One of the goals for my photography hobby this year was to create a collection of
my wildlife photographs and have them printed in book form. Not only could I give
these books as gifts to family and friends, but I would have an easy and convenient
way to present my portfolio of images. Until recently, this project would be very
time consuming and expensive. Recently, several options are now available to the
amateur photographer. These book options do not require a large outlay of money
and are within the skill level of most people involved in this hobby. This essay will
present two options that I have used and like. Just to note that my first book was
printed by Apple using iPhoto. I have decided not to continue printing my books this
way as I do not use iPhoto for my photo management.
Update December 2008:
I cannot recommend Blurb soft cover books. Their quality control seems lacking and
the result is unsatisfactory. In the past their time from order to shipping was very
fast. Now it is extended to 9 days. But that is not the serious problem. The latest
book order arrived and when the shrink wrap was removed, both the front and back
covers would curl. The books were not usable with that curl on the cover. I
contacted Blurb support and they agreed to reprint the books and advised me that
the curl is the result of the temperature set too for the cover lamination process. I
returned the defective books and after almost 1 month from the original order, I
received the reprinted books. These books had another unacceptable problem
described below.
Blurb has started to attach a label to the back cover of each book. The label advises
you to remove the "easy peel" label and begin enjoying your new book. The
problem is the adhesive from the label adheres to the book cover and leaves an ugly
sticky residue. Blurb support response is to use rubbing alcohol and a soft cloth to
remove the residue. This is more difficult that they lead you to believe. Once you
use the alcohol on the adhesive, you create a very gummy mess that spreads. It
requires more alcohol to remove this mess but now you have small streaks that are
very difficult to remove.
This is unacceptable and I would recommend finding another book publisher until
Blurb corrects the label problem and improves their quality control. This applies to
soft cover books. I have not recently ordered hard cover books and will not risk the
time and cost involved should these also prove problematic.
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There are numerous online companies that will print books. I will focus on the two
that I have used. Each company offers a different level of service and options and
each company has a different method of book creation. The two companies are
Viovio and Blurb. These two companies have provided good service, respond to
customer service inquiries in a timely manner, and provide good value with their
product. They differ significantly in book creation, paper options, and other options
available for a book.
Viovio offers soft cover (Perfect Bound) and hard cover books. Current pricing is
available on their website. Their pricing model is a flat fee for cover and binding
and then a per page cost. Hard cover adds a flat fee to the book cost. Depending
on size chosen, there are two papers available. Satin is the default. Glossy is
available for some sizes and adds to the book cost. Paper is white only.
After signing up for a free account, you will have storage space on the Viovio
servers and must upload your photos in order to create your book. If you choose to
create a book as a PDF on your local computer, there are instructions on the site
that include technical specifications. I have not used this method. When you upload
your photos, you create galleries to organize your pictures. After upload, you must
choose a gallery image, which becomes your cover page photo, and then specify an
image order. Here is where you can add captions and description text.
Book creation is done online using their book maker program. For simple layouts,
the program works fine. Creating a book with one photo per page and captions is
easy. Creating pages with multiple photos on some pages and different numbers of
photos per page must be done in the image order section of your gallery using
notations specified in the online instructions. This process adds complexity to the
book layout and tends to get confusing because you cannot see the page until you
create the book and download the proof copy. There is no option to add a text page
with no photographs unless you create an image that is just text. Other options are
listed in the book maker and are chosen in the beginning of the process.
The soft cover is very nice. The cover is laminated and looks good. The hard cover
also looks good. There is no dust jacket option for the hard cover. Your cover image
and title are printed right on the hard cover and looks similar to what you would see
in a book store. The glossy paper is a much better option than the satin for
photographs.
Once you have built the book using your gallery, the program will construct a high
resolution PDF to be sent to the printer and a low resolution PDF that you can
download and see your pages, checking the layout and text. If all is well, you order
the book. Cover type and shipping options are selected at the end of the process.
On the negative side, I find the time from printing to shipping is disappointing,
especially for hard cover books. It just takes too much time to get the final product
delivered. If you are in no hurry, then it may not be an issue. Paper choice is
limited and there is no paper color option. Anything more than a simple layout is
more difficult and you cannot see your layout until you create the book and
download the PDF.
Blurb takes a different approach to book creation. After signing up, you download
their book building software. Layout and book construction is all down locally on
your Mac or PC. This software is much more flexible and provides many templates
for page layout. Blurb offers both soft cover (Perfect Bound) and hard cover books.
Current prices are on their website and are not per page. They use a single price for
a page range.
I like the book building software. It makes creating a book very easy. Be careful
though. This is a beta product and their are some annoying software problems that
need to be fixed. The problems are mostly around entering and editing text. It is
difficult to see errors and extra spaces. Images are imported into the software and
then dragged into the page template that was selected. It is easy to rearrange
photos, delete them from a page, or change page layout. Adding text and captions
with photos is also very easy. Generally, it is a fun process to create the book.
When you are ready to order the book, the software will assemble the book and
upload it to the Blurb servers.
The hard cover books have a dust jacket. There is no option to have a hard cover
with image and title printed on the cover. The jacket has front and back flaps that
allow for additional photos and text. One nice option is paper color choices. The
black pages with white frames around a photo add a lot to the look of the book.
Book title, chapter title, and page numbers are all part of the page. Chapter title
pages and text pages are easy to add.
There are only a few minor negatives to Blurb. Shipping costs are high and there
are few shipping options. The dust jacket is the only cover option for hard bound
books. If it gets torn or lost, then the book has no information on the cover. The
book maker software still needs work. Its major weakness is in text entry and
editing. As noted in the update above, Blurb has some quality control problems in
the production of soft cover books.
I would recommend you try each company based on your needs. It would not make
sense to pay the cost of a Blurb book if your book is only 25 pages. Viovio works
well for a simple layout and when page count is not within the Blub cost for a given
number of pages. Blurb works well for professional looking books with paper color
choices and many layout options.
Additional considerations when you are planning your book. For best results, each
photograph should have a resolution of 300 dpi and have the Adobe RGB color space
embedded. Low resolution photographs will likely produce poor results. To prevent
clipping and cropping, it is best to consider the dimensions or aspect ratio of your
pictures. If you want square photos in the book, using a 4:3 ratio from a point and
shoot camera or 3:2 ratio from an SLR camera will result in cropped and possibly
clipped photos. Except for square photos, the 4:3 ratio is probably the best to use.