LF Book....It's here

[photographs42]

The LF book is here!

At first glance it looks very good. It’s still light here so I took it outside to get a neutral light source. There is no banding or other artifacts that I can see. The layout looks pretty much like I expected.

At first the B&W images looked really good. Then I noticed some that looked a little on the green or cyan side. This is sort of strange because all of the B&W’s were sent as grayscale but some are very neutral and some aren’t??? Inside under incandescent lights they look pretty good (much more neutral).

All of the images look a little darker in the book than on the screen, including the color images. This is hardly noticeable on the lighter images, more so on the darker ones.

The color images look a little dull compared to the screen image. Generally this is normal in my experience with printing color images in books.

There are three flaws in the book. One of the blank pages has a patch of text on it that didn’t come from this book. One of the images has shinny streaks across the image and another image has a shiny streak with a brown center across it. I need to figure out how to discus this with blurb as these are clearly printing flaws and didn’t come from my end.

The book is physically thinner than I expected and the text on the spine is a little too big. I’ve fixed that.

I didn’t buy the Lulu version of the book so I can’t make a comparison there but generally I’m impressed.

I think I need to lighten all but the lighter images. I don’t now how to handle the grayscale issue because it appears to be rather random and under room lighting they look pretty good.

Frank, (or anyone else with experience with Blurb) have you had any issues with flaws in the books you have ordered from Blurb?

Overall it's looking good.

Jerome

[Frank Petronio]

If you ask their customer service they will reprint for free, but I don't think they'll print a new updated file for free. I haven't seen outright flaws or inconsistent B&Ws yet, I've bought 5-6 different runs now. So it sounds like a fluke.

The paper is thin for sure. Unfortunately the process is a little bit trial and error....

The Lulu book was horrid in comparison...

[photographs42]

Here are the worst of the flaws.
Attachment 13034

Attachment 13035

[photographs42]

I also found this in the return section of the Blurb site.

Blurb guarantees your satisfaction with the workmanship of your book. On the off chance your book arrives damaged or with a manufacturing defect, contact us via Blurb’s Order Support within 14 days of receipt. We’ll make things right. Please understand that, Blurb does not provide refunds or cancel orders, and except for the cases expressly described in this return policy (i.e., your book arrives damaged, with a manufacturing defect or a defect in workmanship), Blurb cannot otherwise accept returns.

Please note that each book you order from us is individually made by one of Blurb’s top-notch professional book-printing partners. There may be minor differences across different prints of the same books and/or across books printed by our different book-printing partners, including, but not limited to, slight variances in color fidelity and binding type. While we work very hard to keep our product as consistent as possible, this variation is a normal occurrence and is not considered a manufacturing defect or a defect in workmanship and does not qualify for a reprint.

Based on the part I hilighted in red, color fidelity might be a moving target.

Jerome

[Frank Petronio]

yeah but those are truly defects, not variations

and the "color" of the B&W images should be consistent throughout the book

[Andrew O'Neill]

I'll order one when those defects have been tended to. Thanks for your efforts!

[photographs42]

I looked through the book several times last night and several people looked through it at breakfast this morning. It seams that maybe the book just needed either time or exposure to air to “cure”, like the way inkjet prints change color over the first hour or so, the images look very neutral now. They are still a bit dark however.

Andrew: The flaws are a fluke, not something that can be fixed. If your copy has flaws, Blurb will reprint it for you. I’m going to lighten some of the darker images, replace some grayscale with warm tone and by Monday morning it should be ready for primetime.

If anyone else has changes they need to get them to me very soon or they won’t be included.

Jerome

[cyrus]

This is FANTASTIC

[photographs42]

All of the revisions have been made. There have been 627 views of the PDF thread and over 400 to this one and I haven’t had much feedback for a while. So…..even though I said I’d wait until 6/1 to publish the book, I think I will go ahead and send it tonight and make it public. I’ll post a link here when it’s ready.

If anyone objects, speak up now.

Jerome

[David Karp]

No objections here.

And thanks again.