Photo Book Recommendations?

MichaelKirk

Not sure if this is the "Best" forum to ask this, but I figured this would be a good start since wedding photographers are printing books/albums all the time

The simple question I have is: Who prints "Photo Quality" photo books?


A bit more details:
I've decided instead of printing off family photos all throughout the year, I'm just make one large photo book that will show photos throughout the entire year.

Kind of slow, but I designed my first book for the 2008 year thru Blurb and handed it off to my wife last spring to do all the narrative (which she never did). I actually just sent thru my order for the book and received the copy today. It was about 145 pages, hard cover, premium paper. Everything was nice about the book other than I wasn't really blown away with the printing quality of the actual photos - they were not what I would consider "Photo Quality Print" You could see in the photos the "Dot" style printing. It wasn't the images themselves, but apparently the printing Blurb does. Can anyone recommend a place that has higher quality printing then Blurb? Remember this is more of a Photo book than an album. I think Millers has a 30 page maximum.......and I'm printing upwards of 125-200 pages.

Thanks,
Michael


Michael

Darren Troy C

WHCC
Millers
BlackRiver
Asuka
Graphistudio



...just to name a few.

elizabeth_Luna

Darren Troy C wrote:

WHCC
Millers
BlackRiver
Asuka
Graphistudio



...just to name a few.

Kiss!

MichaelKirk

Millers

Darren Troy C wrote:

WHCC
Millers
BlackRiver
Asuka
Graphistudio

...just to name a few.

I know Millers has a 30 page maximum so they are out, WHCC is 50-90 pages depending on the paper...i'll take a look at the others. aftr looking around a bit more the problem i'm comming across is the page amounts. i know my books will end up being 150+ pages...which greatly exceeds the print page maximums.

thanks,
michael

Blurmore

A werd about blurb....I made a blurb book for my father of his wedding in 08 (I shot it, it was at his house) and I was really happy with it. I love the fact that their new software allows a lot of custom configuration on page layouts. BUT I can't imagine charging or a client paying more than 100 dollars for one of these, and my time would be WAY more than 100 dollars worth of time.

http://www.blurb.com/books/1066899

I made this BEFORE I downloaded the new software which allows layout editing *facepalm*

MichaelKirk

Blurb
Thanks for your comments. This photo book is for our family pictures only, not selling to any clients. I've decided not to print every single individual family photo I take, but instead design a Yearly Family Photo Book so this is really for our personal use only - not to sell.

The problem I'm coming across is due to the books size, most places cannot do it. As I mentioned, I'll be pushing 150-200 pages where most printers are only offering 50-90 page maximum.

I guess for the price (I paid ~$60 for the 145 page Blurb book), I may just have to stick to Blurb and like (not love) the photo print quality.

Blurmore wrote:

A werd about blurb....I made a blurb book for my father of his wedding in 08 (I shot it, it was at his house) and I was really happy with it. I love the fact that their new software allows a lot of custom configuration on page layouts. BUT I can't imagine charging or a client paying more than 100 dollars for one of these, and my time would be WAY more than 100 dollars worth of time.

http://www.blurb.com/books/1066899

I made this BEFORE I downloaded the new software which allows layout editing *facepalm*

mmmatt

Blurmore wrote:

A werd about blurb....I made a blurb book for my father of his wedding in 08 (I shot it, it was at his house) and I was really happy with it. I love the fact that their new software allows a lot of custom configuration on page layouts. BUT I can't imagine charging or a client paying more than 100 dollars for one of these, and my time would be WAY more than 100 dollars worth of time.

http://www.blurb.com/books/1066899

I made this BEFORE I downloaded the new software which allows layout editing *facepalm*

I was happy with blurb too for the cost. Not "pro wedding album" but quite good I thought. I hate the blurb software and just used PS. And Jason, I got $250 for mine with 40 pages and 20 of those being blank for use as a sign-in book on wedding day. This was using their engagement photos and I got RAVES about the book at the wedding. People loved it and the b&g just ordered a wedding album from me which will be much more $ but printed from a true album crafter.


Matt

Betz

MichaelKirk wrote:

Thanks for your comments. This photo book is for our family pictures only, not selling to any clients. I've decided not to print every single individual family photo I take, but instead design a Yearly Family Photo Book so this is really for our personal use only - not to sell.

The problem I'm coming across is due to the books size, most places cannot do it. As I mentioned, I'll be pushing 150-200 pages where most printers are only offering 50-90 page maximum.

I guess for the price (I paid ~$60 for the 145 page Blurb book), I may just have to stick to Blurb and like (not love) the photo print quality.

Why limit yourself to just one book per year? Couldn't you do Volume 1/Volume 2? Yes, I know that having all the photos in one book is much more convenient but don't you deserve to have photo quality that you'll love years down the road? I mean they are YOUR family memories. If breaking the year up is something you'd consider then I'd suggest Mixbook.

I purchase Mixbooks for my portrait clients who shoot multiple sessions with me each year and give them as Christmas "Thank You" gifts. The price is right and the quality rocks.

urbanaries

Couture books are a little pricey but high quality and I think the *minimum* book size is 100 pages, so for the money it's a good deal.

mercphoto

MichaelKirk wrote:

and I'm printing upwards of 125-200 pages.

Asuka Book is great, but they won't go to page counts that high. Pounds Photo Labs will go up to 200 pages though. IMHO their quality is the same as Asuka, but their prices are lower, they have a much larger selection of page sizes and are more flexibly on page counts. Higher price than Blurb of course, but oh so much better quality. An 8x10 hardcover at 200 pages would start just a bit over $100, with options for dust jacket, laminate pages, linen pages, etc.

www.poundslabs.com

heatherfeather

Anybody else getting tired of becoming a customer of all these labs and waiting days to be approved before seeing pricing and details? I understand why they do it (its for us) but still... it is SUCH a pain. I went through probably 25 of those labs last month. Ok. I'll stop whining now.

I really did like the millers albums I just had printed. Oh and btw, you can go above 40 pages if you pay for extra pages. I can't remember the max, but it is more than 40, for sure. I think extra spreads are something like $15 per each, so not too bad.

Side note: The custom box with an image I had made for one of the miller's albums was sort of lame. It was fairly flimsy, and I was treating it very carefully. It is now completely broken after my car accident, which wasn't their fault of course. But it was a bit wimpy to begin with. The album itself was way more sturdy than the box they had designed to protect it.
The suitcases that GraphiStudio has for their albums definately have one up on Millers. Now I have to figure out a new way to haul that album around.