A Little Blurb Update

[Frank Petronio]

After taking two years off from doing inconsistently printed "Print on Demand" books I thought I'd give Blurb another shot. I figured that since they have these art photo book contests and have started their "B3" professional program that maybe their quality control improved? But what convinced me to really try them again is that now they can accept InDesign PDF files and I don't have to use their lame BookSmart software which required me to turn my layouts into single page PDFs and convert them into JPGs to place into BookSmart. That old workflow was misery.

So I took my RGB and Greyscale PSD files and converted their profiles to the newly provided Blurb CMYK profiles -- Built my InDesign document -- Exported to PDF per their settings -- and sent it all off online, about $75 for an 80-page image wrap hardcover with premium paper.

A little over a week later (I chose overnight shipping) I got a handsomely bound and produced book. The premium paper was still thin so I hate to suggest using the house stock. Color images looked nice and saturated, almost loud, but really quite nice for digital printing. And the greyscale images (printed in CMYK of course) looked amazingly good, punchy, nice blacks, very neutral. Until I got to the back of the book and some of the images started to look bronze/sepia. I checked the original CMYK files and there is no difference between them and the more neutral files, they were all prepped exactly the same.

So... they are still inconsistent. I have a compliant filed and am waiting to hear back whether they consider this a normal amount of variation or not? It's still not a bad looking book, and the differences are amplified when viewed under daylight or tungsten -- under flourescents and in shade the differences are minimal.

It's a shame because the book was finished quite nicely. If I shot nothing but color I would be all over Blurb like mad. I may end up submitting toned CMYK files (apply a subtle Hue/Saturation "Colorize" command to every neutral image) if they can't resolve this to my satisfaction.

Note that the professional, higher quality control B3 option is not available for the PDF to Book workflow that I used. I guess they expect professionals to use BookSmart.... hahaha NO.

I have another book in progress and am talking to their tech support. If they make good and make me a couple of consistent books then I will sing their praises. I want to like Blurb and I sure don't want to have to spend $300 for one of the boutique PODI printers.

Oh and if you are brave (or crazy) you can buy my book at Blurb here:

http://www.blurb.com/books/843231

It's way overpriced at $72 for a 160-page 8x10 book so if you do buy one, please don't tell me because I'll figure you're a stalker or something. Sane people wouldn't pay that much.

[Peter De Smidt]

Hi Frank,

Thank you for the report. I'd like to eventually give this a try.

[Deane Johnson]

Nice design of your book Frank, and of course the images are excellent.

[Ron Marshall]

Thanks for the update Frank.

[photographs42]

Frank,
Your new book looks good.
How long have you had it? When we did the LF Group Book I noticed that some of the B&W images were a little on the olive side but after a few days they became neutral. Looking at it now, they (including your page) look very good. Let us know if yours changes after a few days.
Jerome

[PViapiano]

Interesting about the color change...anyone else experience this?

[Frank Petronio]

The definitely show wicked metarism under different kinds of light but maybe exposure to air changes the toner too?

[Hollis]

I just looked at one of the new books from WHCC and it was real nice. They offer a hinged page option and granted, not great for some things but I thought it worked well for what it was. Color was great and the paper was super heavy, at least 3 - 4x blurb's. Unfortunately, the printing is not continuous tone, nor even close, much like blurb. You can still see all the pointillist bullshit in there and that drives me crazy. Close, but no cigar. Yet

[Doug Dolde]

Frank, They say if your files are in sRGB you don't have to convert to CMYK and that their printer driver does it for you. Do you think that might work better ?

[Frank Petronio]

Doug - That is for their BookSmart workflow, which uses sRGB files. For the PDF workflow they want CMYK and they finally provide a profile.

[Doug Dolde]

Frank,

I'm not so sure about that. In their Blurb’s PDF to Book Publishing Guide under A Brief Note on Color it says

In the PDF to Book workflow, all RGB color spaces are converted to sRGB, then to CMYK at the HP Indigo print device. Therefore, all CMYK color spaces remain as is and are not con- verted. Depending on your preferred color space, you’ll want to follow these guidelines for optimal print results:

1.If your images are already sRGB, it is not necessary to convert to CMYK because the HP Indigo is preset to convert sRGB to CMYK.

