Photo books

[Proc]

I came across a site http://blurb.com , where you can create a photo book, soft and hard cover. You download software, lay it out using their templates, and send them your layout with hi-res images. Looking at the samples at the site, they look great and they're inexpensive! Has anyone used this site/software or flipped through one of these books?

[Garfield Hall]

I have used this site to create a book project, as a test, just last week. Although, I think that the service has great potential, I was unhappy with the final product.

To begin with, I did to copies: one with a hardcover and binder; and the other a softcover.

The hardcover was okay, but looked really cheap. The binder did not fit snugly and looks like its a binder wanna be. They will have to bump up the quality a lot more to make it worthwhile. The softcover was very disappointing, to say the least. The softcover had streaks straight down the sides or middle of some of the images( an obvious printer glitch). And the paper stock was too thin, although the print quality was not all that bad.

The hardcover did not have the same lines down the same images that were in the softcover, which made it even more clear to me, that it was the fault of the printers and not mine. I knew this to begin with, because the lines were not apparent in the original images that were submitted for printing.

The other issue that I have with blurb, is the fact that, though they gave you many options of page layout, I think it is still lacking. You end up choosing the best of the worse layout. The best way to go, if you decide to use this service, is to be as simple as possible. This way, your small book does not end up looking crowded and overly sophomoric.

I also did not like the fact that they limited adding extra pages to just about three added pages and I did not have the chance to add many of the original images that I wanted to add to the book.

That said, I think that it was meant to be a cheap alternative for making coffee table books and seeing what your work would like published.

In the end, since I did it as a test, just to see the out come and to know whether or not I would want to use their service again, I was not too disappointed. The verdict: I perhaps, would not be using their service again. There are many other alternatives out there to try. I would try as many of them as possible, since it is relatively cheap to do so and just go with who offers the best quality product. It was well worth the effort and quite exciting in the end.