Blurb (and photo books in general)

[Angry the Clown]

The search function wasn't returning any results about this.

 

For those of you who were actually brave enough to move on from 35mm to digital photography (unlike my fussy self), have any of you used the Blurb photo book service? Of all the available options (I know Apple have their own amongst others) this one seems to be one of the most highly regarded and I've certainly been impressed by some of the results I've seen online.

 

http://www.blurb.com

 

I'm honestly still keen to introduce digital SLRs into my life but I simply can't be without reliable and high quality ways in which to produce physical re-productions of my photographs...etc.

[rustyjaw]

I've seen two Blurb books in person, but they weren't my photos, so it's hard to judge the accuracy, but the books looked nice. I have gotten one book via Aperture (Apple) and it was decent quality, if somewhat under-saturated. What I like about the Aperture book is that the pages are printed black, so the photos are surrounded by black and not white.

 

I have gotten several books from Shutterfly and they are quite nice, but by default Shutterfly does some color correction to your images prior to printing. They bring out shadow detail and boost saturation. It's not super accurate, but it is pleasing, if that makes sense. There is an option on the site (not sure where) to turn off the post-processing.

 

Based on the experiences of friend's, I can say NOT to get a book from Winkflash.

 

I am involved in a project with several other photographers putting together an anthology of "Industrial Decay" photos which will be a Blurb book. It's in the final stages so I should be seeing a Blurb book with some of my photos prettty soon.

[Angry the Clown]

I am involved in a project with several other photographers putting together an anthology of "Industrial Decay" photos which will be a Blurb book. It's in the final stages so I should be seeing a Blurb book with some of my photos prettty soon.

 

Excellent. Assuming that is made publicly available via Blurb I may buy a copy to see what the quality is like. I definitely feel it is time to go digital, even though I said similar things some eighteen months ago.

 

I’m just not doing as much photography work as I’d like as the cost of film and processing as gone up and I sense that the market is being forced into such a niche now that so many of those who do offer developing services do a rushed sub par job... but then developing one’s own photographs was never something best left to someone else and unfortunately constructing my own dark room facilities is out of the question (due to practicality and costs).

 

Canon’s new EOS 50D is appealing. There’s a chance I’ll be in the US early next year and I may take the opportunity to buy one overseas as, despite the deflating exchange rate the body carries the equivalent of an ?815 price tag in the States versus the ?1200 ($2056) it goes for over here – and that’s based on the retail pricing. The 5D mk2 certainly looks nice and its features (notably the video function and full frame sensor) could potentially justify its premium for me, particularly when the US retail price on that only amounts to some ?300 more than the UK retail of the 50D.

 

I’m still paranoid about printing quality and longevity.

[GunnerX]

I've seen several photobooks and the quality is astounding. I am creating one for my daughter's first year but will be making it through Picaboo. My friend's co-worker used Blurb and he was quite impressed with them too. However, a lot of people seem to recommend Picaboo.