AdoramaPix

[dave lackey]

Anyone here had a book printed with AdoramaPix?

I am ready to order now that my photo essay is finished. My Publisher was a disaster but the process with AdoramaPix was quite easy. Not happy about the 50 page limit stepping up to 76 pages for a substantially higher price, nor the limited fonts (never could get rid of the shadow on the text), or the dust jacket without some inside flaps to place narrative and photos.

However, I enjoyed working with the software and the fact that the images are stored on THEIR server, not on mine which bogged my computer down and caused My Publisher to crash and lose all of the work TWICE.

Here is the original dust jacket from My Publisher:

The final has a white background spine with everything else the same as above.

 

[kknox]

Looks great, good luck with the sales.

 

[gb hill]

Nice Dave. I like seeing that CSX train. Looks like a great railfan town.

 

[dave lackey]

Nice Dave. I like seeing that CSX train. Looks like a great railfan town.

kknox, greg...thanks! Very active railroad 159 years after the town of Callico Corners was renamed Grantville in honor of the very first chief engineer of the Atlanta/LaGrange Railroad.🙂 Trains are very common going through there but the town has been placed in a bottle with the lid on it for 50 years+. Never seen such a well-preserved town simply because nothing has been going on after WWII.

 

[Jubb Jubb]

why not use blurb instead? you get to design the book yourself, so limited fonts aren't a problem!

 

[dave lackey]

Having reviewed and tried Blurb, and a half dozen others, I settled on Adorama for my own reasons. When I stated limited fonts, I meant that I could not customize them but it worked out just fine IMO.🙂

 

[HelenOster]

Anyone here had a book printed with AdoramaPix?..... the process with AdoramaPix was quite easy......I enjoyed working with the software and the fact that the images are stored on THEIR server, not on mine

Really pleased to hear that you enjoyed creating your photobook with AdoramaPix, and I hope you are just as happy once it arrives!

I passed on your comments re the size of the book, the fonts and the cover to the Director over at the lab, so he can review the points you raised.

BTW if you ever have any queries or need after-sales advice with an order from Adorama Camera or AdoramaPix, I'm only an email away: Helen@adorama.com

Helen Oster
Adorama Camera Customer Service Ambassador

 

[dave lackey]

Thanks, Helen...

Nice of you to come online and offer to pass the comments along. The wonderful thing about using the AdoramaPix software was it's ease of use. Rebuilding a 5-month project in book form the last time took only 8 hours from scratch!

The real tough lesson I have learned from DIY publishing is the hard facts of costs. It has been a great learning experience for me and I was very happy to have found AdoramaPix after the 2-months of frustration with other software.🙂

 

[retnull]

I have handled the books in the Adorama store. The image quality is excellent, much better than better than Blurb or other online publishers.

However, the paper stock appears to be the same as is used when you order prints: it's very thick, much thicker than book paper. An Adorama book is "a book of prints", and not something that anyone would mistake for a book you would find in a bookstore.

If you're OK with that, you will be very happy with the image quality. If you want a book that looks like someone else published it, you may need to look at other, more expensive options.

My personal opinion. (Hi Adorama lady!) I use Adorama for all my prints, but will go elsewhere for a forthcoming book.

 

[dave lackey]

The problem I see with going elsewhere, etc. is more expensive doesn't make any sense. At the price quoted by Adorama for an 8x12 book, it is expensive already (about $20 more than MPub). Probably about right for a book where the pages lie flat and won't fall out.😉 Thick pages? Maybe last longer?

The cost of printing is a lot higher than "being published by someone else", or at least that is my impression, but I am doing a series of small town essays and all of them will be limited editions, numbered and signed. The costs will be high and profit will be negative no matter what, especially considering the film format, but the books are not for a profit-making venture, there are other reasons for doing the books.

Hopefully, I will have my first printing done next week for my review of the first book. Already have some pre-orders while I have started on several other projects. This is quite a learning curve but fun nonetheless.🙂

I have noticed that the cost for printing is a fraction of my buddy's wedding albums...and he does those full-time.

 

[dave lackey]

Oh, one thing I forgot to mention. A year or so ago, I coordinated an art stroll at a local artist community. One of the artist's was going out of the country for a couple of months so I displayed his framed work and several book.

After a week of showing, the art stroll was over and I picked up the framed work and books to carry back with me for storage until the artist came back from his excursion. I was disappointed to see that one book already had a few loose pages from people just looking through the book on display.

