Let's try this again

A week ago I got my first copy from Blurb of At The Fill: Photographs from the Union Bay Natural Area. I ordered two, one with custom workflow and premium paper, and one plain vanilla. The plain vanilla showed up within a couple of days. I've yet to see the premium version—it apparently is still in production.

Well, it looked not terrible, really, except for one shot that had banding in the subtle tonal changes in the water reflection. The paper is thin, and not opaque. And I saw some problems in my sequencing that I needed to fix.

All this for 30 some dollars. Not something I want to set loose in the world. The premium version (maybe the printing really will look better) goes for a premium price too, $47. I couldn't see this thin, paperback book having a life at that price point, and I deleted it from the Blurb bookstore.

I redid the book today. I fixed the sequencing, and I added a half dozen images. And I went for the largest size they offer: 13”x11”. If this book is going to go for a premium, I want it to feel like something with heft. I ordered one with all the bells and whistles—with shipping it set me back $100.

You can get a peek with Blurb's Preview function here. Or see the whole sequence on Flickr here. If you're really careless and daring (remember, I haven't seen it yet), you can order one.

Comments

[Tommy Williams]

The book looks good in the preview. Thank you for posting this information about Blurb because I am interested in making a book through their service.

What did you do as far as color management? Did you just convert to sRGB or did you do something more?

[Doug Plummer]

I stay in sRGB through my entire workflow. My canvas size is the page size, and I make one humongous PSD file with each image in a layer. This way I have total control where the image fits on the page, and I can have my own page number format. I make visible each image in turn, run an action to duplicate and merge visible layers (just one image and its page number) and number them in sequence. Then it's a simple matter to use autoflow to pour out the book in Booksmart.

[Mike C.]

"Then it's a simple matter to use autoflow to pour out the book in Booksmart" ...

Holy Dektol, Doug, that's damned clever -- but I do wonder whether you're losing out on some of the nicer features of the Booksmart software by grabbing hold of the controls quite so fiercely?

I like the way it can suggest approaches I would never have considered (layouts, headers, footers, etc.) and it's fun to play with before setting the thing in concrete.

Blurb is a mixed blessing -- if your images make a good match with the printers they use, then the results can be very pleasing (but they really don't like areas of subtle continuous dark tone, for example, as you've discovered, though the premium paper handles this a lot better).

The 7"x7" books use to be rubbish, as they were printed on a different, lower spec printer, but they are the same quality now, and on the premium paper give a nice result.

Price-wise, if you think it's expensive now, you should have tried it before they introduced the "cheap" postage rate... But for one or two copies, as a classy book dummy or as gifts or even as a limited run catalogue, I think it's actually very good value. You need to compare with the cost of even a small run of a commercially-produced book of a similar quality -- thousands!! And you still wouldn't sell any copies, and be left with boxes of the things all round the house -- though I think I read you have a storeroom somewhere? ;)

[Doug Plummer]

I've been using the various templates in Booksmart to compose albums for my wedding clients, so I've become familiar with what they do. One big annoyance is that I don't think any of the preset photo slots obey a 2x3 ratio, and your images get cropped. I wanted every pixel I shot to show up on the page, so I designed my own pages and used the full image area template.