{"id":125,"date":"2011-02-24T03:25:49","date_gmt":"2011-02-24T03:25:49","guid":{"rendered":"http:\/\/www.kevindavisphoto.com\/blog\/?p=125"},"modified":"2012-10-25T16:26:26","modified_gmt":"2012-10-25T16:26:26","slug":"custom-photobook","status":"publish","type":"post","link":"https:\/\/www.kevindavisphoto.com\/blog\/custom-photobook\/","title":{"rendered":"Custom PhotoBook"},"content":{"rendered":"

My most recent book was created with Photobook.\u00a0 Photobook has several branches all over the world; I used Photobook America,\u00a0located in Toronto.\u00a0 Time to print with Photobook was significantly longer than past experience with Blurb and MPIX.\u00a0 Perhaps related to two factors.\u00a0 This latest book has a silk cover with a photo inset into a center window.\u00a0 And I ordered multiple copies.\u00a0 Blurb will print a book with full-bleed photo cover in just a few days. And\u00a0 have seen MPIX (outsourced to DigiLabs) create books literally overnight.<\/p>\n

At the time I printed with Photobook, both Photobook and Blurb had recently begun offering a new premium paper option called “luster”.\u00a0 I tried it.\u00a0 But honestly, looking at four books printed over a time span of 18 months, printed by three different companies …\u00a0 I don’t see a significant difference in image quality.\u00a0 They all have a slight sheen to the surface. Maximum black density is similar.\u00a0 Image quality is entirely comparable.\u00a0 As near as I can tell “premium” paper options provide only two differences: thickness and opacity.\u00a0 All three companies print with an HP Indigo digital press.\u00a0<\/p>\n

Photobook’s downloadable software is called Photobook Designer.\u00a0 I found it easy to use; very comparable to Blurb BookSmart and (MPIX\/DigiLabs) My Photo Books.\u00a0 However, there was one problem.\u00a0 For my title page, I created a graphic image with transparent areas, saved as a PNG file. The Photobook Designer software recognized PNG files with no problem.\u00a0 The preview (prior to upload) looked great.\u00a0 But when the book was printed, the title-page graphic was unrecognizable.\u00a0 (I also used a PNG on the final page of the book and this printed just fine.)<\/p>\n

I contacted Photobook support twice via email, including a screen-capture from the book preview (what it should look like), but received no responses; apparently their support systems were down for more than a week.\u00a0 Upon calling via telephone, someone readily worked to assist me with the problem.\u00a0 The book is actually printed from a PDF and they shared this PDF with me; my title page graphic was mutulated.\u00a0 The problem was not the press.\u00a0 The problem was not on my end. Something went wrong in upload or translation to PDF.\u00a0 But because their web site states only support for JPG and TIFF, they suggested that PNG files are not guaranteed.\u00a0 Photobook would not reprint the books at zero cost to me.\u00a0 They did reprint the books at a deeply discounted price, after I replaced the PNG with a JPG.\u00a0 (This was not a trivial replacement. I originally used PNG because it supports transparency; JPEG does not.)<\/p>\n

\"\"<\/a>\"\"<\/a><\/p>\n

This latest book was simply a personal collection of favorite images from the past year.\u00a0 A couple of the images are shown here.\u00a0 Click on the image for a larger view.<\/p>\n

For more information about comapanies that help you create custom photobooks,
\nI recommend PhotoBookGirl.com.\u00a0 (I am not affiliated with PhotoBookGirl; but I find
\nit is a good source of information.)<\/p>\n","protected":false},"excerpt":{"rendered":"

My most recent book was created with Photobook.\u00a0 Photobook has several branches all over the world; I used Photobook America,\u00a0located in Toronto.\u00a0 Time to print with Photobook was significantly longer than past experience with Blurb and MPIX.\u00a0 Perhaps related to two factors.\u00a0 This latest book has a silk cover with a photo inset into a […]<\/p>\n","protected":false},"author":2,"featured_media":0,"comment_status":"closed","ping_status":"closed","sticky":false,"template":"","format":"standard","meta":{"footnotes":""},"categories":[16,20,29],"tags":[34],"class_list":["post-125","post","type-post","status-publish","format-standard","hentry","category-book","category-photo","category-print","tag-photobook"],"_links":{"self":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.kevindavisphoto.com\/blog\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/125","targetHints":{"allow":["GET"]}}],"collection":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.kevindavisphoto.com\/blog\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts"}],"about":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.kevindavisphoto.com\/blog\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/types\/post"}],"author":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.kevindavisphoto.com\/blog\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/users\/2"}],"replies":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.kevindavisphoto.com\/blog\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/comments?post=125"}],"version-history":[{"count":9,"href":"https:\/\/www.kevindavisphoto.com\/blog\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/125\/revisions"}],"predecessor-version":[{"id":532,"href":"https:\/\/www.kevindavisphoto.com\/blog\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/125\/revisions\/532"}],"wp:attachment":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.kevindavisphoto.com\/blog\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media?parent=125"}],"wp:term":[{"taxonomy":"category","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.kevindavisphoto.com\/blog\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/categories?post=125"},{"taxonomy":"post_tag","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.kevindavisphoto.com\/blog\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/tags?post=125"}],"curies":[{"name":"wp","href":"https:\/\/api.w.org\/{rel}","templated":true}]}}