Suggestions for Hard Cover Photo Book Printing?

[Jason Dunn]

Digital Media Thoughts community member Neil Enns sent me this message today and I thought it would be best put to the community for answers:

"I'm looking for a company to print a hardcover photo album for me. Does anyone have recommendations for one that is reasonably priced, prints on heavyweight glossy paper, and has solid software that provides flexibility in page layout? My first attempt was through blurb.com, but their print quality was terrible: the paper is essentially photocopy paper, and it looks like the photos were printed on a cheap inkjet."

Any suggestions for Neil? I'm curious about this myself, since most of the photo books I've had had printed haven't been very high in quality.

[ianbjor]

Mac + iPhoto?

http://movies.apple.com/movies/us/apple/getamac/giftexchange_480x376.mov


Sorry. Couldn't resist.

[cameron]

I haven't used them for books - but I have used them for about a year for most of my photo printing. I've switched from them recently - but not for quality reasons.

http://www.mpix.com

[Jeremy Charette]

Sony's ImageStation (http://www.imagestation.com/photo-gifts/photo-books/) offers leather bound photo books. No idea what the quality is like.

[Jeremy Charette]

There's a great thread over at CNET that talks about just this topic:

http://forums.cnet.com/5208-6136_102-0.html?forumID=38&threadID=136124&messageID=1533125

Apparently MyPublisher and ImageStation get high marks.

[Neil Enns]

I'll go look at the cnet thread. MyPublisher is who Costco uses, so there's good deals to be had there. I downloaded their software and kinda went "meh", but perhaps it's worth another look.

Neil

[Michael Knutson]

... but obviously limited to preparation on a Mac. I've used this process about half a dozen times for (travel) books for family members, and even did one for a retiring co-worker. Create the book, and send it electronically to Apple. Nice hardbound covers, decent quality paper, and a decent choice of "looks." Take about a week to turn around, and costs between $50 and $100 depending on the number of pages. Simple dragging of photos onto template pages, and you can create/keep a PDF of the finished product, complete with the look and feel of the template. Not the most sophisticated tool out there, but it's part of the 'free' software bundled with the Mac. Haven't done this in a bit, but I believe that you can create the whole book and save it as a PDF file for free.

I'm following this topic with interest, as I'd also like to try creating some books from/on the Windows BootCamp side of my Mac (or Dell laptop), and compare the cost per page and quality. Cheers!

[KC]

Try MyPublisher. I've had several books made and the quality of the book, pages, and images is very good. It's most impressive using a single picture per page, full size. Makes a great gift or capturing a trip or vacation. They also make a smaller size version at a very good price.

The software is a little limited but has gotten better in the last version and gets the job done. Delivery is supper fast.

They used to have a plug-in for Powerpoint that would upload a presentation and print it in hardcover book format. An awesome way to impress a client. I'm not sure if it's still available.

[Neil Enns]

I downloaded MyPublisher again, and once again was completely underwhelmed by their software. Very limited in the choice of page layouts, and you can't even put captions in using the "just photo" style of book. No thanks.

I took a look at a place called Picaboo today, and their software looked decent (lots and lots of page layouts), and they claim to print on 100lb glossy paper. Pricing is $29.99 for 20 pages, and if you search for them through live.com you'll get an ad that gives a 50% off first order coupon. I'll likely give them a try simply because of the weight and style of paper they claim to use.

I jumped over to mpix and will download their software too to play with it. I'm not convinced about the print sizes they offer, but we'll see.

One thing that was so encouraging about blurb.com is they print a real hardbound book with a dust jacket. Every other site I've found prints a standard cover with a see-through cutout that shows the first page of the book through it. Too bad the quality wasn't there :(

Neil

[Mike Temporale]

I've seen a couple people that have made books from Blurb, and they're pretty impressive - IMHO. I haven't looked anywhere else or done anything myself.

http://www.blurb.com/ Take a look and see if it interests you.


Opps... I see you already looked at Blurb. :oops: Please excuse my ramblings. I am surprised to read your comments on it. The books I saw where back in December and they really looked sharp. Perhaps the difference is in the pictures uploaded or choices in publishing. Again, I haven't used them, but the books I saw where really really nice.

[Philip Colmer]

I downloaded MyPublisher again, and once again was completely underwhelmed by their software. Very limited in the choice of page layouts, and you can't even put captions in using the "just photo" style of book. No thanks.Well, doesn't that make sense? "Just photo" means just that. Just photos. No captions.

There are book layouts that allow you to add captions. You just need to select the appropriate book choice.

If you aren't happy with the page layouts offered to you, the software also allows you to create a full page layout in, say, Photoshop and import the JPEG you create.

I've used MyPublisher a couple of times and been very happy. The full-bleed pages work very well.

--Philip

[Neil Enns]

My biggest beef with blurb is the weight of the paper. You can actually see through the pages to the pictures on the reverse side of the page. They only offer one choice of paper, so there's not much I can do to change that.

Also, the paper itself isn't very glossy. It's as if you had a good inkjet printer and printed your pics on whatever paper you had lying around.

Neil

[Neil Enns]

Based on Philip's comments I went and looked at MyPublisher again (third time :)). Still underwhelmed. The layout choices are limited, and the ones with captions only have room for two lines of text. I often want to write a paragraph description of the image. They also have no five image or panorama layouts.

Remember from my original query to Jason:

and has solid software that provides flexibility in page layout

Any one of the options mentioned in this thread, or at cnet, have a full-bleed page that I could use to do my page layout in Photoshop. That adds a heck of a lot of effort to build the book to the equation. I'm wondering if any of these print sites have matured enough to offer that flexibility in their book creation software. Based on this thread and the cnet one, it looks like the answer is no.

