Blog about Blurb
Tuesday, December 19, 2006
Quick post about a nifty service called Blurb. Blurb gives you a nifty app (Java-based I believe so somewhat chunky at times) so you can put together photo albums.
They have two cool features. The first, is the resulting hardcover book has a full color dust jacket with your photos on it so it looks quite professional. The second, is their pricing is simply amazing.
In my case, I threw together a book containing somewhere near 600 pictures of Kat and Cooper. The resulting 138 page book costs me just $40 and looks great.
To get started I simply created a photo album in iPhoto with my fave pics. Then I would create page in Blurb's BookSmart app, drag-and-drop one or more photos from iPhoto into the squares and proceed to the next page.
Then the whole thing is uploaded which takes a couple of hours.
The result looks fantastic -- perhaps a tiny tad dark but still very, very good -- and it's on archival paper, can sit nicely on a bookshelf, is filled with the best photos we have, is more convenient than firing up iPhoto to check out some pictures, and is obviously much better than a box of photos in the closet.
I realize I'm too late with this tip for the holidays. But definitely check them out for future occasions.
They have two cool features. The first, is the resulting hardcover book has a full color dust jacket with your photos on it so it looks quite professional. The second, is their pricing is simply amazing.
In my case, I threw together a book containing somewhere near 600 pictures of Kat and Cooper. The resulting 138 page book costs me just $40 and looks great.
To get started I simply created a photo album in iPhoto with my fave pics. Then I would create page in Blurb's BookSmart app, drag-and-drop one or more photos from iPhoto into the squares and proceed to the next page.
Then the whole thing is uploaded which takes a couple of hours.
The result looks fantastic -- perhaps a tiny tad dark but still very, very good -- and it's on archival paper, can sit nicely on a bookshelf, is filled with the best photos we have, is more convenient than firing up iPhoto to check out some pictures, and is obviously much better than a box of photos in the closet.
I realize I'm too late with this tip for the holidays. But definitely check them out for future occasions.
Posted by George
6 Comments:
Hi, I am using Blurb too, easily adding my photos from iPhoto. I was wondering if you had any problems with color-management using these tools? In my case the colors turn out much less saturated when added to BookSmart, comparing to the same photos in iPhoto. Did your book turn out exactly like BookSmart's preview mode showed you? The reason I am asking is that I don't know which colors I can expect to see in my printed book -the ones in iPhoto, or the ones in BookSmart?
By
G, at 4:46 AM
The colors were a bit darker than what I see on the screen in iPhoto. Particularly on the cover of the hardcover book.
However, they all still looked very good. I gave the books out as gifts at Christmas and everyone in the extended family was very impressed.
If you have doubts, you might try printing a very small book with just a few photos via Blurb to see how they look before doing a larger book.
By
George, at 8:45 AM
did you try through Apple? I just did the same book with Apple and Blurb, and one from Apple was significantly better - contrast, color, and image quality.
apple does have a higher cost and fewer book options, but the quality difference would keep me from using blurb.
I'm trying mypublisher.com next ...
By
Mike, at 1:22 PM
I have not tried an Apple book although I did use them for a calendar a while back. I did check out some Apple books at the local Apple store.
Blurb had some significant advantages for me: it was pretty cheap for a 138 page book ($40) which was good since I was going to give out lots of them at Christmas, and the dust cover jacket is much more impressive than Apple's cover.
In general Blurb looked very good IMHO. My entire family loved it too. The cover was the main photo that was a bit too dark.
I've heard lots of good things about MyPublisher so I'd love to hear how it looks for you. Please post back when you can!
By
George, at 1:30 PM
Quick addition: I just checked the blurb discussion at dpreview where a user complained about the cover vs. interior color saturation mismatch. The answer indicates the color tables used at the printer which handles dust covers have just been updated to more closely match interior photos.
By
George, at 1:56 PM
Hello, I would like to use Blurb, but can not register and definitely have not been able to download. I am using a Mac G5. All of this is frustrating as there is not way to even get the customer service forms on the Blurb website to take a "Complaint". The form will not send my email address as it is "not correct". All I want to do is publish some books and give Blurb some money for that. How may I become a customer?
By
Anonymous, at 8:27 PM
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