Two new photo book printing places...
Mike Lane
Registered Users Posts: 7,106 Major grins
I can't vouch for them, but these 2 places look promising for getting photo books published. The first one is called Picaboo and it looks like it's more about books that you'd send to grandma (which isn't to say that they don't look nice). The other one is called Blurb and it looks like a more serious book publishing site. You can print all kinds of books on blurb and it looks like you can do 440 pages in a book for only $80 which sounds pretty good.
Maybe I'll get my act together with some bryce and zion pics enough to get a book put together and I can report back about if these sites are any good.
Maybe I'll get my act together with some bryce and zion pics enough to get a book put together and I can report back about if these sites are any good.
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Hey the Blurb site looks great. So glad you posted it. I may also try it soon and I will post the results.
Another company I used was Photoworks. They produced pretty much the same quality, however they do not give you the option of different fonts.
The prices, I felt were very reasonable. Starting price is 29.95 for the first 20 pages. 1.99 for each page there after. There for awhile, they were offering a medim sized book free with every large book. The software program is very user friendly.
Just my humble opinion,
Mandi
www.mandraleephotography.com
I'm going to go out and check out the other site you listed.
www.mandraleephotography.com
Life is a compromise of what your ego wants to do, what experience tells you to do, and what your nerves let you do.
I'd like to get 1000 copies of a 60-page full-color book for retail sales, but short of going through a broker who gets the work done in China, I'm failing to find a decent provider. All of the sites mentioned around here (and others) are all geared towards one-off publishers who can get away with charging $200 for a wedding book.
I'd like to sell a $39.95 coffee-table book, but at a unit price of $75 per book from most of these sites, that's just not going to happen. From China, the cost goes down to about $9 per unit in Q1K, but that's quite a risk if they show up bad.
Cheerleading: http://www.CheerPhoto.com
Blog: http://cambler.livejournal.com
$80 at blurb will get you quite a coffee table book! You could probably use the book as the coffee table
http://photos.mikelanestudios.com/
I don't have experience with any of these, but I hope this helps.
NY Times article on blurb and others
100 books -- printing in China, but someone seems happy with the results.
An experience with 100 books
Mandi
www.mandraleephotography.com
www.mandraleephotography.com
Life is a compromise of what your ego wants to do, what experience tells you to do, and what your nerves let you do.
I need a coffee table ... sorta like killing two birds with one stone.
Unsharp at any Speed
Cambler, you may be interested in Lulu.com
Lulu is really focused on self-publishing. It does photo books like the others, but also does larger orders, and also offers online sales of your title.
"Osprey Whisperer"
OspreyWhisperer.com
First of all, thank you. I have searched high and low on the web and you're the only info I've been able to find about what sort of quality the Picaboo albums are. (How many combinations can you do of the words: Picaboo, online, album, book, photo, quality, "made my own", etc!) It made me join the site just since I was so happy to finally find someone who had used them. I suppose the fact that they don't have reviews anywhere yet means either 1) not that many people use them or 2) they're just too new to have gotten much reaction yet.
Do you know anyone else who has ordered from Picaboo, and if so, what did they think about the quality?
My one problem with their service (well, only problem I've figured out so far) is that I can't order prints from them, so I'm unable to tell how well their pictures turn out without ordering a whole album.
The others I could all compare (Kodak EasyShare, Snapfish, Shutterfly, Winkflash, Photoworks) by ordering a few test shots from each (or reading threads like this). I've seen some good things about Picaboo, and their software seems like it does more than a lot of the other sites I mentioned, but I'm leery of spending my time and money putting together something that looks c****y in the end.
And don't do this...I ordered a medium size book to start with. I got ahead of myself and ordered a larger one before the med one came in. I did not like the medium size at all. It is called a soft cover...it was card stock. Those medium books are in a drawer while, the large ones go with me to a shoot. I let any "others" who may be at the shoot, look through the books. I've scheduled many sittings simply from people looking at the books.
Again, though...faux leather over linen...for handling purposes. I've done some wedding books for customers, that I ordered in linen and felt it would be safe as they probably would have it simply, on their coffee table.
Mandi
And yes, they are very new!!
www.mandraleephotography.com
Life is a compromise of what your ego wants to do, what experience tells you to do, and what your nerves let you do.
The software is decent , only some minor glitches mostly in regards to speed. I seem to want to work faster than the beta software. The ability drag and drop photos into the book is also a bit touchy but it works. making sligt changes to the placement of photos within a given page is tricky though as the software is very clumsy here. There is also a lack of otions for "portrait" style phots as the current templates really favor "landscape" size pics. You have to get a bit creative with that. Font and text options are also limited which kinda sucks. Overall putting together a 54 page portfolio took about 6 hours from start to finish. Total with shipping was $41.90. I'll report back once it arrives.
