BLURB consistency

[Paddy C]

Should finally be able to get around to putting a book together later this year so this info is much appreciated.

I don't know that I would ever trust TopTenReviews to make a decision.

Printing is tough.

I design art exhibition catalogues. Just did a book this summer with a mix of CMYK colour repros and B&W tri-tones (reproducing some Geoffrey James photos). And printed by a very good printer. Was it perfect? No. There are some repros I wasn't entirely happy with and the tri-tones were very difficult but turned out well even though I'm not sure it was exactly the look I wanted for them.

So I have no doubt that on-demand services will be a bit of a crap-shoot and that one needs to lower one's standards.

 

[bwcolor]

I would not trust them, but at least they have a list of the more commercial book publishers. Some of their highly rated publishers are companies that I've tried and didn't like.

Again, best advice would be from someone that has experience with multiple companies and also sells their work at a premium price. RFF certainly have at least a few active members meeting this standard.

 

[dave lackey]

I would not trust them, but at least they have a list of the more commercial book publishers. Some of their highly rated publishers are companies that I've tried and didn't like.

Again, best advice would be from someone that has experience with multiple companies and also sells their work at a premium price. RFF certainly have at least a few active members meeting this standard.

Yes, that is good advice. I had a terrible experience with MyPublisher and did not like a couple others. AdoramaPix does have a bit of a limitation on pages but the photo documentaries I have done are selling at a very premium price and have been extremely well-received. Lots of comments on quality and value for the money.

Still waiting to see if there is any competition for them, so I will keep an eye on this thread.🙂

 

[bwcolor]

Wow, AdoramPix looks like a good bet. I like the idea of actual photographic wet prints vs. a printing process. Looks like a stand out product.

 

[jesse1dog]

BLURB promotions are worth looking out for if cost is an issue - my latest order has a 25% discount on price which makes a big difference. Still waiting although I have had a notification the order is on the way. Had copies printed in Zurich and the Netherlands before - wonder where the next lot will come from.

I might try Snapfish - did some great 10"x8" prints for me - UK printed but HP firm I think.
jesse

 

[sepiareverb]

Maybe I've been lucky, but I've been satisfied with consistency both within batches and in reorders- lately. Blurb seems to have improved their consistency since a few years back. My Photo 2 class does a B&W book each semester, and we've proofed the books for color each time, made the corrections needed and then ordered a big batch and have had print color correct each time. We're working with non calibrated scanners/screens/printers in several labs by necessity. When I did my first blurb book the color was far from accurate even within the book- but I just did a 100 page book for a job which was fine throughout- even after a test book was printed and then the order for multiple copies was placed. I'm currently working on an ubyu book for a project- more for their options than desire to not use blurb.

 

[jesse1dog]

Just got the third lot of printing of one of my titles and can't tell the difference from one printing to the next - it is all colour though. Pretty pleased with the results.

jesse

 

[Frank Petronio]

I worked as a book designer, if there was any work I still might be... so my experience is larger runs and "real" printers where I got to attend press proofing. But print-on-demand is a different world....

Blurb uses HP Indigos, which print ink on paper, versus Apple, LuLu, etc. who use Xerox Docutechs and Kodak-Heidelbergs which are toner-based. All these printers work well for color snapshots but I think only the HP Indigo is printing B&W images nice and neutral with consistency.

You also have to consider price point and quality control. You can spend $300 per book with a wedding book type printer or $30 for a Blurb book. Which do you think has better quality control?

If you're comparing prices try to compare softbound versus softbound. The bindings and premium papers, end papers, logo removal, etc. are expensive profit centers but a simple softbound book is the "base".

I've tried a bunch. The Apple books are great for family pictures, no question. But I think Blurb books are the best value for the money and they finally have B&W down stone cold.

When I started, their B&W was not consistent or neutral. The past two years it has gotten very good, very consistent. However I still occasionally find printing and binding errors, like smears, misaligned bindings, etc. They are very good about reprinting and not costing me anything but extra time.

