Quality review of a Blurb Photobook.
A few months back I posted how easy it is to create a photo book using the Blurb Booksmart software.
I ordered a few copies of this book from Blurb for myself and for relatives, and wanted to show you what the delivered book looks like so you can get a sense of the quality of the book.
The books arrived packaged in a cardboard box that and each book is individually shrink wrapped. This is a nice touch so that your fingerprints don’t get all over the cover before you give the gift.
This book was pretty thick at nearly 200 pages. As we saw in the pricing showdown for a variety of photobook makers, a book of this size is very reasonably priced with Blurb.
Blurb Hardcovers come with a full color, full bleed dust cover. There are many different layouts, I happened to like the full bleed. You can have full page images on the front and back cover as well as on the inside flaps. This I tried to capture the gloss on the dustcover by showing you the reflectivity of the lights.
The Hardcover is cased with linen, and the pages appear glued into the binding. I can’t find any evidence of stitching on the pages or binding.
As of this writing, blurb does not imprint anything on the linen or spine.
The inside cover of the book is white; you’ll note that there is linen near the spine, which is finished with a glued white sheet of heavy paper on the actual cover. I have been satisfied so far with the quality and durability of the spine. We’ll see what happens in 50 years to see if the adhesive on the spine holds.
Inside, the photos are printed on heavy, glossy paper. The pages feel thicker and glossier than in most books, but certainly not as heavy as actual photo paper. The page weight is consistent with other art / coffee table books I own.
Held at a distance of 12 inches, there are no discernible “dots” in the printing. As you peer in closely you can make out the pattern of the dots that create the image. In comparison to magazine quality, or dust-jackets of “real-bookstore-books” the quality is on par, if only the tiniest bit more coarse. I’ve tried to create an enlargement here so you can see the pattern. This enlargement is a box roughly 5 millimeters on a side in the actual book. Note that the fine detail is preserved.
I learned from the Cool Tools website that Blurb uses the HP Indigo 50000, which according to HP achieves a quality of “812×1624 dpi when printing in high resolution mode” Citation.
Overall, I find the quality of the Blurb product quite impressive, and that is why I am a repeat customer. You can feel comfortable that you’ll get a quality product that showcases your photos.
That said, I agree with the assessment on Cool Tools. In short, bad photos will look bad in higher resolution. Blurry photos, out of focus images, scans of ink-jet-printer prints, scans of old 110 prints, overly-compressed jpgs, all will show less detail than a sharp-direct from digital images. Bear this in mind when you create your book. I have been supremely happy with the images from my 4.0 and 6.1 mega pixel cameras that appear in my Blurb BooksDon’t blame blurb if your source images can’t hold up to such high resolution printing.
[tags] photobook, blurb, booksmart, photo book[/tags]
Thanks for the feedback. I just ordered my first book and am very excited to receive it. I have created 2 additional books in the meantime, but am waiting on this first one to test the quality before ordering additional books.
Thanks for stopping by nsa107 — I hope you are as pleased with your book as I was with mine. Please, feel free to come back and let my know what you think!
Mike
Hiya – it was great to find this review – very helpful and with excellent images.
I will be ordering a book soon and am very much looking forward to seeing the final product.
Thanks again,
Carlo
Thanks for such a thorough review.
Thank you for reviewing blurb. I’m working on a photo project and needed detail review on the processing and stuff.
Hi Mike,
I wanted to tell you that your review is very helpful to me. I am currently using Blurb to work on a book and I have put in many hours designing it this summer. I am glad to know that the quality is great!
Thanks!
Jen
My pleasure everyone, I hope you enjoy your books as much as I enjoy mine!
Hi Mike
I don’t suppose you know how Blurb’s print quality compares to Shutterfly? I’m having a lot of trouble figuring that out.
Thanks!
Izabela
Izabela, I;ve not ordered a book from shutterfly. I have ordered from Kodak Photo Gallery, and I believe those books are very similar (at least the “shutterfly classic” with the hole in the cover. The print quality should be similar between shutterfly and Blurb. The Blurb book’s regular size is a bit smaller than shutterfly, but I expect that the blurb book will accommodate more pages at a lower price. This post might help.
Thanks Mike, your advice is really helpful!
