finally tried blurb.com - DPChallenge Forums

Canon EF 24-70mm f/2.8L USM

03/20/2008 01:19:02 PM · #1

I know there's been various discussions about different PoD companies over the last few years. I finally got around to trying out blurb.com and made some notes on the results. Overall it was pretty good. Soft proofing seems pretty much required.

Bebe

Canon EOS-5D Mark II

03/20/2008 01:30:09 PM · #2

Thanks Gordon. I just printed two portfolio books at mypublisher.com yesterday. I haven't been thrilled with their results in the past, so this time I looked into Lulu, but had terrible technical problems at their website & finally gave up & went back to the one I knew.

Your blog makes me think I'll try blurb.com next, definitely with soft proofing! (I wonder if my lack of soft proofing is what makes me less than thrilled with mypublisher.com, though.)

Citadel

Nikon D7500

Nikon AF-S NIKKOR 24-70mm f/2.8G ED

03/20/2008 01:41:10 PM · #3

Great to hear you had a good experience with them. I've heard of people who had troubles with them early on. Myself, I had a good experience with my printing through Blurb. One or two were oversaturated but you are right, a soft proof is the way to go and I imagine that would be the case regardless who you go through though.

Eisbaer

Canon EOS-350D Rebel XT

Canon EF-S 18-55mm f/3.5-5.6

03/20/2008 01:42:05 PM · #4

I can't say that I've had a great experience with Blurb.
I tried printing a 120+ pg with them in January, with miserable results.

Blurb ended up reprinting the book 3 times and refunding my money. The spine arrived broken twice, and the third book still has very poor binding. They glue, not stitch books over 120 pages. The print quality also varied wildly in the 3 books.

Other than that, I did publish with them again, this time limiting the pages to under 120 pages. They do have a great price, and I was willing to risk it again...

Message edited by author 2008-03-20 13:42:15.

jeger

Canon EOS-5D

Canon EF 24-105mm f/4.0L IS

03/20/2008 01:43:32 PM · #5

Thanks for the review. Bookmarking for later :)

03/20/2008 01:44:24 PM · #6

Originally posted by Citadel:

I think that is no doubt true whatever publisher you want to try - if you are at all picky about colours or use colours that are pushing the gamuts of traditional printing processes.

The annoying thing is most of the companies would like to pretend it isn't really an issue, so don't particularly encourage a colour managed approach to using their services. I know they are concerned about the support issues of a more complex approach and also the vast potential for their customers to screw it up, along with it being a generally higher barrier to putting a book together. Still, it makes a dramatic difference to the quality of the final result.

WHCC also seem to have a good book offering, from what little I've heard. Might try that at some point.

Canon EF 24-105mm f/4.0L IS

03/20/2008 01:45:50 PM · #7

Originally posted by Eisbaer:

I can't say that I've had a great experience with Blurb.
I tried printing a 120+ pg with them in January, with miserable results.

Blurb ended up reprinting the book 3 times and refunding my money. The spine arrived broken twice, and the third book still has very poor binding. They glue, not stitch books over 120 pages. The print quality also varied wildly in the 3 books.

That's good information - as I mentioned I only did a fairly small number of pages and don't really plan on doing anything huge like your example. I have heard they use a variety of back-end printers, which might account for the variability in print quality too.

Melethia

Canon EOS-80D

03/20/2008 01:50:59 PM · #8

I am still considering the project, but I do have a few qualms if you said you had issues with the B&Ws. Apparently softproofing (which is something I'd have to learn - hopefully I could figure that out) didn't reveal the weaknesses of B&W or did it?

Ristyz

Apple iPhone 12 Pro

Canon EF 70-200mm f/2.8L USM

03/20/2008 01:52:51 PM · #9

So far so good for me. I've only had them do one book........ 21 copies of it so far and all has been well. relatively small at 36 pages, hardbound.

Binding was fine, color was great.

Citadel

Nikon D7500

Nikon AF-S NIKKOR 24-70mm f/2.8G ED

03/20/2008 01:53:40 PM · #10

As an aside, I've heard that people have had a lot of success with Apple's IBook (?). Of course that's really only an option if you own a Mac. However, the printing is good, the paper is decent, the cost is right and the software is already installed on your machine to do it. The shipping time was quite good too from what I heard (4-5 days to Canada).

I've tried Blurb and Futureshop's printing services. Blurb's software was good when I tried it and it's only gotten better. Futureshop's prices were good, the printing was okay but the software was junk. I was incredibly frustrated by the time I completed the calendar I was creating and that's just 26 pages. (Picture and calendar for each month plus front and back).

I think there are a lot of options out there for book creation services. Personally I would go with Blurb again.

Canon EF-S 17-85mm f/4-5.6 IS USM

03/20/2008 01:55:37 PM · #11

Originally posted by Melethia:

I think there's a certain amount of interpretation that has to go in to looking at soft proofed results. Essentially everything looks crap when you soft proof it - you have to learn how that really translates onto paper.

B&Ws seem to be trickier though, particularly with the potential to introduce a colour cast when using a colour process to print them. I avoided that mistake, but didn't really take into enough account the effects of noise in the images and how that might get squeezed in the shadows.

Looking at the soft proof after the fact I can now see where that occurs. I think it is a learning process on how to understand what soft proofing is showing you.

xianart

Canon EOS-7D

03/20/2008 02:46:18 PM · #12

just wondering - what do you mean by soft proofing - getting one capy from blurb, or printing one at home?

Citadel

Nikon D7500

Nikon AF-S NIKKOR 24-70mm f/2.8G ED

03/20/2008 02:48:29 PM · #13

Originally posted by xianart:

just wondering - what do you mean by soft proofing - getting one capy from blurb, or printing one at home?

With a calibrated monitor you check out the picture using their color profile. This will show you what it would look like in print without the actual hardcopy. (Hence "soft" proof).

At least that's my understanding of it ...