However, I think it's nuts to order more than a couple at a time. Too many things to go wrong. I usually buy them one at time, sometimes I have overlapping orders. Sometimes they are printed 10 miles away and they show up two days from ordering - other times they print them in Eastern Washington state and take almost two weeks. Maybe they are a branch of the government?

I use the InDesign to PDF workflow and convert my greyscale images to CMYK and convert to the Blurb Professional Color Profile in Photoshop before attaching them to my InDesign document, which is exported to the Blurb preset PDF specs.

Midtones do tend to grow heavy compared to my Epson inkjet prints, sometimes I will make an adjustment layer curve to boost the middle 10%. It's more important to hit a black and white point - this is lacking in a lot of other people's books and printing in general, and this is why most images are crappy looking, imho. Put some guts into it.

 

[celluloidprop]

Do any of the publishers other than Blurb have a way for people other than the to order direct?

I'm going to put together a book of the photos from a friend's wedding (low-budget, no photographer - I basically handed out my cameras to people, I couldn't do much as I was the officiant), it would be nice if the bride and groom's family could order without having to go through me or them.

 

[sanmich]

Midtones do tend to grow heavy compared to my Epson inkjet prints, sometimes I will make an adjustment layer curve to boost the middle 10%. It's more important to hit a black and white point - this is lacking in a lot of other people's books and printing in general, and this is why most images are crappy looking, imho. Put some guts into it.

Frank,
Thanks for the detailed answer. I understand that I can plan on a decent result for Black and white. Good...

Now for the rest: I used their own software, uploading the pictures as high def jpegs. On the book preview, things look good and the pictures look similar to what I can see under LR. I'm sorry, but I am a total ignorant about profiles. Is there something I should do to come as close as possible to a good result? What do you mean by "Hitting a black and white point" ?

Thanks!

 

[bwcolor]

I've had Indesign for a number of years, but was intimidated and so never used it. I think that book design and various techniques to arrive a quality endpoint is worth a forum. I say this, because I bet that many RFF members have thousands of digital images, but only print to moderate sizes, or produce books. Getting from digital to CMYK print deserves a series of tutorials/discussions. Perhaps, the 'Digital Print' forum is a good place for such a discussion.

 

[sanmich]

Follow up on this:

I received a first draft.
I am partly disapointed.
The paper is too thin (I'll use the heavier paper in the future, but of course, it will cost).
More problematic: the pictures are a bit dull.
The interesting thing is that they can look decent under a natural lighting, but under artificial lighting, the blacks turn into washed out pinkish greys.
At any rate, even under natural lighting, deep blacks are kind of crappy.
I would love to know that I am at fault and that their printing ability is much better, but the pictures look just fine on the screen, and the blacks are, well, black.
Too bad..

 

[timeUnit]

I've used Blurb a couple of times, and I've been mostly satisfied. I made our wedding book there, you can look at the preview here to see it (although the preview is not representative print quality-wise):

http://www.blurb.com/books/2035855

For me, the consistency has been fine, even with reprints. However, our book is mainly in color, which (believe me) is much easier to print.

BW is a lot more demanding of the printer – any error in printer calibration will be very visible as a color cast. This is a fact of all CMYK printing methods, although modern offset printers are very consistent these days. HP indigos are no exception – BW is difficult.

If I was to make a BW book with blurb, I would add a tone to all BW images. I prefer a warm tone and would choose something slightly sepia. Additionally, I would prepare my images so that they are on the light side in the midtones and I would never ever ever clip my highlights. I would go so far as to flatten blown highlights to something like 250, 250, 250 (rgb) or 2% (grayscale). I would not be afraid of high contrast in the darker tones, or a high contrast look in general, as this is much easier to print.

Remember: your monitor has a much larger and more intense gamut than something printed on paper. A direct comparison monitor to print will always show the print as dull. They are different color systems.

If you are expecting great quality from printed matter, you will have to learn a bit about color profiles, preparation of images, sharpening and the likes. Or perhaps someone can help you if you cannot be bothered? It is a tricky subject, I agree.