I, too, have used both Lulu and now Blurb. Lulu’s recent upgrade in print quality and paper is significant, however, their increase in price of 149% for the product drove me to find Blurb. A 50 page 9X7 softcover photobook from Lulu went from $12.03 to $29.95. I just built an 80 page 8X10 photobook at Blurb and the cost is $21.95 for the softcover and is available in hard cover with a dust jacket for $34.95. I am afraid that Lulu just priced themselves out of the market for those of us that use the pro feature to sell our books.
Scooter
…. Oh … and thanks for the comprehensive comparision …
scooter
Hey Mike,
Great walk through of Blurb. So appreciative of your sharing. I have a question… I’m looking into Blurb to print landscapes and I wonder 1. how is the color integrity, and 2. what resolution do you submit? Nothing less than 300dpi is my guess. What do you say?
Cheers, K
Ordered a book through lulu using the new more expensive process. Their flash based (web) software was pretty limited. In the end I was happy with the layout but disappointed with the quality, I can’t imagine what the old quality was like if this new and improved option looks so bad. I just expected quality on par with a decent magazine but ideally a National Geographic. The matt finish of their new photobook is disappointing. The cover looked great with a little gloss the quality looked better. So after so many raves about the quality of lulu I am in search of a new source. Has anyone compared the new lulu to blurb? I think if this quality is as good as it gets right now it is bad news. Why can’t they just use photo paper because photos look so much better than this. There is visible texture in the book. I suggest to avoid Lulu.
I just love the classics!
Hi Mike,
Thank you for a great review. I currently finished editting my first book on Blurb, but I am becoming increasingly concerned about the quality of my pictures. I am using old pictures that I scanned into my computer. I used the tool in Blurb to bleed the pictures, but now all my pictures have the (!) warning sign. I don’t mind if my pictures aren’t perfect (they are old pictures) but I don’t want to spend $50 on a book that will be blurry. Any suggestions? I am ordering this soon since it’s is going to be a Christmas gift. Any help is appreciated. You’re book turned out beautiful (how did you increase the picture size?).
Thanks,
Kaity
kaityv — If you are seeing the (!) it means you are trying to make the photos larger than can be printed without being blurry. There are two solutions:
1) Make the pictures smaller foregoing the full-bleed, or …
2) rescan them at a higher resolution, such as 150 or 300 dpi. I would suggest 300 dpi to be absolutely sure you can resize them to full-bleed sizes.
If you want the images to be clear and full bleed, you’ll most likely need to rescan them.
You MIGHT be able to use a program like Photoshop Elements (if you have that) or “The GIMP” to resize the photos to a larger size (the GIMP is free — gimp.org) although the learning curve might be a little steep if time is of the essence. If you go this route, you could resize the images to be larger in number of total pixels. They might still be a bit blurry, but will probably work better than blurbs built in resizer.
For my book, the pictures came from my digital camera, so I already had enough pixels in my image to enlarge them — though I don’t generally resize them much in Blurb.
Hope this helps.
Thanks Mike!
This does help. I am glad I waited to order my book, although I probably wasted a lot of time getting everything setup since I’ll probably have to start over. I’m going to give GIMP a try when I get home, since rescaning isn’t an option (the pictures are in another state). I really hope it works. I’m a bit of a perfectionist so I like anything I do to look really good.
Thanks again.
kaityv — a quick google reveals that there are tutorials for resizing with the Gimp: here is one that looks pretty good. Here is another tutorial that talks specifically about dpi and resolution. Good luck!
Hey everyone!
I just ordered my first blurb book and received it in the mail yesterday! The quality is amazing! I actually just looked for a place to write this review because I am so happy with the product. I also looked at shutterfly, but the prices are so much better for higher number of pages.
I definitely recommend it! I love my book!
kate
Hey Mike,
I download GIMP when I got home and spent a long time resizing my photos (I’m still not done). It is time consuming, especially since I have 150 pics, but they look much better and I no longer get the ! warning. I’m assuming since they look good in booksmart, they will print well (fingers crossed).
Thanks for all your help. I’ve been having a blast exploring GIMP and can’t wait to see how my book turns out.
-Kaity
Glad to help kaityv.
Kate, thanks for the feedback. I’m sure it will help others!
Im just putting together my first Blurb book. Ive scanned many of my (historical) images in at very high resolution, 400dpi usually. Has anyone had any issues with images that are “too big” displaying “scaling artifacts” when printed? Blurb mentions the possibility of “scaling artifacts”.
