Choose photo book by price or quality?
For each long trip to another country, I make a photo book containing most of the photos I’ve taken. I’ve tried multiple services for this purpose. Some of them are better than the other. A while back ago I used Snapfish to process my photo books. They were the best alternative for me at that point. I was working on a stationary PC and Snapfish had special client for PC-users to take advantage of. Today, more and more services are available and with even more options to chose from (paper quality, number of pages, hard vs. soft cover etc.).
One downside of Snapfish at that moment, was that the client was quite buggy (at least on my computer). The quality of the prints in the book was also not that astonishing, as I would like them to be.
The day I bought my new Macbook, the possibility to use Snapfish ended. I never got the Mac-version of the software to work out. From what I’ve heard today, they are using an online service instead of a downloadable software client (as they did before).
Two of my books (A trip to India and Thailand) have been ordered from Blurb. Since I’m a regular Mac user now and I like the idea of having a client installed to make my books, they’ve been my No.1 choice. Good price, fast delivery and a very nice client to work with when editing the books. The quality of the prints could be better though. I think the color could be more vibrant than what they are (even on premium paper).
Anyway. It’s hard to compare the quality of the paper/prints if you’re not ordering an exact copy of the book from each provider.
I have recently tried a new online service called Photobox.com. Mainly because I wanted to update my portfolio coffee-table book that I bring to the clients I meet. I thought is was a great opportunity to try a new service.
I must say that the quality of this book is the best one of all the ones I’ve done so far!
The book that I made has 96 pages, a hard cover and premium paper (option). It took me around 1 hour to make the book even though I’ve never tried their service before. To round things up I would like to point out a few thing that came to my mind while I was working with the book.
Great stuff
- Web based (works on all platforms, PC or Mac etc.)
- Simple interface and usage
- Autofill (One click and your book is filled with the images you’ve chosen)
- Many different templates
- Premium book options (Select paper quality, cover etc)
- Payment choices (I like the possibility to use Paypal)
- Multilingual
Not so great
- No software client (Some of us would like to be able to work offline)
- Price indication (You don’t see the price of your book until you’re finished to order. I would like to see what the difference, adding a page or two, would make on the price while I’m working with the book.)
- The price (Although the quality was great I think that $130 is quite much for a 96 pages book. I paid $72 for 122 pages at Blurb with shipping included)
I recommend using Photobox if you’re looking for great quality and a simple interface to work with.
There are tons of online providers out “there”.
What is your choice of provider when it comes to photo books? Please leave a comment below.
Thanks!
PH GreenYellow for a bright and soft effect
Long time no see, but here I am again with a new preset for both Lightroom 2 and 3!
I’ve been soo busy the last couple of months that I almost feel bad for you guys. I’ve been shooting lots of funny things including jewelry and some maternity photos. I bring my camera everywhere I go actually. If I don’t, I’m afraid i will miss an opportunity to “catch” a moment 
I’ve been using Lightroom 3 for some time now and I must say it’s really a good investment if you’re into photography and been using LR 2 before. The improvements of noise reduction is my absolute favorite among all other great news in LR3.
Today I’ve made a new preset called YellowGreen! It makes your photos brighter with a soft tone of “yellow-green” and some purple Since most of you probably still using Lightroom 2 I’ve made two versions of this preset. One for LR2 and one for LR3. Read more
Set the white balance for all of your photos
Manipulating with white balance (also called color balance, gray balance and neutral balance) can make some cool effects on your photos. Most of the time you want to change the temperature of your photos to make the photo look cold or warm. To do this you just simply drag the white balance slider to the left (cold temperature) or to the right for a warmer look. But what if you really want your image to look natural, as it does in daylight?. You can do this in different ways. Read more
10 great tutorials for better product photography
Recently a client asked me to take photos of their products. A whole bunch of hand bags and jewelry needed to be shoot for their web shop. Taking photos of shiny silver bracelets and plastic bags etc. is quite different than model photography. As a professional photographer you probably already know what gear to use and how to use it. For all of you who are new to product photography, have a look at these video tutorials and websites. Read more
Fashionable look with a little Lightroom preset
Greetings! I’m sitting here with a cold and have way to many projects going on to actually be making presets for you guys I’m not sure how many times I’ve received mails from people all over asking me how to “get that look” in Lightroom. Most frequent request is the fashion look. You know what I mean… the photos you see in magazines and advertisements with happy people on the beach etc. I’m going to Rome this Sunday so I thought it would be nice to give you a little gift before I leave… Yep, a new preset. Read more
5 great presets from Dustin
Hi everyone!
I got a mail from Dustin with a link back to his website where I could find some of his presets (free to use). I’ve tried them out and here they are for the rest of you. If you’re looking for that “Fashion look” on your model shots some of them might actually work pretty good. Read more
2 presets for weddings
Marie-Edith sent me two presets she has made for wedding shots. The first one to make them look bright and creamy.
Basically it’s increasing exposure/brightness, adding warmth, contrast, vibrance, slight vignette and portrait sharpening.
The second one is a brighter version for underexposed photos. Read more
11 presets for night-shots by Sarah
Sarah has once again made a great contribution to Presets Heaven. You probably already got some of her presets in your presets archive but these are 11 brand new ones. “-These presets will not impact exposure and brighness, so you’ll want to adjust those setting either before or after applying the presets to get the results you want. Also, since these are specifically for night-time shots that may have required a high ISO, the noise reduction settings will not be impacted by the presets, as you will want to adjust those yourself depending on your personal tolerance for noise. And while these presets were developed for RAW (uncompressed) files, most of them should work for JPEG files as well; you’ll just need to tweak a little more here and there.” Read more
3 presets from Dominic
Every now and then I receive presets from people out “there” who like to share their work with all the rest of us. I think it’s great so keep doing that! This time Dominic sent me three presets from his own collection. I’ve just tried them out and if you like to try them too… here they are. Read more
And the winner is…
The contest is over for this time. The lucky winner of the book “The Accidental Millionaire” By Gary Fong, is Vince!
Vince is a web designer by day, amateur photographer everywhere in between. When he’s not busy being a husband or father, you can find him modding gadgets in his basement, playing in Photoshop and Lightroom or snooping around abandoned buildings. You can check out his photos on Flickr here.
Congratulations Vince! The book will be in your hand within a week or two.
I would like to give a big “THANK YOU” to BenBella Books who was kind and sponsored this contest!
