Good looking Blurb Book in B&W

[Ed Richards]

A new book by a New Orleans photographer. While it is not LF, it looks like a great example of what you can do in blurb with black and white:

http://www.blurb.com/bookstore/detail/766574

[Matus Kalisky]

The layout and the photos look nice (although I prefer a bit of description), but how does the book really looks printed?

[Darin Boville]

I happened to see one today (not this title, but from Blurb). Large photo book printed on premium paper. Looked very good on a casual inspection. Good color, nice feel to the paper, solid cover.

--Darin

[Michael Rosenberg]

Here is a book I designed, and looks well. I designed the template in CS3.

http://www.blurb.com/bookstore/detail/304181

Mike

[Ed Richards]

Mike,

The books looks terrific! What a great subject.

Is the black and white neutral in the printed copy? Can you tell us how you prepared the images, i.e., do you generate the pages in CS3 and push them out as image files into booksmart, or did you use their new PDF printing option? Did you tone the images or embed profiles? Anything you are willing to share about the prep process would be appreciated by lots of folks.

[Peter De Smidt]

Nice look'n book, Mike!

[Michael Rosenberg]

Ed,

I did the book last summer before the PDF option was available. The PDF option would have made it much simpler. I did not like the templates they offered, so I decided to try and see if I could do a design in CS3. Blurb gave some numbers on calculating page gutter sizes and design; I took that and set up guides and simple graphics. I then added page numbers, copy/paste in photos, and added in titles. I then chose the full bleed pages in Booksmart and imported the pages. This way I could easily change the book size and not have to redesign the whole book.

The books varied from batch runs as to how warm they appeared, but I found it to be very acceptable. In the future I will convert to lab color to warm the images and then make the books.

Again, the PDF option would make it much easier.

Thanks for your compliments.

Mike

[Darin Boville]

>>Is the black and white neutral in the printed copy?<<

I forgot to mention, the photographer of the book I saw mentioned that his cover was initially too green--he corrected it by adjusting the color on his end, subtracting green. Seemed to work.

--Darin

[Peter Christensen]

Mike, just wondering why you would use lab color for the next book? Thanks, Peter.

[Michael Rosenberg]

Peter,

I would have used it for better control of tonality were I not able to convert to PDF.

According to Blurb covers are printed on different presses than the ones for the book, and the color may come out differently. I had one run where the covers were too magenta, and because they automatically send orders to printers they could not just reprint the covers - they had to do the entire run over.

Mike