Id rather not go in a exact size every image to the layout specs!
Also, I assume I’ll be fine with 72dpi images as long as they are large enough (eg 3000 x 2000 pixels) correct? Ultimately its the total pixel count that matters right?
-james
Thanks for any feedback and the post. Looking forward to my book.
-james
James, You should be fine with those high resolution images getting scaled down. I think the scaling artifacts would be introduced when the images are scaled up (as kaityv was experiencing in the comments above) Most all of my images are 3000×2000 pixels from my camera and the detail is preserved to the extent the printer used is capable. In other words, I see the actual dots laid down by the printer before the image runs out of detail. No scaling artifacts are seen.
The image of the palm trees in the post above are from a 3000×2000 (6 megapixel) image — so that is the level of detail you might expect.
I was just using picaboo to create a photo book when I had a problem and lost over 50 pages of work. I found your review and I am thrilled! I am going to re-create my book (which I was limiting due to picaboo’s page limitation) using blurb. I am so excited that I will get a great book for a great price – and I can use more of my photos rather than carefully selecting photos to stay within a page limitation.
THANK YOU!
By the way, this book will be our personal wedding experience – from the engagement trip to the honeymoon. So I need at least 250+ pages!
@marci: Sorry about the duplicate work there with picaboo. I’m sure you’ll be pleased with your blurb book. You’ll end up with a great memento. (Why not order two! one to look at, and one to save for your 50th anniversary! :-) )
Hey Mike,
I just wanted to let you know that I got my book in the mail today and it looks fantastic!!! I was getting my hair done when I opened it and everyone was asking to see my book. It’s my dad’s christmas present and I know he’s going to be blown away.
Thanks for all your help!
Kaity
Thanks for the follow-up comment kaity, I’m so pleased that your book came out well. I’m sure the folks over at blurb are happy to hear it too. Happy Holidays!
Mike,
Very helpful and informative site.
What about ‘book ownership’ At the following link, a Blurb snippet is posted regarding ‘content.’
The question remains: “Who owns the book?” Blurb owns page formats and designs, but the author owns the content. Can Blurb use ‘content’ posted on their proprietary page layouts without author permission? Can they sell the book after any given period of time without an author’s permission. The legaleeze is pretty confusing.
@Jeff T. Clearly, I am not a lawyer, however my understanding is that they are the copyright holders on the the actual layout of the book, but all the content that you place in that layout is your copyright. It is my understanding that they cannot /will not sell your content without your explicit permission (such as adding your book to the bookstore) They don’t own what you have written and the photos you have placed in the book, and therefore have no rights to sell them.
I just received a photobook that I made in Picaboo and was EXTREMELY disappointed by the quality. Their customer service rep told me to resize (smaller) all my photos to avoid their down-sampling. Instead of trying that I am going to try Blurb instead….thanks for the review.
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Sorry about that entry above. I did not mean to enter that.
Thanks for sharing
Nice review. I just received my book and was equally pleased with the outcome.
The size and quality makes a blurb book a smart buy, I’m certain I will be using blurb in the future.
I like the use of the quarter to show size, I happened to do the same thing in my review.
Have a look here, I was able to highlight some of the small printing mistakes made.
http://www.4tay.com/blogs/Adam_Parker/Blurb_Italy_book_has_arrived/1/1/692/
I’ve done 2 books with Blurb and not only is the quality excellant, their software is more user friendly than the likes of Picaboo or MyPublisher. I began my last book with MyPublisher because they were offering a nice discount but manipulating the pictures and pages became so arduous that I scaped it and restarted it via Blurb. That experience alone will most likely prevent me from using anyone other than Blurb at this point.
I ordered a book from blurb and one from iphoto/mac.
The idea was that I could do a comparison and see which one works out better.
I ordered the hardcover version from both.
Blurb books are about a 1/3 of the iphoto price.
when the blurb book came in , I was excited.. very good quality.
The Apple book blows it out of the water though.
the pictures look the same, no oversaturation and no attempts to correct my pics. That was good.
The apple book seems to have beter binding, the jacket is of a way better quality, they use a heaveier stock of paper and that makes the whole book look and feel a lot better (better than most of the photo books you would see in Barnes and Noble)
In short, the blurb book is very good but is no match for the apple one.
