If you have read previously my review of a Blurb Phtobook, then you might be interested in another opnion. The WeddingBee.com blog has a review of a Blurb book. Here is an excerpt.
The pros about using Blurb Book: The software is very easy to use and there are a large variety of photo design layouts that you can use throughout the book. Just drop the photos in the page layout and you’re done! It’s pretty simple to use and it’s very easy to upload to the website. The customer service is fairly good, and if you’re not happy with the quality you can always return the book to get a refund.
The cons about using Blurb Book: I kind of wish the pages were better in quality; a little thicker. I noticed the quality of the pages inside is about the same as My Publisher and Shutterfly’s photobooks. I made sure before ordering the book that all the photos were sharp and clear, and I noticed in the final products a few photos turned out blurred in comparison.
Making your own hardback books has never been easier! The Photobook Creator gives you the ability to make beautiful hardback books in just 90 seconds, right from the comfort of your own home or office. There is no need to load your pages up to a server or wait weeks for delivery.
The Photobook Creator is perfect for scrapbookers, photographers, small business owners, or anyone who wants the ability to bind and preserve digital images in an attractive, durable way. Photobooks come in a range of sizes, colors and finishes to complement any application.
All of a sudden the comment thread on my “Quality Review of a blurb photo book” has sprung back to life, and getting all sorts of comments. I’ll take this as anecdotal evidence that photo books are going to be popular gifts this year!
I know I am working on my annual photo album that goes to all the grandparents and great-grandparents. Each year around this time I start to get hints about how excited they are to see this year’s book.
There are several choices you can make when creating your own photo book. You can make a photobook from most major photo printing services — Kodak Photo Gallery, Snapfish, Photoworks, shutterfly, the list goes on. Most of those services require that you upload your photos top those services, use their web based book creator interface, and often are quite expensive.
If you want a high degree of control over your book, use photos already present on your computer, you have a few options, most popular are Blurb and Lulu. Let’s compare and contrast to see what is the bset situation for your needs:
NOTE: Lulu does offer a photobook option, similar to a Blurb softcover. In this option you must upload your photos to Lulu. For the purposes of this comparison, we will look at the options for creating your Lulu book on your computer. I.E. NOT using the Lulu photobook option.
Cover:
Both services offer both hardcover and softcover versions.
Blurb offers a glossy print softcover, or a cloth covered hardcover with a full-color, full-bleed dust jacket.
Lulu offers a a glossy print softcover, and two types of hardcover:
Dust Jacket Hardcover: A book bound in navy blue linen with a full-color dust jacket (6×9 book only).
Casewrap Hardcover: Full-color or Black and white, glossy cover. Does not come with a dust jacket.
Sizes:
Blurb Hardcovers and softcovers can be in 4 possible sizes: (height x width) 8″ x 10″ , 10″ x 8″, 13″ X 11″ and 7″ x 7″
Lulu Hardcovers can be in 2 possible sizes (height x width): 6″ x 9″ and 8.25″ x 10.75″
Lulu softcovers are also available 6″ x 9″, 8.5″ x 11″, 9″ x 7″, 7.5″ x 7.5″ — What size you can choose depends on the type of softcover binding option you select. More Info
Paper:
Blurb uses a glossy, heavy paper.
Lulu uses a matte, heavy paper.
Templates:
Blurb books can be made ONLY using the premade page templates that come with the blurb booksmart software. This limits layout choices, but increases the chances that the book will come out properly formatted and the way you expect it the first time.
Lulu hardcovers do not come with any template, you create every book from scratch. You can create the document in word, or another application like OpenOffice.org and convert the document to PDF (I used Impress from openoffice.org to create my lulu book). This offers a greater level of flexibility, but requires a greater level of expertise, and increases the likelihood that your book could be incorrectly formatted the first time you print.
Pricing:
Blurb books are priced as follows:
Lulu offers a pricing calculator to determine price based on a variety of factors: Type of binding, type of cover, color cover or black and white, number of pages, number of copies etc… These prices are based on results for the calculator:
# Pages
Blurb (8×10) Dustjacket hardcover
Lulu 8.25×10.75 Color Casewrap
40
$29.95
$24.50
80
$34.95
$29.50
120
$37.95
$35.00
160
$39.95
$41.50
200
$47.95
$47.00
240
$59.95
$53.50
As you can see the pricing for the two services are very similar.