A quick question on the Picaboo software: can you do all-black pages like the Blurb portfolio layout?
http://www.chrislaudermilkphoto.com/
For reference, here are all of the Photo Book Printing sites I have found so far:
shutterfly
Photoworks
Blurb
Picaboo
Kodak Gallery
Snapfish
SharedInk
lulu
Winkflash
Does anyone know of more out there?
Feature Request: Can SM hook into one of these companies so we have book printing options? {or did I miss another cool feature?}
Chibi Photography
pix.chibiphotography.com
I haven't seen the blurb layout...but, yes you can. There are many themed backgrounds to choose from. I prefer either black or white. I think it looks a bit classier. I did one with sepia tone photos on white background. It was beautiful! But, then they were my photos...and I did create the book...but, no bias here!
Mandi
www.mandraleephotography.com
Life is a compromise of what your ego wants to do, what experience tells you to do, and what your nerves let you do.
Apple!
My www. place is www.belperphoto.co.uk
My smugmug galleries at http://stuarthill.smugmug.com
I've been doing more research and have come across a few other threads that might be useful...
http://blog.photoblogs.org/2004/09/20/making-a-photography-book/
http://forums.dpreview.com/forums/read.asp?forum=1014&message=18517645
I found them by doing a google search on "picaboo quality" and then going through to page 5 or so. Picaboo seems to have the most options for layout (or else making the book yourself in Photoshop) - they also have some interesting options for scrapbookers...
A few other sites that I don't think have been mentioned:
www.treasureyourpics.com
www.asukabook.com
http://www.viovio.com/wiki/Photo+Books
http://www.pixart.com.my
http://photobooks.colormailer.com/
www.mypublisher.com
www.blurb.com
I registered at KodakGallery and they sent me a coupon for 30% off their books (med & large, not small) but it's only thru 8/9. Might be good for anyone who wants to give them a try though. Coupon code is BOOKS30. Picaboo is also currently running a special - buy one large book, get a medium book free - can't tell anywhere if that means they just print the same book twice but in different sizes, or if you can get two completely different books.
Another interesting question I came across - some of the photo sites only accept JPEG files, which means I'd have to get my TIFF files translated before I could use them.
Would love to hear any results from folks...has anyone tried Snapfish?
It is the same book and it is the cardstock cover, I spoke of earlier in this thread. They "run" that special all the time.
www.mandraleephotography.com
Life is a compromise of what your ego wants to do, what experience tells you to do, and what your nerves let you do.
Thanks. I'll give them a harder look then. So far these two appear to be the top runners for me. I'm also going to take another long look at the Leather Crafstmen page. I talked about the photo book ideas with my sister & she whipped out the wedding photo album; her photographer used them & it's a gorgeous book.
http://www.chrislaudermilkphoto.com/
Am I resigned to outsourcing to China?
Anyone?
Cheerleading: http://www.CheerPhoto.com
Blog: http://cambler.livejournal.com
Here's a huge list I found during my recent adventures in surfing
http://forums.dpreview.com/forums/read.asp?forum=1014&message=19068641
http://www.albumsinc.com
http://www.albuminclub.com
http://www.palmbeachphoto.com/albums
http://www.albumsunlimited.com
http://www.renaissancealbums.com
http://www.artleather.com
http://www.artzproducts.com
http://www.bindit.com
http://www.burnesofboston.com
http://www.campdale.co.uk
http://www.caprialbum.com
http://www.classicalbum.com
http://www.creativeframe.com
http://www.cypressalbums.com
http://www.dennisdaniels.com
http://www.digi-books.com
http://www.studiomaterpro.com
http://www.gpalbums.com
http://www.graphistudio.com
http://www.gnpframe.com
http://www.g-m-b.com
http://www.kambara.com
http://www.proshots.com
http://www.la-viealbum.com
http://www.leather-album-designs.com
http://www.leathercraftsmen.com
http://www.levinframes.com
http://www.lineco.com
http://www.malden.com
http://www.matermount.com
http://www.mulbrundesigns.com
http://www.pacificdigital.com
http://www.pictobooks.com
http://www.pioneerphotoalbums.com
http://www.prat.com
http://www.prinzusa.com
http://www.queensberry.com
http://www.reliablephoto.com
http://www.thebookalbum.com
http://www.roxburytwain.com
http://www.sandisalbum.com
http://www.seldes.com
http://www.stoneeditions.com
http://www.tap-usa.com
http://www.topflightalbums.com
http://www.ultra-pro.com
http://www.wgbooks.com
http://www.zookbinders.com
I'm guessing many of these may target professionals since I haven't seen any of them advertised/reviewed/etc on consumer lists.
On my personal quest:
- I just ordered 3 small (softcover) photo books from Kodak Gallery (they seemed to have the best prices, could get 5X7, and full bleed) - price for a 47pg 5x7 book was $18 - with tax & shipping, it cost me a total of $64.
