Book Printing

christilou

Legend
Location
Sunny Frimley
I was just wondering what others are using to print their photos. I tried Blurb recently but wasn't very impressed, particularly with the printing itself. Anyone used anything else they can recommend? I should probably clarify and say UK only!
 
I'm looking at doing the same thing....my research took me to MyPublisher.
Ran the technical details by a few people in the know and have it on their authority that the paper they use is gallery grade (specialist paper from Italy and Finland I believe) and their inks/printers are all class.

Downloaded their little software thing the other day.
Still have a LOT of selection and re-processing to do before I begin compiling it all.

Will be my first photo-book. I imagine it'll be pretty exciting to eventually have the finished product.
 
I'm using the publishing feature in Aperture. It's extremely flexible, and easier to use than Blurb, in my opinion. And because Aperture is in my iMac, I don't have to work through a web based interface.

I'm making our own wedding album, or giving it a try anyway. I haven't finished it yet, so I can't comment on the quality of the print or the paper.

My only beef against the software so far is that I normally use Lightroom to process the photos. But the publishing feature pulls the photos from the Aperture database. So I've actually started using Aperture to touch up photos.
 
I was just wondering what others are using to print their photos. I tried Blurb recently but wasn't very impressed, particularly with the printing itself. Anyone used anything else they can recommend? I should probably clarify and say UK only!
Christi I read an excellent comparison of book printers in Black+White Photography (UK) - the only subscription I still maintain - and made me wonder about using Royal Mail to take advantage of some of these services. I'll dig up the article and let you know.
 
I was contemplating using Apple. I've had a calendar done in the past, by them, but it was before there was much of an Apple presence in Australia, and I fear the quality may no longer be as good as it was (and it was exceptional!)

I'm not very impressed with Blurb, either, and had never heard of MyPublisher at all, so will look into that.
 
I've seen quite a few books by Apple and the quality has been super. A good friend of mine who is a good photographer has used them many times with great results. Another friend is just publishing her husband's work posthumously and is using Apple.

That said, I thought our Single in January book via Blurb looked really good, though the photos weren't particularly large.

I know Ray has used Blurb pretty much completely, if I'm not mistaken. I know we have an old thread here where I swore I was going to do a book.:redface:

P.S. Image Works is where the threads are. Here's one: https://www.photographerslounge.org/f32/any-year-end-photo-books-14939/ to start you off.;) Another that ranges a bit wider: https://www.photographerslounge.org...izing-digitally-print-blogs-albums-books-606/ One that talks about "My Publisher" https://www.photographerslounge.org/f99/recent-great-experience-making-photobook-4803/
 
I recently used Blurb to print a photo book direct from Lightroom. The book itself was pretty decent quality.

Two things:

(i) I would've wanted more variety in the layout options of the photos. Maybe there were more options but somebody's got to show me how to access them.

(ii) The photos in the book looked a bit on the dull side, especially the whites in the B&W photos. The whites didn't look as vibrant on the matte page as opposed to my computer screen. Maybe this is something I should have taken into account before sending it off to be printed, I don't know, it's the first book I ever tried to print.
 
Bumping this thread back up because I just noticed that Flickr has a new photo book option called Creations: Make a book Naturally I have no idea if it's good, however it could be an easy way to do things for those of us who use Flickr. (And no, Ray, I have not yet done a photo book but I shall...I swear to it!)

As I said earlier, the books I've seen from Apple have been beautiful.
 
Just had a small one done as a test from Blurb. A little disappointed they pictures are a little dark on the paper. But that's down to me I think and my iMac screen. If I do another I will adjust the files I send. I'm more than happy with the quality though.
re7ubudu.jpg
 
I switched from Blurb to MyPublisher, and like the improved output. MyPublisher software is a bit clunky though, not as easy as Blurb/LR.

I also like HP's MagCloud- softbound, very high quality, extremely well-priced. Makes publishing affordable, and you can also get an ebook out of it.

And I just saw Adorama's printed books at Imaging USA show, and they really are quite beautiful- they actually print on photo paper, have a lay-flat binding. I am going to try them for my next book.
 
The way I see it,

Blurb is for family books, or portfolio making. good printing, but super expensive if you want to sell.

HP cloud mag is for little projects, magazines, excellent printing, super affordable you can actually get decent prices to sell.
 
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