Finally!! My Blurb Book Published

RayPA

RayPA

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I put together a 22-page book using blub, and it just published. It was so incredibly easy to do that I can't believe it took me this long to finish.

I ordered one copy to activate it and to check the quality.

If you get a chance, check it out. I turned on the book preview, so the first dozen pages or so are viewable.

Announcing my Blurb book.

😀
 
Since someone asked about print quality: I've just received copies of my Blurb book, one softcover and one hardcover, printed in Europe. There are some colour differences between them:

1. Dustjacket on hardcover is whiter than the front of the softcover.
2. I chose a light grey for page backgrounds - they look different from hardcover to softcover.
3. All the pictures are slightly warm-toned RGB files. Again, differences between hard and softcover - hardcover looks slightly cyan. The softcover is more like what I see on my monitor if I look at the book under daylight. If I look under tungsten light, it looks too warm.
 

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I know people with mixed experiences dealing with Blurb. One had many colour softcover books printed and they looked fantastic, the other has had extremely poor reproduction of B&W images (cyan and magenta dots creeping in some tones) and Blurb have been less than helpful to the point they would not even acknowledge the issue.
 
Harry, Peter, and Ralph thanks.

You can go round-and-round deciding which online book publisher to use. There are so many options and everyone always seemed to recommend the one that they've used. That's one reason why it took me so long to finish. I switched between bookmakers several times.

For me it finally came down to choosing between blurb and the Apple iPhoto book, mostly because I had seen both of these products (small soft-cover books) side-by-side (thanks to Brad (streetpix)), and they both looked great, especially for what I needed: something I could carry with me when I shoot on the street. I ended up using blurb because most testimonials were favorable, the software is so easy to use, and I like the bookstore (the blurb bookstore is a place I've been visiting for a while now to check out what other people are doing).

But I'll definitely report back here, especially if there is a color shift issue on the b&w.

Even though I'm not a big iPhoto fan, I'm planning on trying out the Apple book product too.

The only thing I knew for certain going into this was that I was not going to use Lulu.
 
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Very cool Ray! I hope you make some sales.
I have done a few iPhoto books in lieu of photo albums and am pretty happy with them for that purpose. I think I'll look for something a little higher quality for more serious work such as your book.
One approach I'm thinking of is using the iPhoto book as an inexpensive test run to see if my photos and design ideas look good in real life, and then go ahead with a more premium publisher.
 
Ray,

Very nice indeed. You have inspired me to get going on my project.

I look forward to hearing how the B&W tonality turns out.

william
 
Thanks guys. I'd encourage all of you to download the blurb software, just to goof around with the concept of arranging your photographs. Also, check out the blurb bookstore for some cool ideas.


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Congrats Ray!!
I like..

I've been putting off publishing one of the month I spent in Salvador Brazil.. I should just do it.. forget the writing.. just let the emails back and forth do the telling with some peektures 🙂

Dave
 
Friend of mine just finished his first blurb book. His is mostly color & photos taken with a Sony A100. His copy looks really nice. I have read of issues with B&W photos using blurb. Dave Beckerman has a photoblog & started with blurb then viovio, others then with sharedink. He made a chart & rated each company. Click on this link then scroll down to find the chart. BTW I think your book looks great.
http://beckermanphoto.com/2007/10/
 
The Book Came In!

The Book Came In!

The book came in and I'm happy with the results. The covers picked up a slight magenta tint and both the front and back covers are darker than the original image. The two images on the cover picked up some "grain," but I know now why that is. I didn't size the cover images to the photo frames/windows, as I did the interior images. doh! :bang:

The images inside look great though. They are very close to neutral. If I had to place a tendency, I think that I can *maybe* discern that the images are very slightly cooler than the "originals." Maybe. Densities look great too, again *maybe* a bias toward darker, but on the whole right there. I've looked at the book under various light sources and the neutrality and densities of the interior images seems very good.

No layout surprises. Everything is exactly as I saw it in the software.

Overall, a thumbs up on blurb. Great job. Lots of fun. I'll definitely use them again.



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