Neil

[Jason Dunn]

This is a slightly random suggestion, but since you seem to be looking for sophisticated page layout control, what if you used LumaPix FotoFusion to create the layouts you want:

http://www.lumapix.com/StagingArea/Lumapix/index.shtml?

...then exported them as JPEGs and printed those? I think that's the only way you're going to get EXACTLY what you want. I'm not surprised that these photo printing places don't have awesome software, they're focused on printing and not on developing software. Is it short-sighted of them to not have awesome software? Yes. But are they likely to change that? I doubt it. :-(

LumaPix Essentials is limited to 2000 x 2000 pixel resolution imports, so 4 megapixels for an 8.5 x 11 inch page...might be cutting it tight quality-wise. The Enhanced version goes up to 3900 x 5700, which is an awesome 22 megapixels...but it's $119 USD. The more I think about this though, the more I think it's a great solution.

I know you may not like this option because it will add complexity and time, but you can do some AMAZING page layouts with FotoFusion, and it gives you razor-sharp control:

http://www.lumapix.com/StagingArea/LumaPix/site_galleries/enhanced_gallery/enhanced_gallery.shtml

[Jason Dunn]

Oh, I might also suggest asking this question in the Smugmug forums at www.dgrin.com - lots of people there in the same boat, I'm sure they'll have suggestions.

[Philip Colmer]

The layout choices are limited, and the ones with captions only have room for two lines of text. I often want to write a paragraph description of the image. They also have no five image or panorama layouts.I've just had another look at the software myself. I think that MyPublisher have tried to strike a balance between ease of use and flexibility, which is why they've broken down the page layouts into groups. I must admit, it is frustrating that you can't have an uber book with all of the possible page layouts in it.

That said, the "Bestseller" book style has caption boxes that let me type in a reasonable amount of text, but if you want more, the "Story Teller" book style gives you a reasonable text box per page.

Five photos per page would be an interesting layout to see.

What I did in a book where I had a panaorama shot was to create the pages myself and lay the panorama across the top of the two pages. I only created full layout pages on a few sheets where I wanted to do things that the software didn't allow but, in the main, I stuck to the supplied templates.

It does sound is if your requirements go beyond what the software allows from any of the suppliers, which is a shame.

--Philip

[Philip Colmer]

This is a slightly random suggestion, but since you seem to be looking for sophisticated page layout control, what if you used LumaPix FotoFusion to create the layouts you want:

http://www.lumapix.com/StagingArea/Lumapix/index.shtml?That looks like an interesting product. I'll have to spend some time looking into that in more detail.

--Philip

[JWeber]

I have had great results with book quality by printing two of my hard cover books with www.ubuildabook.com. One of my books was a family history/genealogy book and the other was an art portfolio book.

They allowed me to design my own hard cover and print directly on the front and back cover and put my book title on the spine. Their standard paper was an 80# glossy photo paper (or matte equivalent). They also had an option for cheaper paper or premium paper (100# glossy).

However, they only print the book and do not provide any layout/template software. I used Photoshop Elements (free 30-day trial available on Adobe website) which offered many different layout templates. It seems to be a "dummied down" version of Photoshop for novices not inclined to spend the money or take the time nor have the need for the full Photoshop. I eventually ended up buying the software for $79 since I liked it so much. Elements gave me the capability to save my book in PDF format, which allowed me to have many more options to get my books printed without being tied to the templates of the book printer and having to learn a new format each time.

Since they don't have their own software, it seemed that their setup cost was included in the price of the first book which made it expensive to order only one book, but the cost for more copies of the book was very low compared with others.

[DimensionZero]

wow, it's been a long time since I was last on here :oops:

I don't have any personal experience in this area, but I too was looking into printing a photbook of my own so I gathered a short list of sites. No experience with any of these so take my thoughts with a grain of salt :)

One place that I always hear about is Asukabook (http://www.asukabook.com/). They don't have any fancy software to help you with the layout, but instead they provide you with a basic page template and then you do whatever you want in Photoshop. In the end you send off a PDF with your order and away you go! They're really popular with the Wedding photographer crowd so I'd imagine they can't be that bad :)


This next place I've never heard of but they came up in my searches...
PhotoInPress (http://www.livrephoto.ca/) They do have a program for you to use but looking at their samples, the layouts seem pretty limited.


And lastly, ShutterFly (http://www.shutterfly.com/). My sister had some photos printed through them a few years back and they turned out pretty nice so assuming their standards are just as good or better than before these should be pretty nice as well.


Good luck with the search! I've got my eyes on this thread to see how it turns out :)

[photoalbum]

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The site is not live yet but we are looking for designers to help us create templates. If you are interested then please contact us at [email protected]

www.photoalbum.com

[cj8475]

You should try www.winkflash.com They run sales that are 40% sometimes and they are a lot cheaper than other companies. Plus they have very well made photo books.

[photoalbum]

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For example our best selling book is the 12" by 12" hard bound book with your custom designed cover and 20 pages of your designs for only $39.95 including free shipping.

Books are printed on archival paper and sewn together for a lifetime keepsake.

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PhotoAlbum.com

[stephens]

<table x:str="" style="border-collapse: collapse; width: 305pt;" width="406" border="0" cellpadding="0" cellspacing="0"><col style="width: 305pt;" width="406"><tbody><tr style="height: 63.75pt;" height="85"> <td class="xl65" style="height: 63.75pt; width: 305pt;" width="406" height="85">Hey, Smilebooks provide both hard as well as soft cover photo book printing services. It is easy to create, edit and arrange your digital photos and computer graphics through their free downloadable software.Visit http://www.smilebooks.com/ for more details</td> </tr></tbody></table>