my face. Yes, I had seen that a while ago, as it seems forgot about it and it subconsciously crept up again when I saw John's photo book.
I gladly would have answered the question "Was that your own idea?" with a resounding "Yes, Sir" (or "Yes, Mam" respectively). (I have to make a note to warn friends who would like to call me to witness in court...)
Now it is obvious where I nicked "my" idea Good thing is that I will forget that within a few days...

Now I say if they can do it it should be a doddle for the capable members of this forum... Or to coin another phrase (this time I'm positive I've never heard it before): Yes, we can.

Prieni

The books are now back from Blurb, all the way from the Netherlands.

They are fine. Image quality is excellent, the black pages are perfect, the binding strong and neat, the dust cover fits properly, the colours and brightness are spot on with the originals.

There is now no need for me to pay the higher price of the iBook.

Excellent, quick and trackable delivery.

As someone else has already said, this has opened up a whole new world to me. I didn't know you could make your own photo book and for just £30..(ish)!

I'll give this some serious thought when I have enough good photos to put into it.

What a great idea!

I know this is an old thread but...

I made a Blurb photobook as a present for my lady love and I am very pleased with it. The premium paper is nice and heavy and it is well made and bound. My only criticism is that one or two "high key" pictures (i.e. ones with a lot of snow in them) came out a little darker than I would have hoped, but these were only two or three pictures out of about 150...

I have some more projects in mind where the ability for other people to buy the book is very tempting. For example, my project in Romania is coming to an end (after nine years!) and I am tempted to make a book of the social side of it. The fact that they can just buy it direct is much easier than having to take orders etc.

Best wishes, Kris.

I'm kinda blown away that i can make a book of my images.Thanks for this John

Software has been downloaded

How do people get around the fact that images tend to print darker? I have had this issue and it drives me nuts.

The images that I have made into books look very very close to the originals. If they are consistently printing too dark just make your images a bit lighter to compensate.

I used Blurb a few times and my images were darker than I wanted. I calibrated my monitor to use the PC standard gamma, 2.2 as opposed to the mac 1.8. Now the images on screen look very similar to the ones in the book in terms of brightness.

Something to note though, I used Jessops as well and the images were brighter and didn't need any adjustments. They use gloss paper though and that may affect it.

Thanks for the tips!

Looks very nice indeed - and on a purely anecdotal level I now know that I'm not the only person on the planet to have bothered going to Mont St Michel

Lulu.com is another in the same vain as Blurb, have not used them as yet but the prices do look good.