I've done this (prepress etc) professionally for a decade, and I still learn new things, so it's not the simplest thing to master.

As an aside: all BW books printed professionally with high quality are printed as duotones or tritones. What is that, you say? The images are printed with black ink, dark blue/brown/ochre/green ink or even two passes of black and then a deep brown ink. Printing in CMYK or with only one plate of black will not achieve that deeeeeeep black and awesome tone separation that signifies a high end book. Incidentally, many, many of these books are printed at a few print houses in the world. One is EBS in Verona (Italy). Another is located in Japan, but I can't remeber its name.

Good luck!

 

[Haigh]

I have had a number of Apple books and they all look good to me even if they were not "fine art" books.

 

[jsrockit]

I've been happy with blurb. However, I treat them more as zines than true books. The quality of blacks and such is better than zine quality. It's ok with me. I don't expect my book to look like the latest and greatest art book being sold. However, I can honestly say that some of the prints in my latest blurb book look better than some older (cheaper) photo books I have.

 

[Frank Petronio]

Oh dear, if you are getting pink in your B&Ws then you need to back up and understand profiles and image prep better, before you curse Blurb. Since you are using the Blurb software it would be best to participate on the Blurb forums, since I do not use that workflow and can''t speak with authority.

In general, you want to start with nicely adjusted images converted to or already in a wide gambit space like Adobe RGB. Hitting a black and white point means having a solid black and white point in your photo (although we often pull pack the white point so there is a little tone in the highlight rather than empty paper white since the transition to white can be rather harsh).

 

[froyd]

After trying Blurb (2 book, 4 copies each), MixBook (1 book, 4 copies), Picaboo (1 book, 3 copies), and MyPublisher (2 books, 4 copies each) I can say that there were little consistency problems with any of these companies, the worst offenders being Picaboo and Blurb, but nothing horrible.

However, sheer print quality was much higher with MyPublisher. This year I ordered the same book in batches: 2 copies with satin 170# paper and 2 with glossy 170# paper. The 170 paper is overkill, it makes the pages way too thick, a problem made worse by the glossy finish. However, the glossy finish gave most images more life and next year I plan to order my books with the standard paper stock but the glossy finish. For personal printing I usually do not favor glossy, but in the book it works well.

The biggest downside of MyPublisher is the extremely clunky software (which can be circumvented if you lay out your pages with a different software.

 

[shadowfox]

Follow up on this:

I received a first draft.
I am partly disapointed.
The paper is too thin (I'll use the heavier paper in the future, but of course, it will cost).
More problematic: the pictures are a bit dull.
The interesting thing is that they can look decent under a natural lighting, but under artificial lighting, the blacks turn into washed out pinkish greys.
At any rate, even under natural lighting, deep blacks are kind of crappy.
I would love to know that I am at fault and that their printing ability is much better, but the pictures look just fine on the screen, and the blacks are, well, black.
Too bad..

As a general rule of thumb, for Blurb books (also Mpix and ImageKind, these are from my experience), you have to increase exposure by +1 (using Lightroom's terminology, if you use Aperture or something else, adjust this).

Depending on your monitor, you just can't expect something that looks "good" to translate faithfully onto paper. There is a certain amount of calibration that has to go on either using a Spectro Densitometer or your eyes and brain.

The pinkish grey could be metamerism. For pigment inks, this is not uncommon.

 

[Pablito]

I would prepare my images so that they are on the light side in the midtones

Just received my first book and generally happy with the B&W repro quality. I have had other books printed commercially in duotone and the Blurb book compares nicely.

I ordered one copy of my book as a proof. I will tweak some of the images before ordering more - precisely along the lines that timeUnit suggests, a bump up in the mid-tones.

 

[jsrockit]

I have to say I'm not too happy with blurb's consistency. I've order three version of each of my books and each one looks different. However, if you are doing a book with a lot of pages, blurb is the cheapest solution. Luckily my books are for personal use... because I'd feel nervous about using Blurb for a job.