Topic: Blurb Books: Any tips?

[gothamtomato]

Has anyone here, who's done a blurb book have any tips, suggestions, etc for getting the best quality (most accurate) results?

Thanks!

[snewbery]

James Luckett has some technical advice about doing blurb books on his website/blog www.consumptive.org. The link is http://www.consumptive.org/2009/09/technical-notes-on-making-a-blurb-book/.  That might get you started.    ---Sheila

[LT]

I'm interested in this too, as I've been planning one for ages ....?

[sapata]

I've done one and I recomend, but don't expect too much unless you're prepared to pay extra for proofs etc . My book on screen looks great but the prints results were not "book store quality", not at least for me. The pictures weren't sharp and the B&W shots had a red colour cast, I complained and they sent me a new one but with a blue colour cast at this time, and I did exactly as they said. Apparently the prints facilities in Europe recently opened to attend the European customers are not as good as the US, that's what I heard but not sure if it's true. Even though for the price it worth having a go, the quality of the  finishing was impressive in my case but again, if you look at the forum it will be people complaining about it as well...

http://www.blurb.com/bookstore/detail/424894

[Susan B.]

I've tried a few blurb books and can't get rid of the green, magenta or blue color casts in black and white.
So I tried A&I in Hollywood and had success because they actually have someone proofing each book separately. This doesn't happen at most print on demand locations, so I was sold on them. They also have a number of paper options that aren't widely available for print on demand. I printed my catalog for my last solo show on watercolor paper since the paper I print on has a texture. The specialty paper I selected was on the thin side, but the black and white had no color cast. And the prices are equal to Blurb. Here's a link if interested. http://www.aandibooks.com/
Another option is Edition One. http://editiononebooks.com/
There books are very high quality and I've been told by three people who have used the company for books that they work with you to get the exact book you want....the price of the books is high unless ordering over 20 units in my opinion. But I hear nothing but good about the company.
Hope that helps

[gothamtomato]

I know there are other print on demand publishers who have better quality, but Blurb's advantage is the bookstore where you can send people to buy the book. My idea is to see if I can do a book there, then publicize it, just to see how many I could sell. That would let me know what the risk (and feasibility) might be for me to, with the next book, to actually go to a high quality printer (not print on demand), and get a couple thousand printed.

(And btw, if anyone is thinking about doing a Blurb book, they are having a competition & the deadline is this month.)

[sapata]

I've tried a few blurb books and can't get rid of the green, magenta or blue color casts in black and white.
So I tried A&I in Hollywood and had success because they actually have someone proofing each book separately. This doesn't happen at most print on demand locations, so I was sold on them. They also have a number of paper options that aren't widely available for print on demand. I printed my catalog for my last solo show on watercolor paper since the paper I print on has a texture. The specialty paper I selected was on the thin side, but the black and white had no color cast. And the prices are equal to Blurb. Here's a link if interested. http://www.aandibooks.com/
Another option is Edition One. http://editiononebooks.com/
There books are very high quality and I've been told by three people who have used the company for books that they work with you to get the exact book you want....the price of the books is high unless ordering over 20 units in my opinion. But I hear nothing but good about the company.
Hope that helps

Hi Susan... thanks a lot for the links !
I'll sure try those ones as well.

[beck]

I've experienced that same unsightly color casting too when once using Shutterflydotcom to make a book. My files were done correctly and printing them as black and white were fine but the book did not match up and never used them again. So I felt I either had to change tones to sepia and so on to compensate and just said forget it as it was just a pain to go back and change my huge folder. I've since lost that folder that held all of my high res scans in the event that I wanted to use another book site. I am not going to do it all over again and will say screw it. Maybe another time but definitely not now. I'm just not that interested in anything photography related I'm afraid. Blah...

[gothamtomato]

I was just reading something on the Flickr page of a photographer who is preparing to publish a Blurb book, and what he's done is first do a test version. He wrote that he heard there was a magenta cast for b&w photos, so he prepared his photos to be a little green and they turned out fine.

I guess the trick would be in figuring out what percentage off you have to prepare the images to be to get them right.

[sapata]

I was just reading something on the Flickr page of a photographer who is preparing to publish a Blurb book, and what he's done is first do a test version. He wrote that he heard there was a magenta cast for b&w photos, so he prepared his photos to be a little green and they turned out fine.

I guess the trick would be in figuring out what percentage off you have to prepare the images to be to get them right.

After being disapointing with my first book  I've found out that in order to overcome the sharpness issue you need to "oversharp" your pictures that they will come with the correct sharpness. Now... this is the first time I'm heraing about "throwing" some colour to get it right.
Why don't they fix those issues ? We have to do all this manouvres to get the right results...

[Ken B: eyes, I just do eyes.]

Why don't they fix those issues ? We have to do all this manouvres to get the right results...

Modern photography is a minilabs wet dream - no respnsibility profits - they can just print them how they like and tell you that you are the stuff up.

We all know in full on film days you could look at the proofs and ask them "What were you thinking when you made this magenta?" and of course they would then rectify the outcome.

Now they just take your money.

[sapata]

Why don't they fix those issues ? We have to do all this manouvres to get the right results...

Modern photography is a minilabs wet dream - no respnsibility profits - they can just print them how they like and tell you that you are the stuff up.

We all know in full on film days you could look at the proofs and ask them "What were you thinking when you made this magenta?" and of course they would then rectify the outcome.

Now they just take your money.

so true... !