I just got my first 10" x 8" hardcover photobook back from Blurb.com. All I can say is 'WOW'. With about 4 hours of work and a $69 investment I was able to turn a library of my favorite photos into a beautiful 330 page 'coffee-table' quality photo book. Really stunning. I've used other 'photo book' services in the past, but Blurb was the most cost-effective (by a long shot) and delivers exceptional quality. I believe that a lot of the photo print services, such as ShutterFly, are using photo books to to improve margins. With 4x6 prints now selling for about 10 cents each, the profits on small prints is very thin. Since all Blurb is selling is 'photo books', they need to offer superior quality at a great price. Blurb pricing is particularly cost-effective for large books - whereas a lot of their competition really 'stick it to you' for multi-hundred page books, Blurb pricing/page gets better as the number of pages increase. The ability to cost-effectively create large books also makes it easier to justify doing 1 full-bleed photo per page. Blurb offers their books in both hardcover and softcover versions with the softcover version costing about $10 less per book. I ordered a softcover version also, and it's fine, but the hardcover is especially handsome. They offer books in a couple sizes including 7" x 7", 10" x 8", 8" x 10", 13" x 11". You can also make your book available for friends and family to purchase via the Blurb web-site, you can also make your book available for purchase to the public with a 'mark-up' (of your choice) for yourself. I think this is a great tool for creating a portfolio of your photography, a summary of your photography for each year, a photo summary of a wedding/event, etc. Check it out:
2 comments:
What did you think of the skin tones printing? When I printed a 7x7 hardcover, I had some issues (in my mind at least) with skin tones being 'grainy'....not a smooth graduated color. And it seemed some bokeh suffered in the same manner. Landscapes, on the other hand, seemed to be crisp and colorful. I haven't contacted blurb about it, but I was hoping to find someone else's experience for comparison. Thanks.
--Ted
Ted, the skin tones and colors I got from Blurb were excellent. I've had issues in the past from using a monitor that was too bright - but now that my monitor is pretty well calibrated, my prints from Costco and photo books from Blurb are very accurate. Clint
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