Recommendation for photo book printing?

[davidedric]

Hi,

I have recently bought LR4, and it started me thinking about a Photo Book. I've always printed my own images, and I am happy with the results. I'm no expert, but I have a calibrated monitor and I print through Qimage with a specific profile for the printer/paper combination. I know I can put them in albums, but for some reason I tend not to.

So back to LR4. The obvious way to produce the Photo Book is through Blurb, since you have the interface integrated into the software, and I would have hoped that the colour reproduction would be accurate.

However, I am certainly put off by the recent "Blurb = disaster" thread. Has anyone had more positive experiences?

I have obtained from Blurb their swatch of papers with printed images. The images seem to lack punch (and I would have expected they would choose the best for their swatch). They certainly didn't seem to match what I can produce on an inkjet, but maybe I can't expect that.

At the end of the day I may just have to give it a go, since their books are certainly not expensive, but I'd welcome any advice and experience.

Thanks,

Dave

[bambleweeney]

I had one Blurb book printed a few years ago and I must say I was disappointed with the colour reproduction - very flat on some images and they seemed to do strange things with blues. I'd heard that they'd improved but I'd be tempted to do some more research on other companies.
It also depends on whether you want a run of several books or just the one for an album or portfolio. I've printed a portfolio using a Hahnemuhle photo album (http://www.fotospeed.com/Hahnemuhle-Album/products/215/) which is a very nice product and if you use Qimage as I do then it should be a breeze to print.

[Black Pearl]

Select the Matt/Glossy Photo Paper option from Jessops and the quality is very good - yes I know I work for them but I ain't gonna benefit from someone here buying a book online - and with that option the pages also lie flat which is great for double spread images.

I've had a few made recently and as I do work for them I tend to be very critical if they're not perfect so it would dead easy for me to cause bother and get what I want - I haven't had to.

[davidedric]

Select the Matt/Glossy Photo Paper option from Jessops

Thanks. I've downloaded the software and I'll see how I get on.