Blurb books

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le vrai rdu

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Any advice about blurb, I mean, printing quality, shipping quality etc ?

It is for a B&W book I would make with the pictures I made on a trawler
 
So it sounds great and easy

My plan is to try to sell some to help me affording a contax G2 (I would sell my bessa R and optics if needed) for the next trip on a trawler
 
I've had a few books printed by Blurb, both B&W and Colour, of shots taken during travel. I chose the large square size (I think 11x11) and the extra cost premium paper they offered. The quality of the binding and assembly was good. Print quality was acceptably good to my eyes without any colour cast - obviously not fine art gravure standard, but better than some other online printers I had tried previously, e.g. Apple. My impression is that the print resolution is around 200 dpi but I haven't measured it. Other books I had done elsewhere were no better than 150 dpi. Shipping was fast and protection for the finished article was good. I'd use them again.

Others of my acquaintance have recommended AsukaBook. I haven't tried them.
One thing to watch with any of the online printers is that many of them use software that isn't very flexible in terms of image placement. They're really set up to churn out holiday photo albums. I use a single image per page with a substantial white border around.

The Blurb software can be a little less than 'tick and flick' if you're trying to make image placement on the page that doesn't fit their presets but it can be done - you just have to fiddle a bit until you get what you want. Applies especially to cropped images that aren't to standard dimensions, or if you're trying to enlarge or reduce the image size as you add them to the book. Best to resize the images to suit the page size before trying to place them in the software.

See if you can get them to send you a sample page to assess the print quality for yourself. I didn't ask - just took it on trust but now have two nice B&W books covering our visit to Paris last year and also UK and Ireland that I'm quite satisfied with. Only got one of each printed and didn't put them up for sale, which is a feature Blurb offer if you're interested.
 
I've used them a couple of times, with good results so far, although I have also heard complaints. The software is easy, but if you need more control you can use your own DTP software like InDesign. Most of these photo book printing places use the same HP Indigo printers originally meant for mass-personalized marketing brochures, and the difference lies mostly in the quality of paper stock, their RIP software, how well the machines are maintained and calibrated, and staff training.
 
majid said:
I've used them a couple of times, with good results so far, although I have also heard complaints.
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I've had good results too, as posted above.
I was a bit intrigued about the "complaints" and did a web search.
Seems that from time to time in the past they have had some binding problems but they also seem to have responded with alacrity when contacted properly.
Many of the so-called "complaints" were from people who had read about other's problems and promptly rushed into print and shot their mouths off about something they had no knowledge of, or from people who had a genuine issue but took umbrage and either didn't inform Blurb or interact with Blurb as requested to resolve the problem. Some appear to have taken a quite unreasonable position - as if they really didn't want a resolution at all but just wanted an opportunity to badmouth and complain.

So, all-in-all I'd go with my own experience and ignore the lunatic fringe of people who spend their lives looking for something to complain about but don't do the sensible thing and work co-operatively with the supplier to resolve their issue.

And that entirely overlooks the many thousands of people who have had Blurb print their books as expected and who don't have cause for complaint. We don't hear about them!
 
I like the quality of the blurb books. I have only one softcover book and this is a little problematic. If the book is not pressed between other books most of the time, the softcover bends in various directions. Colour and the contrast of bw is good. Premium paper is nice too.
 
Yeah I had one done as an interior photography portfolio - the large square size hardcover with delux paper, and it came out great. No complaints with the print quality - I wouldn't call it amazing but it's definitely pretty good for such a cheap price. The colors matched my calibrated imac monitor perfectly. Overall I'll definitely use them again.
 
le vrai rdu said:
Any advice about blurb, I mean, printing quality, shipping quality etc ?

It is for a B&W book I would make with the pictures I made on a trawler
Click to expand...

The best advice I can give you is to make at least one (or two) proof/test books—especially if you have an uncalibrated system (as I do). Use the multiple-frame/page photo layouts and lay out some print brackets, particularly for the mid-to-lower tones. I think the Indigo printer struggles a bit on the lower end and needs a little help to get those tones, so maybe concentrate your bracketing on that end of the scale. My b&w photos came out darker than what I expected. I've heard from a couple of other photogs that they had the same experience. YMMV.

Also, don't just use your proof book for print brackets. Kill as many birds with one stone as you can. Layout different sizes of your photos and try different fonts. Get the most bang for your buck (euro). For example, if you are going to run some print brackets, use the photo frames with text frames under them and type in the bracket information for the photo using different fonts and font sizes. Blurb charges you full price for your "test" book, so if you go this route, get your money's worth. Also, there's no reason to get hard cover test books.

Finally, the Booksmart templates ARE editable. You can change the layouts and save the layouts under 'Custom', so don't let the SW force you into something you don't want. For example, I didn't want headers and footers, but there wasn't a layout without both a header and a footer. So I edited the layout and deleted the header and footer frames and saved the layout. I used that layout throughout the book.


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I've made a few books with Blurb and was quite happy with them until recently. Here are some of the issues I've had.

1. With B&W I've seen different colour tints from hardcover and softcover versions of the same book.

2. Be careful how you design your cover for hardcover books with dust jackets - they may not be folded correctly:

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Ultimately they gave me a complete refund for this order, so they addressed the issue but I lost the opportunity to sell the books at my exhibition.

3. My most recent book has also been problematic - the images look as if they've been badly processed by the Booksmart software. Here's a comparison of the same image printed in 2 different books, besides the colour balance which I changed, the later book shows more "noise" and lower resolution. I'm still in the process of addressing this issue with Blurb - they've made reprints but they have the same problems.

http://farm5.static.flickr.com/4137/4796675306_dddf77bea2_o.jpg
 
I've only had one BLURB book published - a smallest soft cover. The cover picture was more cropped than I expected so I will allow for that next time round. Previewing the pages is essential to get a pleasing double page spread - photos same size, possibly people looking towards the spine centre, pages with same background colour. etc.
And proof read your text, and then do it again, and then let some one else do it! Check for consistence of spelling of special words thoughout the text. And if you have place names make sure they are the right place names for the pictures and text. It's very easy to make mistakes in your enthusiasm to get into print - I know, I made them!
My feeling is that you will be lucky to make money from your venture, but best of luck over that.
As others have mentioned the packing and delivery were excellent - mine had been posted in Zurich!
I'll certainly be doing another book.

jesse
 
In the UK I found them very quick and easy to deal with. Pic quality was so-so in that images were overly dark and not what my PS scale was telling me at all. Look good enough for a flick through book in B&W but nowhere near full on professional coffee table book quality.

As for Adoramanpix.... much better than Blurb but I printed the same book twice, the first one was neutral and the second cucumber green from the same files. Binding and build so much better on Adoramapix books, but the colour cast issue means I wont bother again. I will try the more expensive options in time, but have given up on the budget options. They can deliver great results but are not consistent enough to rely upon. Great was to deliver a holiday album or something casual but not a good way to deliver what you consider to be your very finest IMHO.
 
I finaly got my blurb book
The print is very nice, pure B&W (even if it doesn't look so du to my small and little old pixel device)


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I am very happy with the job they made 🙂
 
That came out looking great! I like the black paper option. I've only used white, but I'm considering the black for my next book. Congratulations!



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