Quality
Previously, I have given reviews as the quality of books from both Blurb and Lulu.
Important to note is that Lulu and Blurb use different printing techniques. Both are very high quality, with Lulu having an edge on pure resolution. Read the linked reviews above for more.
Summary
In summary, both Blurb and Lulu offer high quality, print on demand services. Which you choose will depend on what you need / want.
Do you want a Dustjacket (Blurb) or Glossy hardcover (Lulu)?
Do you want glossy paper (Blurb) or matte (Lulu)?
Do you want to use a template (Blurb) or have fine control over every detail (Lulu)?
Which is important to you? Do you have a preferred provider? Let me know in the comments!
There are several choices you can make when creating your own photo book. You can make a photobook from most major photo printing services — Kodak Photo Gallery, Snapfish, Photoworks, shutterfly, the list goes on. Most of those services require that you upload your photos top those services, use their web based book creator interface, and often are quite expensive.
If you want a high degree of control over your book, use photos already present on your computer, you have a few options, most popular are Blurb and Lulu. Let’s compare and contrast to see what is the bset situation for your needs:
NOTE: Lulu does offer a photobook option, similar to a Blurb softcover. In this option you must upload your photos to Lulu. For the purposes of this comparison, we will look at the options for creating your Lulu book on your computer. I.E. NOT using the Lulu photobook option.
Cover:
Both services offer both hardcover and softcover versions.
Blurb offers a glossy print softcover, or a cloth covered hardcover with a full-color, full-bleed dust jacket.
Lulu offers a a glossy print softcover, and two types of hardcover:
Dust Jacket Hardcover: A book bound in navy blue linen with a full-color dust jacket (6×9 book only).
Casewrap Hardcover: Full-color or Black and white, glossy cover. Does not come with a dust jacket.
Sizes:
Blurb Hardcovers and softcovers can be in 4 possible sizes: (height x width) 8″ x 10″ , 10″ x 8″, 13″ X 11″ and 7″ x 7″
Lulu Hardcovers can be in 2 possible sizes (height x width): 6″ x 9″ and 8.25″ x 10.75″
Lulu softcovers are also available 6″ x 9″, 8.5″ x 11″, 9″ x 7″, 7.5″ x 7.5″ — What size you can choose depends on the type of softcover binding option you select. More Info
Paper:
Blurb uses a glossy, heavy paper.
Lulu uses a matte, heavy paper.
Templates:
Blurb books can be made ONLY using the premade page templates that come with the blurb booksmart software. This limits layout choices, but increases the chances that the book will come out properly formatted and the way you expect it the first time.
Lulu hardcovers do not come with any template, you create every book from scratch. You can create the document in word, or another application like OpenOffice.org and convert the document to PDF (I used Impress from openoffice.org to create my lulu book). This offers a greater level of flexibility, but requires a greater level of expertise, and increases the likelihood that your book could be incorrectly formatted the first time you print.
Pricing:
Blurb books are priced as follows:
Lulu offers a pricing calculator to determine price based on a variety of factors: Type of binding, type of cover, color cover or black and white, number of pages, number of copies etc… These prices are based on results for the calculator:
# Pages
Blurb (8×10) Dustjacket hardcover
Lulu 8.25×10.75 Color Casewrap
40
$29.95
$24.50
80
$34.95
$29.50
120
$37.95
$35.00
160
$39.95
$41.50
200
$47.95
$47.00
240
$59.95
$53.50
As you can see the pricing for the two services are very similar.
Quality
Previously, I have given reviews as the quality of books from both Blurb and Lulu.
Important to note is that Lulu and Blurb use different printing techniques. Both are very high quality, with Lulu having an edge on pure resolution. Read the linked reviews above for more.
Summary
In summary, both Blurb and Lulu offer high quality, print on demand services. Which you choose will depend on what you need / want.
Do you want a Dustjacket (Blurb) or Glossy hardcover (Lulu)?
Do you want glossy paper (Blurb) or matte (Lulu)?
Do you want to use a template (Blurb) or have fine control over every detail (Lulu)?
Which is important to you? Do you have a preferred provider? Let me know in the comments!
Perhaps you are trying to decide if publishing a book via Lulu is right for you. I have previously created a Lulu hardcover and here are my impressions of the book.