- Still deciding for my "main" book whether I want to use blurb or picaboo - I think the picaboo software has more options, but they're also way more expensive. Prices for a 40pg or 50 pg book were respectively, $70 and $90 dollars on Picaboo vs. $30 and $35 on blurb. Big difference.
One more question - which sites do you use for sharing photos with family & friends (ie, people who might want to get reprints vs. sites to share your photography with other folks like flickr, etc)?
that would be...smugmug!:D
Mary
Got my book last week while on my vacation from Dgrin. Overall I'll give it an 8/10. The book itself it of very high quality. The binding is well done and the coverslip is perfect. I am taking some issue with the printing though. There is a noticeable loss in sharpness and brightness that seems to get worse as image size (printed not actual pic resolution) decreases. I'd say the book prints about a full stop darker than what you process on your monitor. This also seems to take out the crispness from all but the most razor sharp pics. This could be a function of the paper but I'm no expert.
Yet another major issue is the crop used on pics that you layout with any version of a full bleed. All pages with pics that run to the edge of the page are cropped MUCH shorter on all edges than the layout would leave you to believe when putting it together on the PC. This is a major bummer and IMO should dealt with by blurb.com.
I will be contacting them today with my critique so I'll post the remedy after the call.
Good luck.
Thanks for the info, good things to know. In the sharpness thing, would boosting the sharpening a little more help do you think?
http://www.chrislaudermilkphoto.com/
I wnated to call blurb.com but there is no phone number (that I could find) so I had te resort to sending an email via the webpage. I'll see what they say and report back...
Just sent in my book order to Blurb today, so I'll let you know how it turns out.... I had several problems with the software - was very pleased with their customer service. I actually got a response from them after it sent in an automated "report this problem" email (see problem below) - I didn't think anyone would actually be looking at those, so it was a pleasant surprise. Maybe they're paying attention more since it's still in beta, but I found them very helpful.
Lessons from the problems I had - can't upload pictures at >300 dpi (I kept getting "not enough memory to upload" error every time it got to that particular page). Can't use TIFs - I had one I tried to make jpg just by renaming (rather than exporting it into the new format) - made the software crash every time I tried to add that photo to the library. Overall, a good experience though...I'll let you know once I see the results...
PS - meewolfie (Mary) - pretty funny
I found this thread from a search...didn't even realize it was part of smugmug until a day or two ago when it was mentioned on a review of smugmug somewhere....
Wow, that's good C/S. Sign me up! I'm a sucker for places that care about customer satisfaction!
I can't speak for Picaboo, etc.; however, I did do a ton of research so I could offer my wedding clients less expensive photo books.
I've been ordering from Shutterfly for ages and I love the leather/leatherish covers versus the cheap feeling canvas/cloth books I've seen from some of the other books. Shutterfly has full bleed pages and, if you click off "vivid" in the "effects" under each photo, you can ensure the photo prints EXACTLY as you want it to (if you calibrated your monitor to sRGB). Using their vivid photo (which is automatic, hence you have to turn it off) turns faces orange and will blow out your highlights in B&W (lesson learned from printing a book). These books are only $40 (for their best ones) and have impressed a lot of my friends and potential clients. I have a few who have ordered these books from me righ tnow.
I tried out MyPublisher and found their user interface and software next to impossible to follow. They gave me two different explanations in their help files about how to print a book (I wanted the left side to have words, the right side to have photos).... Instead, the book printed the opposite. Instructions are hard to follow. The print quality waas good but the cloth cover really looked cheap. I was able to print a really large book though 12x16, which was cool. However, I won't be using them for my business.
I am about to try SharedINk since they have a pro photographer package. You do have to pay $129 for the year (although they will give youa 45-day trial account) and their software seems okay to follow. You basically do the page in Photoshop according to their instructions. They have beautiful covers and will allow you to engrave writing on the front cover (perfect for weddings, or a gift to my mother). The 12x12 books are quite large and you can get ICC profiles, etc. You can also get a swatch book to share with clients showing paper, covers, etc. It all sounds great. I'll be building my first book shortly. The 12x12 books are around $80 or so (I think). Oh... and if you pay for a pro account your books DO NOT have SharedINk's logo at the back. In fact, you can put your own logo and website address instead. Has anyone had a book printed from them? I'd love to hear a review.
Looking forward to seeing this thread grow. I think it's hard to work your way thorugh all the options out there.
Cheers!
Christina
www.christinacraft.com
http://craft.smugmug.com
Thousands of Nature & Wildlife Images Online
My www. place is www.belperphoto.co.uk
My smugmug galleries at http://stuarthill.smugmug.com
There is also:
MyPublisher: www.mypublisher.com which is similar to Picaboo in that you have to download their software. Picaboo offers more layouts and backgrounds. MyPublisher does not offer backgrounds or any other embellishments. However, I create my pages/layouts in Power Point, save each slide as a .jpeg file, and then load them up to MyPublisher into a full bleed layout.
There is also Sony Image Station: www.imagestation.com/ . Never tried them before though.