Photobook in the UK

[Limosos]

I have been considering doing a photo project this year by trying to arrange getting portraits of all the members of my family ( who I see not nearly enough) and putting them all into a photo book in time to be given out as a sort of Stocking Filler-esque Christmas gift at the end of the year. I'm enjoying researching portrait photography - I'm a big fan of August Sander and Diane Arbus - and working on a style of photography that's my own, however I've no experience with arranging to have books bound and printed. I gather there's a number of companies that offer this service but it's hard to find which one to trust whilst considering affordability (I could be ordering 10+ books).

Do any of you have any experiences with specific companies regarding price, quality of product and of course, flexibility to design the layout of the book when ordering.

 

[lawrence]

Do any of you have any experiences with specific companies regarding price, quality of product and of course, flexibility to design the layout of the book when ordering.

I've done a couple of photobooks using Blurb and I was (subject to one caveat) very happy with the results.

One was a wedding album:
http://blur.by/1m5HHU2

The other was photos of my daughter's childhood:
http://blur.by/1oN51bw

The issue I had with Blurb was that the b&w images tended to have a slightly green cast. The reason, apparently, is that I greyscaled them and it would have been better to have left them as RGB colour because in that way you can control the tone yourself rather than leaving it to Blurb.

 

[Lauffray]

If you know what you're doing with InDesign and Photoshop, you can get some pretty faithful colours printed with Blurb. Frankly though I wasn't too impressed with the paper/printing, there's more expensive options granted, but who wants to pay 90$ to try out someone's book ?

 

[Jonathan]

Hi,
For our weddings my partner and I use Booked Images nr. Wokingham.(www.bookedimages.com)
Hand finished/bound, they are way better than anything we found online.
Also being in quite close by, they are more than happy for us to drop in.
Always helpful with layout ideas. Ask for Nicole.
Hope this helps, Jonathan

 

[jesse1dog]

BLURB is OK - not great but reasonable to put a book together and reasonable price. I've now a fair bit of experience having tried various formats and papers.
Whatever system you use the setting out of the pages differentiates those who know what they are doing and the other majority - most books I see are verging on the dreadful.
I'm quite happy to help if you want.
jesse

 

[Limosos]

The issue I had with Blurb was that the b&w images tended to have a slightly green cast. The reason, apparently, is that I greyscaled them and it would have been better to have left them as RGB colour because in that way you can control the tone yourself rather than leaving it to Blurb.

That's a concern of mine too, but having just looked at their website they have whole sections on colour management between your RGB screen and the CMYK printers they use, which is helpful. You may have just sold Blurb to me!

Also - your books are beautiful, lovely images of a lovely family!

 

[dasuess]

The issue I had with Blurb was that the b&w images tended to have a slightly green cast. The reason, apparently, is that I greyscaled them and it would have been better to have left them as RGB colour because in that way you can control the tone yourself rather than leaving it to Blurb.

I would agree with the above... I just did a test B+W book with Blurb, 20 images, all scanned from film, PP in Aperture, exported to sRGB (as recommended) jpegs, created the book in BookSmart.

Comparing the book that I received with (neutral) prints I made on my R3000, they are VERY close. And they look very good. Also to note, I has this test book printed on their Premium Matte paper - looks and feels better than the standard paper.

EDIT: I have just been looking at my test book in overcast daylight from the window in my office and now notice a bluish cast on the cover photos that is not present with the photos inside the book. This supports the reports that the covers (this is a soft cover book) and inner pages are printed on different type/brand of printer. For my final book I will be using the hard cover ImageWrap option and not at all sure of how those are printed.

 

[OurManInTangier]

I've just received, today, my first printed book from Bob Books.

It was just a small hardback that I made as a test but I'm very pleased with the results. Tones generally and the blacks seem very good, the book opens out flat without any undue stress on the spine and the binding seems extremely good for a 'self-published' book (I've heard some horror stories over the years.)

I'd happily recommend giving them a go if Blurb is a concern.