A while back I wrote a children’s book. Well, not so much a children’s book, but a book specifically for my son. It was based on a bedtime story that had evolved improvisation-ally over a few nights. It got to the point where I had to repeat the same made-up story every night for a few weeks. I thought I would make that fun little ritual into a permanent memory by turning the story into a book.
I had to make a choice on publishing, and in the end selected Lulu for this particular project. Why? One reason. The cover.
Since this was a book for my 4 year old, I knew the book had to be durable, and my normal go-to publisher blurb only offers full color covers as a dust jacket. Dust jackets and 4-year-olds go together like paper and scissors. Its not pretty.
So, if you can actually create a book with Lulu (which in my experience is a lot more difficult than Blurb — you have to know how, and be able, to properly create a PDF to certain technical requirements, for one), it is a good choice if you need a full color cover, and excellent printing.
First, lets examine the cover itself. With Lulu you can opt for a “casewrap” cover. This means that the cover is full-color and glossy, bonded right to the hardcover itself. This makes for an attractive, durable finish. After a year it has stood up well to the abuses afforded it by a young kid. You can feel the ink on the cover. Printed areas, especially black lines make a distinct bump on the page as you slide your finger over it.
Inside of the cover you can see that the binding is a linen or cloth.
Looking inside the book, you can see that the pages are stitched together. Some other book makers (most photo-book producers) just glue the pages into the book.
This is also evident looking at the bottom of the book, you can see that the book is stitched together. A stitched binding is likely to be more secure than just adhesive over the long term.
The printing also seems to be different that in other services. This article on kk.org notes that the printer is a Xerox iGen3, which uses a different process than blurb.
Compared to Blurb, the “dots” that make up the image are much, much smaller. Even the best eyes will have difficulty discerning the individual dots that make up the image. I had to use a magnifying glass in order to get this picture.
The paper used for the individual pages are not glossy or reflective — which is different than the photo book services. This is because Lulu books are not specifically photo books, but more general purpose books. For example, the books could also be used to publish a novel, and you don’t want glossy paper for that. That said, the paper used is durable, bright and not flimsy.
I couldn’t capture a picture of it, but the printing process does have slight variations in the reflectivity of ink/toner used in the printing process. Solid black is EVER-SO-SLIGHTLY glossier than other colors. this is very, very slight. I only noticed it under scrutiny for writing this post. it may be due to the dry-toner process. This may also be true of other solid colors… my illustrations were watercolors so the colors are not as rich as a photo might be.
Once you get the final product, you’ll find a book printed by Lulu is a quality product. I found the actual book creation process to be more difficult than my other photo books, and required more technical expertise to get the book created. It may not be satisfactory for a photo book as the pages are not as heavy or glossy, but the books are well made and are “real” books.
Here are the details on the book, directly from Lulu:
8.25″ x 10.75″, casewrap-hardcover binding, 80# white interior paper, full-color interior ink, 100# white exterior paper, full-color exterior ink
This is exciting news for me, as I am working on my next book project. Blurb now offers new book sizes. Here is the email they just sent me:
# New book sizes – By very popular demand we now offer two new distinct sizes: a large format landscape 13×11 book (starting at $54.95 and available in hardcover with dust jacket only) and a square 7×7 book (starting at $12.95 and available in both hardcover and softcover). The large format landscape 13×11 book is a true “coffee-table” book ideal for photographers, while the “highly holdable” quality of the square 7×7 makes it ideal for graphic artists, poets, marketers, and gift-givers who want a smaller, less expensive book.
# Blog Slurper updates – We’ve added Blogger and LiveJournal to the blogs we already support (WordPress.com and TypePad). Automatically slurp your blog content – text and pictures – into a professionally designed book template, and produce a draft book in minutes.
# iPhoto integration – Mac users: No need to import your photos from iPhoto anymore. iPhoto photo libraries, albums, rolls, and individual images now automatically show up in BookSmart.
# New text features – Support for vertical line spacing and smart quotes gives you more text control.
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.
Photobooks are all the rage, with a wide variety of offerings to convert your digital snaps into a professionally printed and hardcover bound photo album. Since many of the books are similar in size and printing method, lets see how they compare on price. And yes, there is a clear winner. Read on.