2.If your images are Adobe RGB, ProPhoto RGB, Colormatch RGB, or another RGB color space, the optimal workflow is to convert your images to the CMYK profile optimized for the HP Indigo presses that Blurb uses. This ICC pro- file – HP5000SemimatteExp05.icc – can be downloaded at blurb.com/downloads/HP5000SemimatteExp05.icc. Color conversion is best done via an imaging program, such as Adobe® Photoshop®,prior to placing your images or graphics into Adobe® InDesign® or your preferred layout tool.

This implies you can just use sRGB.

[Frank Petronio]

Yeah true. My master files are in Adobe RGB and by converting to CMYK in Photoshop you can at least soft proof images individually and make tweaks. By leaving them in sRGB and having Blurb's Indigo do the CMYK conversion you give up that control.

But I don't have a problem with the PDF workflow. It is clearly inconsistency between the pages (they are printed one page at a time, not as larger signatures, so bad individual sheets can still slip in.) As to whether it is their software or printer causing the inconsistency, i have no clue.

I complained and they probably will make good on it after I send the book back to them.

[Hugh Sakols]

I'm curious about the soft proofing.
1. Don't you need to have a profile of the paper AND the printer? OR do you just need the one profile for the indigo printer provided by Blurp?
2. Do you find that after soft proofing you need to make changes to all or most of your images to match CYMK?

[Frank Petronio]

The profile should be for the paper and the printer and the ink and all the variables, as close as reasonable. Since Blurb controls the paper selection, they only need one profile. I guess?

I didn't have a lot of deep blue skies and situations that trouble most landscape photographers so CMYK conversion was painless, only a few needed their Gamma moved to open up midtones.

[William McEwen]

Frank, have you made any $$ from your earlier Blurb book (which I bought, by the way)?

[Frank Petronio]

You bought me a Blue Moon and shot of Jamesons in a dive bar!

[Frank Petronio]

Update: Got the 160-page, premium paper "big" 8x10 book yesterday. They hit a consistent, neutral black and white through out the book and indeed the B&W looks richer than the color -- overall it looks great. The hardcover and maximum number of pages makes it nice and hefty, thick-ish and satisfying to hold.

But one page has a huge ink smudge over 30% of it, obviously they must not be looking, very frustrating as every Blurb book has had something wrong with it so far. I will complain about it but I fear that I'll have to send it back and risk getting another reprint in which something else will go wrong ;-p

The binding on this one is a bit looser but still the construction is pretty good and I like the image wrap cover. They glued the cover about 1/8 inch too high off center which looks a bit odd since my image has a film frame in it, so next time I will shrink the cover image a bit to allow a bit more "float" in case they move it around on me again.

At about $75 a pop plus shipping. I can't say it is a good deal given that you can buy a large coffee-table art book for that, but I did pack this full of images (no blank pages) and overall it looks tight and professional. Just don't expect perfection. Buy one if you like, I'll make beer money off of it and you can see a good example of Blurb's capabilities.

http://www.blurb.com/bookstore/detail/843231

I did a second book, just of personal and professional photos of Shannon, 80-pages. There are a few stalker type guys who are stupid enough to buy anything with her in it, so we decided to exploit them and jacked the price up to $123.95 so at least we could profit off them. But most of her best images are in the big book anyway, so don't waste your money on that one unless you can't control your impulses (and don't tell me about it if you do, lol).

[Frank Petronio]

But overall it ain't too bad... you can see that the premium paper isn't that thick (this book is only 8x10 inches and it gets wavy) but at least it is more opaque than the non-premium paper (less show through, it is OK to print images on both sides IMHO.)

I guess it is what it is, I'd like to see them reprint the book and get it perfect but at the same time the paper and binding are on the thin/weak side and I suspect that after 50 people thumb through it, it will look like Hell anyway ;-p

[Matus Kalisky]

Hello Frank, thank you for all the experience you share here. But it seems to me that the message is: better but still not consistent ... or?

[Frank Petronio]

Exactly.

And FWIW, it has taken five days for their Customer Support people to initially answer my quality concerns and it is still not close to being resolved.

[Richard Wasserman]

I had a similar problem with the second printing of a book being much worse than the first. I complained and had a reply in about 1 hour and the problem they agreed to reprint within 24 hours. I guess their customer service is not consistent. Unfortunately neither is the printing. I still think blurb is a great idea and I hope they will overcome these issues as time goes on. I will continue to use them.




And FWIW, it has taken five days for their Customer Support people to initially answer my quality concerns and it is still not close to being resolved.