I will stick to apple for my copy.
For my grandmothers copy, the blurb book would be more than fine.
i read your blurb review before i ordered my bOOk and found it very informative. i just received my blurb book yesterday. i think they have changed their paper quality since you have made your bOOk because the bOOk i received had paper that was so thin you could see through to the other side of the page. i was rather disappointed…the print quality was great though.
As everyone has said, thanks so much for such a comprehensive review. I am planning on making a photo book in leiu of a guestbook at my wedding. In your opinion, are the pages thick enough so that when guests sign, their messages won’t bleed through to the next page? Any other suggestions anyone can offer?
Has anyone compared the quality of a Blurb book with MyPublisher? I like their quality, their price is reasonable, but their customer support is terrible. In addition, there are real problems with their upgraded software.
Alan, I am about to prepare a photo book and have the same question re: a comparison of Blurb and MyPublisher.
In your posting, you commented on “their” price being reasonable but having poor customer support and problematic software. Were you referring to Blurb or MyPublisher?
I was referring to My Publisher. Many people seem to have had a problem uploading and purchasing through My Publisher with Bookmaker version 2.3, whereas 2.2 worked fine. After numerous attempts to get this sorted out via their customer support, I threw in the towel and made essentially the same book through Blurb. I have not yet received it, but when I do, I will be able to compare the same photos printed by both publishers.
Alan
Have your received your Blurb book yet? I am waiting for your comments as I am trying to decide between MyPublisher and Blurb. I am concerned about the quality of paper that Mary received on Mar 15.
does anyone have advice on printing black and white images through blurb??
I ordered a book of my black and white photography (300 dpi and sRGB) and the printed book was grainy and the colors were funky. Would it be different if I exported my images from Aperture as black and white even though blurb makes it RGB?
any advice would be great!!
Thanks!
Hi!
I am looking at creating a photo book for a small private school and have never ordered from Blurb before. Are there any surprises in their prices? I will be doing a softcover 8×10 portrait size with 80 pages or less. Their price says 21.95 with a 10% discount if you order more than 10. Besides shipping, are there any other costs that are hidden somewhere or can I pretty much depend on the prices they have on their site? I just want to make sure I get the school the best possible quote for their books.
I would really like to use Blurb but I need to give the school a confident quote on a per book price.
Thanks for any input!
@Christian — I have a few pages in my book that are black and white, I always converted to grayscale before placing them in the book. It is clear, though, that the images that result are not pure black and white — I noted a slight reddish cast in my images. For my purposes that was fine, if you are looking to create a fine art black and white book, you may not be satisfied.
@Pam — I have not ordered in bulk from blurb, but I have always found their prices to be as quoted, no hidden fees in there anywhere.
Thank you very much for the advice…would you know a good source for fine art black and white printing?
Thanks Again!
Christian
I was wondering if anyone could tell me if it is possible on Blurb to have a faded picture in the background with pictures on top. I have seen this in several photo books, especially wedding ones, and I really like that. If Blurb does not offer that feature, do you know any companies that do?
Mike: Thanks for letting me know! I just wanted to make sure.
I also just made a book with Blurb. I wanted to try a small softcover project to test their quality before I put tons of hours into something. I must say I was soooooooo disappointed! I chose to not make my pages in Photoshop, but do them directly in their program to see the “virgin” quality. My images are from a 10MP DSLR with each photo being about 2-3 MB each, so the input quality was fine. Their output was dark, grainy, oversaturated photos. I was floored. I’ve heard such glowing reviews that I couldn’t believe it. I contacted Blurb and they offered to remake the book for me, indicating that they can only keep prices so low by not recalibrating the printer after each book. They figured mine was one of the 3% of books that were toward the end of the run. So, they sent me another book and it was the same. What a disappointment.
The main company I use is Creative Memories for my photobooks since the quality is superb and the pages are sewn, not glued to the spine. Most of the companies are within a few dollars of CM, except for Blurb and Viovio (still waiting for the Viovio album to arrive.) I have a full Excel spreadsheet comparing if anyone wants.
I’ve made 3 gift books from MyPublisher (I got 2 for free–good promo!) where I inserted my Photoshop layouts into full bleed pages and they came out beautifully.
So, now I guess I wait to see how the VioVio book comes out for a less expensive alternative for gifts and such. Does anyone have experience with them?