UPDATE: Jeff Harmon of iMemoryBook corrects the pricing of longer books. He says in the comments below:
$1 per color page, $.15 per black and white page, and $12 per binding are just starting prices. When you print large, or multiple books, your price drops. You can find a book pricing calculator in the “publish” section of each book.
Well, it’s that time of year. Every year, I create a printed photo album of my family photos for the year. I keep one for myself and send some copies out to grandparents who live out of state. Previously I have used Kodak Photo Gallery, Lulu and Blurb to create Photo Books. With new competitors out there, I thought I would do a pricing comparison of how the publishers stack up, price-wise.
As a reference, this year my photo album is 190, full color pages. (It’s been a busy and eventful year!) Containing roughly 1000 full color photos of varying sizes. This album is a distillation of over 6000 photos I took personally, plus the best digital photos taken by all my close relatives.
Kodak Photo Gallery
Pricing: $29.99 for 20 pages, $0.99 for each page after 20.
Books have a limit of 80 pages.
For my book Kodak Photo Gallery has a theoretical price of $198.29, but an actual price of $89.39, due to printing limitations.
Shutterfly
Pricing: $29.99 for 20 pages, $1.00 for each page after 20
Books have a limit of 100 pages.
For my book, Shutterfly has a theoretical price of $219.99, but an actual price of $89.99, due to printing limitations.
Snapfish
Pricing: $19.99 for 20 pages, $1.99 for each additional 2 pages after 20.
Books have a limit of 150 Pages.
For my book, Snapfish has a theoretical price of $189.14 (based on this equation: 19.99 + ((170/2)*1.99) ) but an actual price of $149.34 due to printing limitations.
Photoworks
Pricing: $29.95 for 20 pages, $0.99 each additional page
Books have a limit of 50 pages.
For my book, Photoworks has a theoretical price of $198.25 , but an actual price of $59.65 due to printing limitations.
LuLu
Lulu has two choices, a photobook, which appears to only be available in Softcover, but uses a similar photo organizer interface, or a Casewrap hardcover book where you must do all the layout and upload a finished PDF to Lulu.
Pricing for Photo Book: $4.53 to bind, $0.15 for each color page.
Books have a limit of 500 pages. Limited to Softcover.
For my book, a Lulu Photobook would be $33.03
Pricing for Casewrap hardcover: $17.00 to bind, $0.15 for each color page
Books have a limit of 500 pages.
For my book a Lulu Hardcover would be $45.51
Cafepress
Cafe press is a different beast altogether as they only print in back and white, and at this size the binding must be “wire-o” (similar to a spiral bound notebook) This is probably not going to meet your photo album needs. You must create your own PDF of the book. No layout assistance is provided.
$5.00 for binding and $0.045 per page
For my book, Cafepress has a price of just $13.55.
Blurb
Pricing: Varies by length of book in 40 page or so increments. Price point for books 161 to 200 pages is $47.95
Blurb hardcovers include a full color dust jacket. Blurb uses downloaded and installed software for PC and Mac called “Booksmart” to create the book.
Books are limited to 440 pages.
For my book Blurb has a price of $47.95.
iMemoryBook
Pricing: $12 for hardcover binding, $1.00 each color page. ($.0.15 for black and white)
Books have a limit of 460 pages.
For my book, iMemoryBook has a price of $202.00 UPDATE: $109.00
myPublisher
Pricing: $29.80 for 20 pages, $0.99 for each additional page.
Books have a limit of 100 pages (sides) or 50 sheets of paper.
For my book, myPublisher has a theoretical price of $198.10 but an actual price of $59.50 due to printing limitations.
Summary
So, it’s clear that most of the photo management sites are not prepared to create a photo album of the length I have created. Only Blurb, Lulu and iMemoryBook can actually print a book of this length. So unless I want to compromise on length that rules all of the photo printing services out. iMemoryBook and Blurb both create hardcover photo books using templates, while Lulu’s hardcover is a make-your-own-PDF affair.
These three are the finalists — the ones that could actually print my book
Lulu: $45.51 — but I have to do the layout, export to PDF and upload. Sorry. No deal. This PDF would be prohibitively large, and I am not going to shell out big money to get Adobe Acrobat to create optimized PDFs., Alternatively, I can print it in softcoverand use their software. Either way, these limitations rule Lulu out for me
iMemoryBook: $202.00
Blurb: $47.51
The clear winner: Blurb.