[Frank Petronio]

Yes I will order some more regardless of the QC issues, even with one bad page the book still makes a very good impression and it is even easier than whipping out a portfolio to show my work. So it is a fast way to show you're a serious photographer. Their pricing is still competitive and the PDF to Print workflow is the deciding factor. Once the less expensive places embrace customer-created PDFs I'll give them a shot but right now Blurb is the only under $200 per book printer I know who has that workflow.

I ain't buying them for sheer image quality... they are better than those darn LuLu Xerox Docucolor books at least.

I already know I can spend $200 plus and get better quality control, thanks.

[Doug Dolde]

So what are the other options? Googling "Print on Demand" produces a whole slew of results.

[Frank Petronio]

Yeah not with a PDF workflow though, and most of them are worse, they use Docutechs. The HP Indigo that Blurb uses is better, compare a Lulu to Blurb book.

[jnantz]

frank
have you considered trying paperchase ?
they also use indigo presses but i am not sure about
the pdf workflow ... and it isn't a 1-off order sort of thing
you have to order a bunch at once ....

- john

[brian mcweeney]

I believe Paperchase printing offers PDF workflow. http://www.paperchase.net

[Frank Petronio]

$350 for one at the same specs as the Blurb... (5x) so it's like I was saying...

If I wanted 10,000 I can get them for $12 each, that's only $120K ;-)

But I'm looking for about a $50 to $75 decent one-off photo book without any smeared pages or off-color color. It doesn't have to be perfect or flawless, just pleasing and without any glaring defects. That's the whole premise of Print-On-Demand and it hasn't lived up to it, at least for printing a relatively simple photography book.

It's like I said on my site, the final product, if it didn't have the obvious errors I'm complaining about, would probably sell in the $30-40 range in a commercial bookstore. Maybe ~$25 if they have a benefactor. I don't mind paying 2-3x that for a one-off, but that one-off ought not have any obvious errors that any lay-person could see.

[Ron Bose]

we had a badly printed dust jacket and scratched pages.

they asked us to photograph the damaged pages and email them the images of the damage, they then reprinted it within a week ...

[Frank Petronio]

A third book just arrived. No obvious defects, nice binding actually, except that the greyscale images' color drifts from a warm magenta to a neutral grey under tungsten, but everything is neutral in daylight. And a few of the images look like they have a different Gamma than most of the others, that isn't consistent either.

It's acceptable. But I wouldn't rely on these guys to do any better, it is what it is.

[Doug Dolde]

This thread has some possibly useful information

http://cookcomm.websitetoolbox.com/post?id=1524296

[percepts]

A third book just arrived. No obvious defects, nice binding actually, except that the greyscale images' color drifts from a warm magenta to a neutral grey under tungsten, but everything is neutral in daylight. And a few of the images look like they have a different Gamma than most of the others, that isn't consistent either.

It's acceptable. But I wouldn't rely on these guys to do any better, it is what it is.

Since blurb is not a specialist photo printer why don't you try one of the online picture printers who now all seem to produce photo books in various sizes and on various paper thickness. In the UK we have photobox and Jessops (major photographic retailer) who have started doing it too. And then there are dozens of wedding photo printing services producing books but maybe more expensively. Why home in on blurb who are really about publishing the written word more than photography. Unless of course it's the online sales of the book you really want.

[Frank Petronio]

I probably will, in which case Blurb has served as a valuable proofing tool to use before committing to a more expensive on-demand book printer. But I would like to get a satisfactory Blurb book regardless, especially since they advertise and promote all their fine-art photography books with contests and such. If they can claim to print decent fine-art photo books and people want to buy them... well then they should be able to print my (yours and the rest of the public) books equally as well.

I sent in photos and they just gave me a credit for the first mis-printed book, hopefully in another day or so they will do likewise for my other. I won't fault their service other than it seems to be slow.

If sold ten books that would be a lot and I did add a few $ profit, so ten sales would buy a moderate dinner out.

[Sanders McNew]

FWIW, I used Blurb for my new book,
Double Exposures: Essays in Portraiture,
and I was pleased with the end product
-- 160 pages, 8x10, on premium paper.
I submitted everything in an sRGB space
@300ppi and got back consistent images
-- I was very happy with the print quality
and the binding.

http://www.blurb.com/bookstore/detail/770769

I've sold nearly 100 copies of the book, and
so far no one has told me of any flaw in their
copy attributable to Blurb.

[Frank Petronio]

Sanders -- Did you use the B3 workflow and BookSmart? As I have been using the PDF to Book workflow which does not offer the B3 quality control steps.

I just hate "using" that BookSmart application, it is so clumsy -- so kudos for having the patience to use it. I've already asked and Blurb said they would not offer B3 with PDF to Book this year.

