BLURB consistency

[sanmich]

I am finishing my first photo book, and plan to have it printed by BLURB.
The plan is to buy one or two (or three etc..) to get everything right, and then have it sold.
I am most concerned about their consistency in printing and quality. I have put a huge effort to make this book, and if I need to compromise with quality for costs reason, which is fine, I wouldn't like the print quality to be random.
Any experience to share?

 

[totifoto]

I gave up on them. I was a wedding photographer for a few years and got the books printed by them. The consistency was bad. One book came out ok and the next was horrible, sometimes I even ordered a second copy of a book that came out good and the second copy was nothing like the first one 🙁

I used mypublisher.com and they where better but I have heard story´s similar to what I experienced with blurb.

 

[dave lackey]

Keeping costs down on printed books is difficult. After seeing some Blurb and other books, I tried twice to get MyPublisher to work and gave up.

Went to AdoramaPix and the software was really good and intuitive. Printed the books and my clients could not be happier. They are paying a lot for the books but the superb quality just puts a smile on their face when they open it.😎

Good luck and let us know how it works out.

 

[sanmich]

Thanks folks

Dave, I need more pages than what Adorama offers...

 

[Nigel Meaby]

Has anyone had experience of using the Apple service?

 

[Nelson Tan]

For what it's worth, I did a coffee-table book through both Blurb and Apple. The Apple version was significantly better, although Blurb has the better option of layout by allowing you to upload InDesign files. The Blurb book photos came out looking quite flat and low contrast, even though I opted for premium paper.

For what's worth, feel free to check out my photo book at Blurb:

http://www.blurb.com/bookstore/detail/2472582

 

[jesse1dog]

Been reasonably happy with BLURB so far - reprints were slightly different but very acceptable. Think their software works better than any other I have tried.
Waiting for my fourth book to arrive - give you more details when it does.
There must be drawbacks when only a few books are printed at a time - you can't get perfection and all printing will involve some compromise.

jesse

 

[Pablito]

Are those of you who are unhappy using the color profiles?

 

[grdglass]

Blurb can be inconsistent. I could get the first batch from one lab and then the reprints from another lab. They will reprint without charge if you are dissatisfied but that is a pain and still inconsistent. I use their color profiles. They had a professional workflow for awhile and premium paper but successive orders were still inconsistent.

 

[Colin Corneau]

I did one book through Blurb -- it was a collection of B&W images I tweaked in Photoshop.

The quality was not good. The darker midtones and shadows were just gone -- this, for a book that cost almost $70.

Years ago I used the iPhoto book printing service through Apple -- terrific. A friend of mine is a real Apple maniac and has done numerous books of personal photos (vacations, that sort of thing) through them and I can say they still look great. He's very happy with them, so they're consistent.

I'll look to them for my next project.

 

[ColSebastianMoran]

Have had good experiences through three books with MyPublisher.

 

[bwcolor]

The answer to your question is a difficult one to get at. You really don't know how particular the poster might be. For example, I've used MyPublisher, Shutterfly and Blurb. Didn't like the first two. Blurb has been great for producing family albums, but you really need someone with long term experience with various vendors to answer your question and it would be most helpful if that person had others paying a high price to purchase their books. Me, nobody wants images of my family.*

 

[sanmich]

I may have had to add a few details:
My book is black and white, I plan to have it with 140 pages or so which excludes a lot of options that don't offer as many pages.
I am specifically asking about consistency, not sheer quality (of course this is important).
I am most concerned about what someone else will receive after I put the necessary cash to twist the book to my satisfaction.
And BTW, since I don't think I asked something stupid so far:
Since it's B+W, I don't need to care about profiles, right ??😱

 

[Lilserenity]

Have you looked at what maybe local or regional printers who offer digital printing might be able to offer? In some cases they can work out cheaper than Blurb if you're buying in a number of books, want heavier quality paper and don't care too much for Blurb's logo in the book.

E.g. a printer I have started using will charge me about £190 for 10 A4 books (not too dissimilar to US Letter, a bit narrower, but also the closest standard paper size in Europe to 10x8") which would be 160 page full colour, 300gsm matt laminated cover, 170gsm (120lb) silk paper - i.e. pretty good. This would of course require you to be able to do some page layout, ideally with Quark or InDesign but you could use pretty much anything.

On Blurb a similar book with what they call premium matt paper, 10x8" portrait (a bit smaller) and the Blurb logo removed would cost £364 taking into account their 10% discount on 10 books.

So Blurb is convenient, well known and fairly good, but they're by no means the best value and to be honest, I have preferred the results I have got from the printers I use.

Even with litho printing you may see small variations between batches (as there is a tolerance in colour reproduction on mass litho process) but you shouldn't see differences in the batches themselves.

Anyway thought I'd raise the idea that Blurb and the big Internet firms are not always the only option. Digital presses have made small runs much more accessible.

Vicky

 

[al1966]

Lilserenity
Just out of interest who is your printer?

 

[Gabriel M.A.]

Apparently, depending on your location (of the order) the printer changes.

Those who have had inconsistent results, where geographically did these get shipped to?

I've been hesitant of using them at all, because I keep on hearing these stories about their quality (aside from what I once personally experienced six years ago), but they sure are doing a lot of PR in photo events.

I've seen smaller companies produce better products --to be fair, I've only seen their shop samples, in the same way I've seen Blurb's recently-- but they don't have the global reach of Blurb's. I don't have the names off-hand, but I also wonder if any of you have had experience with more non-local options (i.e. I'd consider Adorama "local", as they seem to be available only to U.S./Canada customers...unless that's also changed recently)

 

[SciAggie]

Are those of you who are unhappy using the color profiles?

For what it's worth - yes. After editing my photos, I viewed them in the CYMK mode using their printer profile. My images in the book looked different. I would not say I was a totally unhappy customer, but some of my images were different than how I thought they should appear.

 

[jsrockit]

What other options are there online besides apple's service and blurb?

 

[bwcolor]

Here is a list/ranking of book publishers

 

[jsrockit]

Thanks bw.