Blurb Paper

[pearlstreet]

Several years ago asmp did a photo book comparison and www.aandi.com was the winner. Not sure if that is still a valid judgement. Here's a link to Stella Kramers observations of the event.

http://sharpernewyork.blogspot.com/2009/07/print-on-demand-book-test-results.html

[Mark D Segal]

Several years ago asmp did a photo book comparison and www.aandi.com was the winner. Not sure if that is still a valid judgement. Here's a link to Stella Kramers observations of the event.

http://sharpernewyork.blogspot.com/2009/07/print-on-demand-book-test-results.html

Thanks ever so much. Regardless that it is dated, it could still be very useful. I intend to follow-up exploring the better ones.

[pfigen]

If you're going to do a Blurb book, why not design it and output it from InDesign. Blurb actually has a very nice InDesign plugin that works very well. Blurb itself is completely incompetent in terms of their understanding of color, color printing, color management, and anything else regarding digital printing. I recently did a test book with them and while the cover actually printed very nicely - and I used a Max K generation version of their profile that I rebuilt in Profiler for the black and white image on the cover - but the entire inside content looked like it had a sepia wash to it. Looked like shit and no one at Blurb could provide the least amount of useful advice and assistance. Their solution was to reprint and the reprint was exactly the same. In the end it was a waste of time and effort and a mi nor waste of sixty bucks or so. What I may try, just for kicks, is to print the smallest book possible, but only include profile targets on the cover and inside, then measure them and see what happens. But I've got way more important things to do in the meantime.

[benoit@benoitmalphettes.com]

Has anybody tried Whitewall ? They are new at books but if their books quality is as good as their printing/mounting services it should be very nice.

[mbaginy]

I just created four books through blurb and am very satisfied.  Three books used color images and one black & white.  Color rendition of all books is great; no color cast, contrast and image quality is as I had processed in LR.  I'm especially pleased with the black & white images.

I'm now working on two more books - I'm gladly using blurb again.

[Czornyj]

I don't think there is any need to rush one of these sales, they have had a dozen so far this year, ranging from 20% off around Valentine's Day to 45% off in mid-June. I'm sure they'll be having another sale in a few weeks...
I have had a couple of books made through Blurb, but I used the premium Luster paper. The main problem with the books for me is not the colours, which were fine, but rather the print quality/resolution. It's more like a magazine and nowhere near the quality of a nice inkjet print. Depending on how good your vision is, you can see all the little spots and circular patterns to easily and there is not much fine detail. I took an iPhone snap of a book page to show the print patterns.
I just use the service to make some family albums of vacations and such, family members aren't too picky and were happy with the output quality. I was a bit disappointed personally though, I guess I have higher expectations/standard... I don't think I would be happy printing a portfolio on it...YMMV

MS

If you're disappointed with screening from toner/electroink digital presses, consider ordering a book printed on Canon DreamLabo 5000 (Canon HD Book). It's 7 color dye inkjet - with huge gamut, neutral B&W, super fine details and no trace of visible screening

[graeme]

If you're disappointed with screening from toner/electroink digital presses, consider ordering a book printed on Canon DreamLabo 5000 (Canon HD Book). It's 7 color dye inkjet - with huge gamut, neutral B&W, super fine details and no trace of visible screening

Thanks for that link Marcin, very interesting. I've just downloaded the app & the manual - haven't found anything about colour management yet.

[Sbarroso]

Regarding Whitewall (Germany),
I ordered two books as a test (BW - color) around two years ago and got something similar to what people have described here. Disappointing. BW prints with color cast, depending on the grey level, going from magenta to green, totally unacceptable for me. Color prints were better, but you still see the low resolution (dot pattern); acceptable for trip memories, family presents, etc. but not for serious photographic work. I did not proceeded further with my planned larger book, but moved finally to a A3+ pigment printer (and didn't make any book, btw).

My family have more experience with the Cewe book (printed, not "real" photopaper (RA4?)) for yearly memories. Results are good, but still low resolution.

For those planning to visit photokina (not me :-( this year),  these brands and others should be around.

[Mark D Segal]

If you're disappointed with screening from toner/electroink digital presses, consider ordering a book printed on Canon DreamLabo 5000 (Canon HD Book). It's 7 color dye inkjet - with huge gamut, neutral B&W, super fine details and no trace of visible screening

Hi Marcin,

That sounds great - but NONE of the major services I've contacted over the past while use this machine - all except for Adoramapix are using HP Indigo. Do you know of any companies using the Canon?

[graeme]

Hi Marcin,

That sounds great - but NONE of the major services I've contacted over the past while use this machine - all except for Adoramapix are using HP Indigo. Do you know of any companies using the Canon?