I’ve used Blurb before and can recommend them. If you need to have a photo book to print. Do yourself a favor and give Blurb a try. The software is easy to use, and since it is locally installed, way faster to create and edit than a web based interface. This will be my third book printed with Blurb, and so far I have been very pleased with their books.
Are looking for a great last minute gift for Mom, Grandma, Uncle Ernie, or that cute co-worker from Accounting? Here’s an idea. Give them a book. Not just any book. But a photo book that you created from your best photos. Best of all, it’s only about 30 bucks, plus shipping.
The best thing about it, is you can go from nothing to finished and ordered tonight before you go to bed. All you need is Picasa and Booksmart from Blurb. If you don’t have Picasa, you should.
Step 1: Obtain and install Picasa and Booksmart
Ok, first, if you don’t already have Picasa. Download and install it. Let it find all the photos you have scattered around your computer.
Next, download and install Booksmart, from Blurb. Booksmart is also free. The only thing you’re gonna pay for is the printing and shipping of your books. I prefer Blurb over other photo book publishers like Kodak Photo Gallery and Snapfish for the following reasons:
Get Booksmart from Blurb
1. Blurb is cheaper, by a mile. Especially if you plan on having a lot of pages.
2. Blurb allows full bleed pages. This means your photos can go right to the edge of the page. This is a nice touch that few others offer.
3. Blurb’s books feature a custom paper dust jacket. I’m not sure anyone else does this. It’s a great touch, and really makes your book seem professional.
Step 2: Select and Edit Photos
Now. Go to Picasa and choose all your best photos. In the photo library,
- select the photos (hold down CRTL to select more than one.)
- click “Add to” at the bottom of the Picasa window.
- Choose “New Album”
- Then give the album a name like “Photo Book for Mom”
Continue to add photos to your album until you’ve chosen all you want.
Now, select that Album in the right hand pane of Picasa to see all the photos you selected.
With the album selected click “Edit” then “Select All”
With all the photos in the album selected choose “File” then “Export Picture to Folder” –
Make sure the option for “Use Original Size” is selected. You want to make sure Blurb gets the highest resolutions pictures possible.
This will take all your adjusted photos and make copies that we will insert into our book.
Depending on how many photos you have selected, this step could take a few minutes.
Step 3: Creating the book.
We’ve selected all the raw material for your book. Now lets assemble it. Open up Booksmart, which you should already have downloaded and installed.
When Booksmart opens, choose “Start A new Book” from the opening screen.
Choose “Photo Book” as the type of book to create.
On the next screen, choose the 8×10 book (it’s the only size they offer, right now)
On the next screen I prefer to choose “Mix It Up” for the number of images per page. Choose whatever you like.
Next, give your book a title, and Put your name in the Author field.
Next, you can choose the color theme for your book. I like the dark pages of “Darkroom,” but choose whatever you want.
Last, you tell blurb where to find the pictures to put in the book. You also indicate if you want Blurb to automatically create pages and fill the book for you (they call this autoflow) or you can hand craft each page on your own. For the first time, choose Autoflow.
Click the “Get Pictures” button, and find the Folder where you just exported all the pictures from Picasa. Open that folder and press CTRL+A to select all the photos.
Then click Open then Continue.
Booksmart will take a few minutes and bring in every photo from your Picasa Album, and automatically create your book for you.
It’s gonna create your dust Jacket, do all your page layouts. Heck, it’s gonna make your book for you.
You can always rearrange pages, change layouts, move pictures around the page, rotate them, zoom in and out and add captions to your photos. Go ahead. Get creative. Definitely review each page to make sure it looks just right.
As of today pricing is downright reasonable. Starting at $29,95 for books up to 40 pages, and only $79.95 for books up to four hundred pages. Shipping is added to these prices. But compared to others, that’s a great price.
Once you have the book done just the way you like it. Click “Publish” then “Order Book” And your book will be automatically transferred up to Blurb’s website, and you can order as many copies as you want.
If you want, they’ll even add it to their bookstore in case other relatives want to order a copy. Here is a book that I created as a gift. ()
In my experience books take about a week to create and ship, so if you act today you JUST might make it for the holidays.
Making your own hardback books has never been easier! The Photobook Creator gives you the ability to make beautiful hardback books in just 90 seconds, right from the comfort of your own home or office. There is no need to load your pages up to a server or wait weeks for delivery.
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