BLURB offering large format books!

rosselliot · February 28, 2007

blurb is now offering 11X13 books! they just sent out an email about it! I'm really thrilled, as I thought the 8X11 I got from them was GREAT, but for vacations and portfolios, you want something BIG, so I'm thrilled about this upgrade! here's a link:

http://www.blurb.com/create/book/explore

and here's their prices!:

Large Format Landscape

Think big with our 13x11 inch Large Format Landscape. Hardcover only. All prices are for 4-color printing.
Number of pages Hardcover w/dust jacket
per book
0 - 40 $54.95
41 - 80 $64.95
81 - 120 $69.95
121 - 160 $79.95
161 - 200 $94.95
201 - 240 $114.95
241 - 280 $124.95
281 - 320 $149.95
321 - 360 $159.95
361 - 400 For quote, send custom rate request.
401 - 440 For quote, send custom rate request.

I thought I'd share you! because I think their prices are pretty awesome!

- RE

pathfinder · February 28, 2007

Thanks, Ross.

That is very attractive looking rates and the bigger size is even more appealing. I gotta do a couple of these

kapalua · March 5, 2007

I also heard that they are coming out with a pro version of their photobooks without the Blurb logo. Makes the product 1000% more appealing to me.

Art Scott · March 6, 2007

If they ar doing 4 color printing do you have to send in the files separated into CMYK separations??

dogwood · March 6, 2007

kapalua wrote:

I also heard that they are coming out with a pro version of their photobooks without the Blurb logo. Makes the product 1000% more appealing to me.

Yeah, this is good news indeed. I've been holding off for the bigger format (want it for a portfolio) and without the blurb logo would be nice too!

LuckyBob · March 6, 2007

I looked around on their site but couldn't see... where do they put the Blurb logo? Is it on the back cover like Shutterfly stuff?

kapalua · March 6, 2007

LuckyBob wrote:

I looked around on their site but couldn't see... where do they put the Blurb logo? Is it on the back cover like Shutterfly stuff?

they put the Blurb logo on the bottom of the last page.

Laurence Kim Photography

kapalua · March 6, 2007

Art Scott wrote:

If they ar doing 4 color printing do you have to send in the files separated into CMYK separations??

no, just sRGB jpegs are fine.

Laurence Kim Photography

urbanaries · March 6, 2007

kapalua wrote:

they put the Blurb logo on the bottom of the last page.

Laurence Kim Photography

....and with a sharp exacto knife and advance page planning you can have no blurb logo at all

rosselliot · March 7, 2007

urbanaries wrote:

....and with a sharp exacto knife and advance page planning you can have no blurb logo at all

this is very true!

but really I don't think much about the logo. I mean, your customer knows that you didn't print and bind it yourself, I'd think it's a given that there will be a logo SOMEWHERE in the book. hey, at least it's, say....at the bottom of the FIRST page? however, they should give you an option of paying like $5 more and getting taken off...for those of us who might not want it on there.

- RE

Stormdancing · March 7, 2007

Color Management and Profiles For Blurb Books
Download PDF file from this site.

http://www.bonsai-photography.com/blurb-color-management.pdf

HP Indigo Press 5000 Semimatte profile

http://www.bonsai-photography.com/

Shima · March 24, 2007

I'm trying out an 8x10 (portrait layout) book from Blurb right now. I designed my own "flush style" album some time ago so I'm crossing my fingers that I laid it all out correctly and that there won't be a drastic "auto correct" on my photos, but it should be here in a few days... one of the reasons I went with Blurb was because I had designed the book as an 8x10 and the most of the online publishers I found had 8x11 and not 8x10 so it limited me a lot, but I'm excited to see their results! They had great prices...

Daphotos · March 25, 2007

Paper quality and other curiosities
Just wondering from anyone who has ordered from the company before. How is the paper quality and look? I mean, does the book look sellable? That's my main question :-)

pilotdave · April 9, 2007

Daphotos wrote:

Just wondering from anyone who has ordered from the company before. How is the paper quality and look? I mean, does the book look sellable? That's my main question :-)

I created a book and ordered it after reading this thread. I tested it out with a small 7x7, soft cover, 40 pages. http://www.blurb.com/bookstore/detail/42753 (see if you can spot the typo in the book preview!)

I ordered on March 28, it was shipped on April 2 (UPS Ground), and I received it today (April 9). So a little less than two weeks... felt like a long time to wait, but I'm so used to buying off the shelf items from amazon.com. This is a little different. And I live on the other side of the country (ships from Seattle).

Anyway, I'm not sure if the print quality is the same for the small books as the large ones, but it's a little disappointing, but not terrible (at least to my non-professional standards). A lot of the pictures in mine are pretty small (up to 9 per page on little pages), so it's hard to judge how they'd look on a nice big page. They just lack a little clarity and detail and look grainy... but it looks like a professionally printed book. My pictures also have a little purple tint... not noticeable in all of them, but it does change the look of some of them (deep blue sky looks purple).