Another exciting surprise happened this evening when I ordered another copy -- the cost of overnight shipping more than doubled compared to last week. Ouch. $27 for overnighting an 8x10 book!

I did find a typo and made the cover image smaller and adjusted it to make it a little more foolproof in case they shift the wrapping. And I rewrote the book summary to make me sound like a little less of a tool. I think?

http://www.blurb.com/my/book/detail/861180

Hopefully the future books will have Sander's kind of luck!

[jb7]

It reads very well Frank-
more power to you-
as they say here-

j

[Sanders McNew]

Sanders -- Did you use the B3 workflow and BookSmart? As I have been using the PDF to Book workflow which does not offer the B3 quality control steps. I just hate "using" that BookSmart application, it is so clumsy --

I found BookSmart constricting. (I don't know
what B3 is so I assume I did not use it.) I got
around BookSmart's limitations by making each
of my pages a full-bleed JPG. That meant resizing
each of my 121 photographs to be 5.5 inches wide
against a white 8x10-inch canvas, and then typing
the captions in underneath each on the canvas in
PhotoShop Elements. I imported each of the 35 or
so text pages from Word by printing each to PDF,
opening each in Elements, and resetting each onto
an 8x10-inch canvas, and then resaving each as a
PNG file. (Blurb did not offer the PDF-to-book
option when I published mine.)

So, in the end, the page design is completely mine
-- no stupid BookSmart page templates to confine
me. I improvised with Word and Elements but I'm
guessing it would be easier with better tools. Some
day when I grow up I'll spend real money and buy
Photoshop and Quark or whatever that page layout
program is called.

[Frank Petronio]

Blurb's B3 program is their "professional" level with their own forums, color profiles, and better quality control... they charge an extra $10 or so per book for the "B3 workflow" but it is tied to BookSmart (which is silly, professionals are the ones who want the PDF workflow instead of using BookSmart).

Yes you can save your Photoshop files as jpgs to use as full pages in BookSmart but it makes it very slow and difficult to edit text and experiment/sequence the pages and images. I imagine the best way to design a book like that would be to spread your prints out on the floor and plan the sequence before getting on the computer. That's a valid way to work, but I prefer to work on screen so I can see things at different scales and look for patterns and sequences in the layout.

But you did a very beautiful book Sanders and I want to purchase one. I wish you made the larger size but I understand the prices get pretty high. I thought an 8x10 photo book would feel tiny but if you max out the pages (160-pages using their premium paper) it has a nice heft and feel.

Based on my experience, I find it hard to believe that 100 individual orders were successfully printed by Blurb, as so far I have found at least one problem worthy of a credit or reprint with my last four orders. I know my files are OK because they have printed fine, each problem has been human error. And I am not that picky or petty, really!

I am not slamming Blurb, I just ordered another book last night. I think they are trying hard to please their customers and it is a challenging business. When they get it right, the books can be impressive. I showed one at an ad agency yesterday and they wanted to keep it.

And Sanders, next book you should run the portrait you did of me!

[Wallace_Billingham]

What I am wondering after reading this thread is if the PDF workflow is somehow introducing problems more so than the actual printing. I know it sounds crazy and that it really should not, but that is what I wonder.

My guess is that Blurb has tweaked their entire workflow around the Booksmart program and that their systems get the best results from using Booksmart. This is why they only have Booksmart available with the B3 program.

My guess is that most of the people using the B3 program are wedding and event shooters. I know several wedding shooters who make decent money with Blurb from weddings. They have the Bride and Groom email them the introduction text that they just cut and paste into booksmart, and then they just quickly drag and drop the photos into book smart. The total time to put a book together this way is about 15-30 minutes. Then they upload to Blurb and they do the rest. They actually sell lots of copies to wedding guests who would normally be hard to sell prints to, and since each book has all the photographers contact info in it, it makes a nice marketing piece.

[Frank Petronio]

I don't think it is a software or file prep issue at all, because I've gotten a very nicely printed book (neutral B&W, rich shadows, fine color) from the same file as one that had color shifts in the B&W images. Which mostly likely means that the printer must have drifted out of calibration and they didn't notice.

The other issues were mechanical, like binding a defective and dirty sheet with some sort of residue bonded on top of it. That ain't software, that's just not paying attention.

[Frank Petronio]

Finally... I am pleased to report that I just got a book that is pretty much perfect - neutral B&W, good color, good gamma, clean sheets, tight binding.

