Photobooks

[Scotttyd]

I was curious as to what photobook programs/website you use to produce yours? I received a free coupon for a free 8x8 through shutterfly. It was ok, but I was disappointed with the lack of options for backgrounds/themes, etc. Now it was free, so I cannot complain, but I would have a hard time paying their prices for the options available to me. What is your experience with other compaines?

 

[hammerhead man]

I have used both Shutterfly and My Publisher to make photobooks. I actually liked Shutterfly more than MyPublisher and found that their photobooks offer a large variety of backgrounds, text options, and layout options. The only problem with MyPublisher is that some of my underwater photos that were predominently blue were always washed out when printed in the book. I returned the bood for a reprint several times but got the same result. All of my pics printed well in the Shutterfly books that i printed. I have used Shutterfly for two books and have been pleased with the service, and quality. Photobooks are a great way to save your pics. You can print a large number of pics in a small volume and can add text as well. They cost more but I am willing to pay the extra cost for the benefits. They also make great gifts. My two sons and my daughter-in-law traveled to Egypt for three days of touring Cairo followed by a week of diving in the Red Sea. For Christmas that year I gave a photobook of our travels to each of them. If you send me your email address, I'll send you a link to my Shutterfly book so you can judge the quality. You can reach me at jamescrew6@verizon.net.

Regards,

Bill

 

[weeksd]

hi if you have a mac computer the photo books done on apple's aperture program are top notch quality and the options are almost too much to decide sometimes. Cover layouts there must be 15 options. The prints are saturated colors and it takes usually 3 days for the fedex box to arrive at my house. It is printed in the usa and is shipped back to canada in those 3 days. Impressive. You can also do photo books on iphoto and the only difference is not a many options with layouts.

 

[calypsonick]

Scottyd, I have used Blurb, Shutterfly and Mac's printing service that is linked with Aperture.

Although you have lots more latitude in the Mac version allowing you to change pretty much anything in Aperture and create your own text and image boxes wherever you want, the soft cover in black is not the best quality on the edges of the pages and where the cover crease is located. The black comes off easily and leaves a messy look. This goes for Blurb as well. The hard back version only offers a paper cover which is fancy looking but the edges of the paper get dog eared and fray easily.

Shutterfly, on the other hand does not let you modify their templates but they do have a good number of templates and background colors to choose from. The hardback cover is of very durable quality and will withstand heavy use and still look new. Shutterfly has saturated the colors in my images more than others, so be careful with already highly color saturated images when working with Shutterfly.

Nick

 

[Where2Next]

I printed a photobook with Kodak gallery. I liked the selection of templates. The cover of the book was beautiful! However the interior pictures were washed out. I was disappointed.

Printing projects (offset or digital) are done with CMYK (Cyan, Magenta, Yellow, and Black) these four colors are what give the illusion of full color on a printed piece. There are also solid Pantone colors, but that is another story. If you look under a magnify loop at a full color printed piece it is actually made up of dots using these four colors. I believe Kodak gallery printed the book without converting the RGB files (Red, Green, and Blue); these are the colors that digital cameras, monitors, and electronic files use to display full color.

I assumed Kodak would realize most people who are not in the print industry would not know this, and would handle the conversion on their end. I did not convert my electronic files, nor did Kodak ever mention it in the setup. Washed out printed photos are RGB files printed in CMYK. (I think this may be why Hammerhead Man might not have been happy with his book).

I would give Kodak another chance, but I would convert my files to CMYK from RGB before putting the book together (no matter what company prints my future photobooks). I hope this explanation makes sense, and maybe helps someone with their next one-up photo book printing.

 

[hammerhead man]

Where2next, I had several rather lengthy email discussion with MyPublisher techs and they kept saying the problem was how large the filles were (all were sent at 10 megapixel files). However, they could never explain why the pics with little blue came out outstanding (even though they were also the same file size) and why the pics that contained a lot of blue were washed out. When I did send them smaller files, the pics did look better but did not have the same sharpness and great color depth that the original photos had. Shutterfly on the other hand, reproduced all of my pics with no problem at all and I was extremely happy with the outcome.

Regards,

Bill

 

[Where2Next]

Glad you received a good final product Bill. Larger files than necessary really do not make a difference - that is kind of an old school way of thinking (I hope that does not sound snotty). I am sure it was the color set-up - if I was a betting person, I would say it was rgb files printed in cmyk. I am a graphic designer and have printed thousands of projects - so an educated guess on my part.

Good to know Shutterfly is doing it right! Is there an electronic version of your book we can see? I am just amazed by the work I have seen on this forum; Very inspirational!

 

[hammerhead man]

I am trying to find a way to share my photo book. I can share my photo alum and individual pictures, but I can't find a way to share the photobook. I will expore some more and let you know.

Regards,

Bill

 

[Scotttyd]

Thanks for the advice. The Shutteryfly book came out pretty good - but it was not diving pix, so hard to tell how that will translate.
I do not have a Mac, so that option is off the table.
I am kinda dumb with the RGB vs CMYK. My printer uses CMYK, but what does my camera take pix in? (are all the same), and using photoshop, how would I convert from one to the other?

 

[oceanbound]

I use Kodak for my books as well. I think the pictures have turned out good. I've been real happy with the choices for books and set up and have given them as gifts many times.