Canon seem to be offering this service in Europe but this is the only North American link I can find

http://storefront.dl5k.com

[schertz]

+1
I'd like to know as well...

For now albums of 8.5x11 inkjet prints (or larger) are my preferred output. I like the itoya albums with the poly-glass inserts somewhat, but I'm also intrigued by the screw-post albums sold by Hahn, Moab and Pina Zangaro

MS

[Mark D Segal]

Canon seem to be offering this service in Europe but this is the only North American link I can find

http://storefront.dl5k.com

Thanks Graeme. Very expensive. When I convert their prices to CAD, I can pretty much do this on quality inkjet paper and get it bound. But I do the work in that case!

[Czornyj]

Thanks for that link Marcin, very interesting. I've just downloaded the app & the manual - haven't found anything about colour management yet.

Hi Marcin,

That sounds great - but NONE of the major services I've contacted over the past while use this machine - all except for Adoramapix are using HP Indigo. Do you know of any companies using the Canon?

All I know is that my customer in PL just installed two of these beasts . The system must be using Canons iPF PRO printetrs to produce photo covers, so I'll be there soon to train operators, and will check how it manages colors, and ask my Canon colleagues if there are any other installations in North America. AFAIK there are 16 installations in Europe, including italian Graphistudio that also has US division.

The quality is similar to waterbased pigment inkjet prints (which is used for photo covers as I already mentioned). There's also a clever flat spread system - a dedicated machine pastes elastic joints to  sheets, so the spreads can be perfectly flat like in bonded c-prints photo albums.

[Mark D Segal]

Thanks Marcin - this is indeed very interesting and an eye-opener - after doing a lot of research and reading into this topic I was beginning to despair about whether there is any such thing as top quality at reasonable prices below the economic threshold of offset. These days it's no big deal to procure services internationally, all depends on the cost, so if you know of any specific service providers I could link to for a discussion, that could be very helpful - meanwhile I'll try to find Graphistudio.

[GrahamBy]

I guess there must be a limiting minimum cost set by the paper: assuming you want to do better than offset you'll need some sort of inkjet-adapted paper, which means around 50c/A4 sheet with limited further reduction by quantity. The ink cost should come down a lot with the printer throughput but wil never hit zero, labour will be roughly constant per job rather than per page and binding will be roughly proportional to the number of books.

So pulling a number out of my behind, I'm guessing that something like ( 0.7 x pages/book +5 ) x number of books +50 (in either US$ or €) would be close to the rock-bottom achievable for a better-than-offset book before shipping... anyone got better data ?

[Mark D Segal]

I guess there must be a limiting minimum cost set by the paper: assuming you want to do better than offset you'll need some sort of inkjet-adapted paper, which means around 50c/A4 sheet with limited further reduction by quantity. The ink cost should come down a lot with the printer throughput but wil never hit zero, labour will be roughly constant per job rather than per page and binding will be roughly proportional to the number of books.

So pulling a number out of my behind, I'm guessing that something like ( 0.7 x pages/book +5 ) x number of books +50 (in either US$ or €) would be close to the rock-bottom achievable for a better-than-offset book before shipping... anyone got better data ?

This doesn't make any sense for all kinds of reasons I honestly don't have the time just now to get into; let me just say that the relationship between fixed and variable costs, the structure and operating scale of the firm, its location, its approach to market-pricing which may be quite detached from costs alone, etc., etc., can have a major impact on pricing; as for ink and paper: I doubt very much those companies procure at prices resembling what retail users pay. I just look at the product and the prices and wouldn't fuss myself about how the prices are determined. The value is either there or not there.

[GrahamBy]

If you have a way of estimating that value, fine... otoh it could be a waste of time for someone to run around hoping to find a price that will never be obtainable.
Whatever.

[Mark D Segal]

If you have a way of estimating that value, fine... otoh it could be a waste of time for someone to run around hoping to find a price that will never be obtainable.
Whatever.

Yes - you look at the price you're faced with, the alternatives, and decide whether it's worthwhile, however; just like we do this daily for all kinds of products.

[David Mantripp]

Hi Mark,

I have created a book in InDesign, printed by Blurb on Pro Line Pearl, hardcover, basically their top-mend product, and it is ...ok, I guess. The intended audience is happy/delighted, but personally I was disappointed by the lack of opaqueness of the paper - the outline of prints on the back side is quite clearly visible through the paper, without any backlighting (I'm sure there's a technical word for that, just can't remember it).  Otherwise, fine, convenient, but really, far, far too expensive.

Regards
David

[Mark D Segal]

Hi David,

Thanks for those observations. From what you say, that paper would not work for the kind of photos I'm making on this project - the subject matter is vivid and has strong lines.