And then I found my typo ;-)

[Frank Petronio]

Actually they did do one thing that is not a deal killer but is telling... half of the sheets in the book have thumb creases from picking up the sheets. If it was a fine book I'd send it back, but given the nature of what I've seen, I can't see being that petty about it.

Still, thumb creases on my prints cause me to toss them out, plain and simple.

[Ben Syverson]

Has anyone tried Adorama?

Their photobooks are made up of real photos printed on Fuji Crystal Archive. The downside is that you can't upload a PDF...

[Frank Petronio]

FWIW, I finally got a "perfect" Blurb book ;-)

[eddie]

FWIW, I finally got a "perfect" Blurb book ;-)

awesome!

my brother keeps getting worse and worse examples....he is getting ready to quit.

[Frank Petronio]

They gave me credits for every book they messed up, so at least I didn't have to pay for the bad ones.

[percepts]

They gave me credits for every book they messed up, so at least I didn't have to pay for the bad ones.

Sounds like a good system to me. Pay for one and get three free. Knock the spoilt ones out at reduced price and its a win win situation for you.

[Doug Dolde]

A better option may be Lightening Source. They seem more professional and can get you into Amazon and Barnes and Noble. They don't have the online purchasing option but you can buy them and sell yourself.

http://www.lightningsource.com/

[Frank Petronio]

eh they ask for them back though...

[Doug Dolde]

What do you mean by that?

[Ron Marshall]

What do you mean by that?

I think he means the less than perfect copies.

[Frank Petronio]

When you have a problem with a Blurb book, you usually have to send them some photos of the issue and then they will grant you a credit, but you also need to ship the book back to them (they send you a prepaid UPS slip). One time they just accepted the photos and credited me without asking for the book back, but 5-6x now they've wanted them back.

I think they would automatically just reprint the book except that I edited it inbetween, so the original files were already off the Blurb site. Phew - it let me get a new book with MY new edits too. So if you revise or make a mistake on your book be sure to delete it ASAP.

[Doug Dolde]

The problem with Blurb, besides your quality problems, is that they are priced too high if you want to sell them for a profit. Their prices are what a retail price should be.

[Frank Petronio]

It'd be silly to purchase my book, I admit. If it were a 10,000 run retail book it would sell on Amazon for $39.95 tops, probably $29.95 is the price to hit.

I did put $12 of mark up into it, I figure once it gets stupid expensive, whomever wants it is a big fan and I deserve a beer or two for it.

[Doug Dolde]

You can get perfect bound paper backs done in color from Lightening Source for $!.00 + $.09 per page and there is no 180 page limit, more like 480 pages. Check it out.

[jnantz]

You can get perfect bound paper backs done in color from Lightening Source for $!.00 + $.09 per page and there is no 180 page limit, more like 480 pages. Check it out.

i checked it out doug!

they have professional credentials,
respectable client list,
1,000,000 books they have printed already
they print about 50K books a day,
good prices,
bookstore quality product ...
they OVERNIGHT a proof
AND pretty much guarantee that
every book will look exactly like the proof ...

sure sounds better than blurp.

[Doug Dolde]

An update on Blurb versus Lightning Source. Now i have a proof from each vendor and I can say unequivocally that Blurb's color rendition and reproduction is far superior to LSI.

But, and a Big Butt She has, Blurb's books are Way more expensive and they limit the page count to 180. In fact a Blurb book could never sell for much of a profit; their pricing is already at (or over) what retail should be. I mean look around at Barnes and Noble, the average photography book is around $40.

With LSI there is room from profit at $.09/page + $1.00 for an 8.5" x 8.5" perfect bound color paperback. Just don't expect the image quality to be anywhere close to what you can produce on your inkjet. So if you really want to show off your images, LSI is not the way to do it. If the book's purpose is something else then the quality will suffice.

[Malcolm Ray]

I was certain I read from Blurb that files should not be submitted as CMYK(?).
I am working on a book now. How certain are you that their quality slipped on some of your last images in your recent book, because this is upsetting. I require pretty much perfection, following all that work to get the images just as I want them....
Thanks

[Frank Petronio]

The Workflow using the BookSmart Application requires sRGB files. The alternative PDF Workflow can be either CMYK or RGB. Blurb provides profiles and can be consistent, but I would never trust them to get it perfect every time. To their credit, they do make good on their errors.

Nothing beats doing a smaller book as a test...

If you want perfect, you may need to spend an extra $30-100K on a real book.