MegaSack DRAW - This year's winner is user - rgwb
We will be in touch
Has anyone on here had a photobook made by one of the online places (I had a quick look at foto.com and snapfish so far)?
just wondered whether the results are pretty much the same or if somewhere is recommended?
I know I can also design photobooks in photoshop and order a printed copy - has anybody experience with that service?
cheers 🙂
photobox is top notch, highly recommend.
+1 Photobox - did a superb job of our 'informal' wedding album. Dead easy with the online templates - drag/drop/resize/crop, job done.
Photobox here too
check this one out:
http://www.bobbooks.co.uk/
Their quality is the best I've seen around, not cheap but if you want something special it's worth paying a few quid more IMO. They get hand bound in hardback. I work in the print trade and these guys really are top notch.
The resulting book from Photobox was great, although the Photobox website is now absolute crap.
Great, thanks for the suggestions! I'll have a look at photobox (even if the interface isn't as good any more, DezB?) and will also check out the "luxury" bob books 😉
photobox here as well- sort of mid pricish, quality a bit better than you'd expect for the money - nice paper, colour, register etc good, plus there's generally an offer of some sort on - 30% off at the moment.
Can't recommend Blurb highly enough. Very good software, and the finished product was fault less.
Also one of the cheapest option if you're not in a hurry and don't mind getting the cheapo postage.
I've used blurb and found the software very easy to use.
Word of caution though, the final product came back very dark indeed. You need to make sure that you calibrate your monitor correctly, which in effect makes the monitor darker so that you end up lightening the photos on the screen. Photos on the screen are backlit, when they are in the book they are not.
interesting comment beamers, hadn't thought of that 😳 - does that kind of go for all of these photobook places though, printed pictures are darker than on screen ones?
Yep. I have had stuff printed from blurb (photobook) and also from photobox and I have had to lighten all of the pictures to get them to look "right" when printed out.
I've now calibrated my screen with one of [url= http://www.amazon.co.uk/ColorVision-S2E100-Spyder2-Express/dp/B000ES4PYU/ref=sr_1_2?ie=UTF8&s=software&qid=1235417686&sr=8-2 ]these[/url], which made it way darker than it was originally, hence making the pictures look dark and the screen so you tell just how much lightening they require, instead of swagging it like it Like I was before.
No printed results as yet but in theory it should work a treat.
the cheapest i found was Jessops who use a company called Cewe.
you need to download a bit of software but the book is highly configurable.
"Yep. I have had stuff printed from blurb (photobook) and also from photobox and I have had to lighten all of the pictures to get them to look "right" when printed out."
He's not wrong, when I've finished a editing a photo in photoshop and it looks right for printing (on the monitor) I have to increase the brightness by 30% to get the print to match the on screen image. Or just calibrate your monitor
I didn't have any problems with the ones I got done - my monitor is only calibrated using the free tool that comes with Photoshop - i.e. black actually looks black on my monitor.
jessops have some software to down load then you add your pics and order on line...
I've just done one with jessops. I'll report back when the book is delivered. (and i've sent back the duplicate one due to the software crashing! 👿 )
Another vote for PhotoBox, I've always had really good service from them.
There's loads of companies out there doing that kind of thing - I went to an exhibition at Birmingham NEC yesterday called Focus On Imaging
( http://www.focus-on-imaging.co.uk), it's on til Wed and they've got stalls from all the big players like Canon, Nikon, Epson etc all the way down to photo training companies and printing/publishing groups who do everything from 7x5 to enormous (8ft plus!) prints to photobooks. Well worth going if you can get down there.
Well, I guess first of all I'll have to check my monitor settings - noticed before that print outs are darker than on screen, now I know why 😳
Can't get to the NEC unfortunately, but I'll check out all the places everyone mentioned here 😉
thanks again everyone!