The full-page pictures do look a bit better. Everything prints a bit dark, so brighter pictures look a lot better.

But if this was a portfolio or something where I cared about the photo quality and color, this wouldn't cut it.

Dave
http://www.SkydivingStills.com

dogwood · April 10, 2007

Stormdancing wrote:

Download PDF file from this site.

http://www.bonsai-photography.com/blurb-color-management.pdf

HP Indigo Press 5000 Semimatte profile

http://www.bonsai-photography.com/

Thanks-- this is very helpful since I'm currently working on my first blurb book for a portfolio.

Daphotos · April 13, 2007

Thanks, Dave

pilotdave wrote:

I created a book and ordered it after reading this thread. I tested it out with a small 7x7, soft cover, 40 pages. http://www.blurb.com/bookstore/detail/42753 (see if you can spot the typo in the book preview!)

I ordered on March 28, it was shipped on April 2 (UPS Ground), and I received it today (April 9). So a little less than two weeks... felt like a long time to wait, but I'm so used to buying off the shelf items from amazon.com. This is a little different. And I live on the other side of the country (ships from Seattle).

Anyway, I'm not sure if the print quality is the same for the small books as the large ones, but it's a little disappointing, but not terrible (at least to my non-professional standards). A lot of the pictures in mine are pretty small (up to 9 per page on little pages), so it's hard to judge how they'd look on a nice big page. They just lack a little clarity and detail and look grainy... but it looks like a professionally printed book. My pictures also have a little purple tint... not noticeable in all of them, but it does change the look of some of them (deep blue sky looks purple).

The full-page pictures do look a bit better. Everything prints a bit dark, so brighter pictures look a lot better.

But if this was a portfolio or something where I cared about the photo quality and color, this wouldn't cut it.

Dave
http://www.SkydivingStills.com

Thanks Dave. Your honesty regarding the quality and printing issues helped me greatly. I'll continue my quest for a high quality professional vanity press some more.

Has anyone else bought a larger book that would like to discuss their feelings about it?

dogwood · April 13, 2007

pilotdave wrote:

Anyway, I'm not sure if the print quality is the same for the small books as the large ones, but it's a little disappointing, but not terrible (at least to my non-professional standards). A lot of the pictures in mine are pretty small (up to 9 per page on little pages), so it's hard to judge how they'd look on a nice big page. They just lack a little clarity and detail and look grainy... but it looks like a professionally printed book. My pictures also have a little purple tint... not noticeable in all of them, but it does change the look of some of them (deep blue sky looks purple).

The full-page pictures do look a bit better. Everything prints a bit dark, so brighter pictures look a lot better.

But if this was a portfolio or something where I cared about the photo quality and color, this wouldn't cut it.

Did you use an icc profile and softproof? I'm just curious since it sounds like your colors in some images were a little off.

pilotdave · April 16, 2007

dogwood wrote:

Did you use an icc profile and softproof? I'm just curious since it sounds like your colors in some images were a little off.

No... I ordered it before I read about it. But just for fun I tried that on one of the pictures that looked too purple and could not reproduce it in Photoshop (though it was my first attempt at soft proofing). It definitely changed the colors on my screen a little, but didn't turn the sky purple. What I did find was that a particularly grainy part of the image was highlighted in photoshop when I checked the gamut warning. So that was definitely part of the picture quality problem for me.

The good news is that I showed my sample book to a bunch of people (most of whom appear in it) and I've probaby gotten about 10-15 copies sold (I'm going to put in a bulk order to keep the price down). I got a lot of comments on how nice the photo quality was. So maybe I was just being picky! Everyone thought it was very professional.

I'm already working on my next book, which will be an 8x10.

Dave
http://www.skydivingstills.com

dogwood · April 18, 2007

my blurb report

pilotdave wrote:

I'm already working on my next book, which will be an 8x10.

Ordered my book Sunday and recieved it today-- amazing service

I ordered an 8x10 as a test of blurb and also to hopefully use as a smaller, unique looking portfolio. I admit, I didn't follow the soft proofing guidelines very well, and uploaded everything as full size print files (300 dpi).

The quality is a little grainy-- more than a print and more than most photo books or magazines. Large, full page photos tend to look better than smaller photos. Also, I wish I had added text on the insides of the dust jacket-- I did add photos but it looks a little bleak with no text.

I designed my cover using photoshop-- wish I had done that for a couple of page layouts that well. The default layouts using smaller photos are kind of cramped.

But... considering the book was about $30US, and that I recieved it three days after uploading it... I'd have to say the service and results are pretty impressive. It might not be portfolio quality for my dream job at British Vogue, but it seems fine for local clients.

markhout · April 23, 2007

CMYK softproof experience???
Hi - Although I've been around for a while, I'm an almost complete newbie where it comes to book printing.

