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01/26/2007 10:40:00 AM · #1 |
I have just finished prepping my first attempt at publishing with Lulu.com - I'd like to share my thoughts.
I am preparing a picturebook from my time in China (some pics here). I took nearly 3,000 images, most of which are great and I had a hard time cutting the number down to nearer 250 for publication! However, that still left me with c.200 pages of images to print somehow.
//www.Mypublisher.com (my choice for my last 3 books) would work out at more than $200 per book and require 2 volumes (80 page max per book). This is still my back up option, as it prints big and at good quality for the price. They print at 150lpi, using a proper offset press.
//www.Asukabook.com would be great (my choice for my first 2 photobooks) - great casewrap cover and high quality print, except they do not offer the largest sizes, print max 80 pages in a book, and the price would be significantly higher than mypublisher. They print at 150lpi, using a proper offset press (apparently colour corrected regularly).
//www.Lulu.com will print 180 pages at 8.25x10.75 in casewrap hardcover and cost just $44. They claim to print at 600dpi (but recommend 300dpi) using a laser print service. Unfortunately, they don't offer a landscape orientation at the largest size.
The Lulu price is amazing - I am therefore doing this as a shot to nothing.
Lulu does not have very good software for layout and formatting of images online, but it appears that this is only intended for basic users: they will take submissions in .pdf format, which allows total control.
Given my lack of .pdf publishing software, I ended up doing layout in MS Powerpoint - which is a surprisingly good tool for the purpose. I set up the slides as US Letter sized (8.5x11) and dragged and dropped and resized my images in Powerpoint. I also gave the images borders. This enabled me to create full bleed pages.
As I say, Powerpoint appears to be quite capable of managing high res images - the output to pdf at 600dpi shows no signs of poor resizing.
I have experimented with quite a few double page spreads for the big landscape images - hopefully I have got the gutter roughly right. This should overcome one of the shortcomings of having a portrait oriented book. In fact, if this works, it may be my preferred option - with a landscape book you cannot do the same to achieve a large full bleed of a portrait image.
Lulu should trim my pages from 8.5x11 to 8.25x10.75 for the hardback option, so I made sure to keep important elements (eg text) away from the edges.
I used freeware .pdf creation software (operates by pretending to be the print driver) to output the Powerpoint file and create a 180 page 600dpi .pdf file. I had to "print" in 40 page bursts and combine the resulting .pdfs using another freeware tool, as the print file size was huge and otherwise kept crashing when it exceeded 5GB.
Total pdf file size is 1.5GB. Lulu provides an ftp upload service, which I hope will make this go quickly.
I will update you with the results when I get them!
Message edited by author 2007-01-26 10:40:35.
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01/26/2007 10:44:22 AM · #2 |
I "published" a book through Lulu about a year ago. It was not a picture book, it was a text one, but it contained some black and white photos inside, and the cover was mostly black and white as well. You can't beat the price, and for a text book I thought it came out pretty good. The pictures were ok, not a very good resolution, but they were not high-res to start with, so I would be curious to hear about your experience when you receive the printed product.
Good luck!
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01/26/2007 10:51:37 AM · #3 |
I spent a few hours at ImagingUSA looking around the various samples and products from many companies that publish books.
The one that stood out ahead of all the others for publishing actual photobooks (i.e., not doing one off wedding albums) was //www.'blurb.com'
In a few weeks they will have landscape orientation, large format,
coffee table sized books. (mid Feb) I saw several samples of those books
and they were lovely.
They will sell your books for you via their bookstore (you can set the price and keep the profit)
The quality and their software was excellent.
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01/26/2007 10:53:55 AM · #4 |
Originally posted by Gordon:
I spent a few hours at ImagingUSA looking around the various samples and products from many companies that publish books.
The one that stood out ahead of all the others for publishing actual photobooks (i.e., not doing one off wedding albums) was //www.'blurb.com'
In a few weeks they will have landscape orientation, large format,
coffee table sized books. (mid Feb) I saw several samples of those books
and they were lovely.
They will sell your books for you via their bookstore (you can set the price and keep the profit)
The quality and their software was excellent. |
They may be another backup option! If I could use the same pdf for multiple publishers, I would do so. Unfortunately, my work has all gone into the Lulu format size now.
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02/09/2007 09:24:20 AM · #5 |
My first book arrived this morning. I haven't had much time to look at it, but these are my first impressions.
The Good
The images are printed at a high resolution, comparable to professional print-shop prints. Images are tack sharp. cf. mypublisher and asuka, which print at 150 lpi and thereby lose fine detail.
The book is well made, with a sturdy gloss printed cover (same as Asuka, better than mypublisher).
Detail is visible in the deep blacks and the light areas of the image.
Portrait works extremely well as an orientation - I guessed the gutter perfectly, meaning that a two page landscape spread at full bleed looks superb. In case you are interested, to get the perfect gutter, take a 2:3 ratio landscape image, size it so that the height is equal to US Letter, duplicate it then crop one image to the left and one to the right. The electronic image of each US Letter sized "half" will overlap in the centre with its opposite page, but the overlap will be hidden in the binding perfectly.
Printing is flawless (cf. mypublisher which tends to include a splash on one page out of each album I have ordered from them).
All 180 pages are in one book (cf Asuka and Mypublisher which have an 80 page limit).
It cost just £35 inc p&p (cf £300-400 for an equivalent no. of pages from Asuka or Mypublisher).
The Indifferent
The paper is of an acceptable weight, slightly lighter than that from mypublisher or asuka, but heavier than photocopier paper. It is matte with a very light satin effect where printed.
I made a few mistakes myself: one image with sensor dust visible, one page where I forgot the borders, and I designed a rubbish cover!
The Ugly
The colours are not popping - they are dull. I will have to check colour spaces and ensure that I am not suffering from some kind of AdobeRGB/sRGB crossover problem.
The contrast is slightly lower than the originals - there is a good tonal range, but it appears that local contrast is lacking.
Overall
Colour and contrast are important. If these can be fixed, then I would unreservedly recommend Lulu. If not, then I may have to try and find a better compromise between quality and price.
Message edited by author 2007-02-09 09:26:18.
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02/09/2007 09:30:38 AM · #6 |
Sounds very promising! I'll have to look into them :) Do they sell your book online or in amazon or anything, or is it just a personal service?
edit: I can't read
Message edited by author 2007-02-09 09:31:53.
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