THAT is another reason I selected AdoramaPix in hopes that the durability of the book itself is better than the others I have seen.🙂

 

[Steve M.]

Congratulations. I like the looks of that.

We used to make art booklets when we lived in Hawaii using standard size papers that were folded over. My wife actually wrote the text and came up w/ the idea, I was just the freebie photographer and editor. The booklets featured the local artists, and we used Microsoft Publisher to put it together. They were printed at home on an inkjet printer, and they were a real pain to make, let me tell you. But once things were sorted out the booklets looked great. They were sold in the local galleries for a nominal price and we lost money on every one, but that's not what they were about.

Once, just for kicks, I made a booklet into a large art book using large 13x19 archival inkjet paper that was sown into signatures and bound locally. Thicker than normal paper wasn't an issue, but in order to make the book more user friendly we decided to have the text on a thinner paper and the prints on the better, thicker paper. So that worked fine for what we wanted, which was a one-off art book.

For publishing more than a few books it looks like your idea works great. It's nice to be able to turn all that printing over to someone else too. If you want to accurately color match the shots you may have to do it yourself or spend a fortune, but a B&W book would be much easier to proof.

 

[HelenOster]

I have handled the books in the Adorama store. The image quality is excellent, much better than better than Blurb or other online publishers.

However, the paper stock appears to be the same as is used when you order prints:

We have just changed from Fuji Crystal Archive album paper to real silver halide photographic Kodak photo book paper; there's currently a sale on for 8x8 14-page books ($8.99) so it might be a good time to check it out?

 

[Mcary]

We have just changed from Fuji Crystal Archive album paper to real silver halide photographic Kodak photo book paper; there's currently a sale on for 8x8 14-page books ($8.99) so it might be a good time to check it out?

Helen,

Any chance that Adorama will be adding additional sizes such as 9x12 11x14 and 16x20 to what they offer for B/W Ilford Express Digital paper?

 

[dave lackey]

Congratulations. I like the looks of that.

We used to make art booklets when we lived in Hawaii using standard size papers that were folded over. My wife actually wrote the text and came up w/ the idea, I was just the freebie photographer and editor. The booklets featured the local artists, and we used Microsoft Publisher to put it together. They were printed at home on an inkjet printer, and they were a real pain to make, let me tell you. But once things were sorted out the booklets looked great. They were sold in the local galleries for a nominal price and we lost money on every one, but that's not what they were about.

Once, just for kicks, I made a booklet into a large art book using large 13x19 archival inkjet paper that was sown into signatures and bound locally. Thicker than normal paper wasn't an issue, but in order to make the book more user friendly we decided to have the text on a thinner paper and the prints on the better, thicker paper. So that worked fine for what we wanted, which was a one-off art book.

For publishing more than a few books it looks like your idea works great. It's nice to be able to turn all that printing over to someone else too. If you want to accurately color match the shots you may have to do it yourself or spend a fortune, but a B&W book would be much easier to proof.

Thanks, those look really nice!🙂

 

[HelenOster]

Helen,

Any chance that Adorama will be adding additional sizes such as 9x12 11x14 and 16x20 to what they offer for B/W Ilford Express Digital paper?

We do offer 9x12 .......We've never seen a 16x20 or 11x14 book but if you advise me of any company that does them we may be able to do it, too!

 

[dave lackey]

Okay, fonts fixed...not a problem with sticker or default buttons, just a minor operator error that took a few minutes to fix. No problem.

Next, dust jacket. It would be nice to have one as even the lowly (IMO) My Publisher software has it.

Ready to order the first copy today! Thanks Helen.🙂

 

[HelenOster]

Okay, fonts fixed...not a problem with sticker or default buttons, just a minor operator error that took a few minutes to fix. No problem.

Next, dust jacket. It would be nice to have one as even the lowly (IMO) My Publisher software has it.

Ready to order the first copy today! Thanks Helen.🙂

I'm pleased to hear that it worked!

Although we currently only offer beautiful hard covers or real leather, the option of a dust jacket is something we plan to look into next year.

 

[rphenning]

You guys should do soft cover too…and have different paper stocks and bindings. If that hypothetical could become reality you guys would become my go-to place for all the printing I would ever need.

 

[HelenOster]

You guys should do soft cover too...

Any particular reason?