I have tried my luck with Blurb and simply created sRGB jpeg's in Photoshop, imported them into Booksmart and that was it. The book came back ok, not very good but not bad either. Grainy (as mentioned in this thread), very slightly pinkish and the colors were a bit subdued.

I've been following the advice of Mr Stormdancing earlier in this thread (and on his website http://www.bonsai-photography.com/) and I'm now softproofing my images in a CMYK profile. I've also done more research, notably on The Luminous Landscape, before I boarded this train.

It occurs to me that viewing an image on screen with a CMYK profile often results in the following:
- black is not black
- saturation is significantly lower and colors are understated
- contrast/brightness/brillance (deliberately using all these words) is subdued.

I don't see the grain and pinkish/reddish hue that I got in my first Blurb book. My LaCie monitor is profiled.

The impact really depends on the nature of the image, but some are impacted heavily, particularly in the "Gamut warning" mode. Think about Bryce Canyon images at sunset that turned mostly grey (both rocks and sky) when I flipped on the Gamut warning.

Next step, on the color correction in the CMYK profile view, I have yet to find my way around to get as close as the original (ProPhoto profile) image. It's pretty difficult, particularly if one cares about the Gamut Warning (I no longer do).

After correction in CMYK, returning to sRGB and saving as a 8 bit JPEG the images are often oversaturated and seem overexposed.

I would be grateful if others can confirm their findings in this CMYK process. The corrected sRGB images are so different that I have difficulty pushing the send button and spend $$$ and more importantly time with Blurb to see the end result.

Other thoughts appreciated as well.

Many thanks,

Mark

http://www.flickr.com/photos/markhout

markhout · April 24, 2007

More info here: http://www.mezzoblue.com/archives/2005/02/11/cmyk_for_th/

Justiceiro · May 4, 2007

Well, I am currently having a rather negative experience with blurb. I am trying to get my Uzbekistan travelogue set up in book format, and have spent about three weeks working on it with Blurb's booksmart software. The whole thng started inexplicably closing on me when I reach page 150, and I sent a "crash report" to blurb via the automatic notification that occurs when the program crashes. It crashed on 4/27. I sent the report. I got on e-mail on 4/30 asking if I had sent a report (funny, becuase that's how they got my e-mail address). I responded on 4/30 that I had. No response. Sent anther message offering to send them an exported version of the file to look at on 5/3. No response. Sent another e-mail today. Still waiting.

Not so great for a company that promises to jump on tech problems in 2 working days. I really love the look of their layout program, but there is no way I will sink another three weeks into a project that may fall apart. I gues I will do all the layout myself and go to another publisher.

Stormdancing · May 4, 2007

markhout wrote:

I've been following the advice of Mr Stormdancing earlier in this thread (and on his website http://www.bonsai-photography.com/) and I'm now softproofing my images in a CMYK profile. I've also done more research, notably on The Luminous Landscape, before I boarded this train.

Sorry Mark. I didn't mean to imply that I was the author of that website or information. Just passing on what I had found on the subject. You might try contacting the website owner.

PS - I'm a girlie girl.

urbanaries · May 4, 2007

Justiceiro wrote:

Well, I am currently having a rather negative experience with blurb. I am trying to get my Uzbekistan travelogue set up in book format, and have spent about three weeks working on it with Blurb's booksmart software. The whole thng started inexplicably closing on me when I reach page 150, and I sent a "crash report" to blurb via the automatic notification that occurs when the program crashes. It crashed on 4/27. I sent the report. I got on e-mail on 4/30 asking if I had sent a report (funny, becuase that's how they got my e-mail address). I responded on 4/30 that I had. No response. Sent anther message offering to send them an exported version of the file to look at on 5/3. No response. Sent another e-mail today. Still waiting.

Not so great for a company that promises to jump on tech problems in 2 working days. I really love the look of their layout program, but there is no way I will sink another three weeks into a project that may fall apart. I gues I will do all the layout myself and go to another publisher.

I have had the same incredibly slow response times from them. There was a printing defect on one page in my first book, but the rest was just fine, actually impressive (see my earlier review in this thread). It took almost a month's long process to get the 2nd book in hand. Part of that was my delay in sending it back, but I was a bit miffed they wouldn't reprint without having the first one in hand. It was a week before first response from them regarding the issue, two weeks after shipping it back that I received confirmation of reciept, and then another week til book was in hand.

The second one is significantly lower quality printing than the 1st. My black and white cover actually has shadow areas of magenta. My client's ok with it (heck, I ate the cost of it already) but I'm not sure I'm trusting them again if they're this inconsistent and unresponsive.

mchapma · July 26, 2008

blurb large format
I recently order a 70 page large format which showcased my son and his girl friend. Was extremely pleased with the output.

They have an HP ICC profile you need to use in post processing your images. One word of caution is that they use like three printing labs. I'm not sure how they could consistently control quality.

I was pleased with the results.

Mark

BLURB offering large format books!

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