Which photobook printers?

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George
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I recently did some shots for a couple I know and would like to give them some images in a photobook. I generally do all my printing at a small place local to me but they don't do photobooks.

I was after some suggestions for online printing places that will do a good job - I don't mind spending £50+ if necessary, but I'd like it to be stunning. I've seen Cewe seem to have a good reputation ... thoughts or other suggestions?

Thanks, people :)
 
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Does nobody have any experience printing photobooks then :( ?

Anything good or bad you've heard would be helpful :) Any opinions on Blurb's stuff?
 
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I've had two photobooks done, one by Blurb and one by Lulu.

I will be getting Blurb to do my next one. The free bookmaking software is a doddle to use, and you do it all offline on your PC. When it's ready you hit publish and off it goes to Blurb (can take a while to upload depending on the number of photos, size, your broadband speed etc). I find it very easy to use and fairly stable.

The quality of the book was good, though I have only used the Imagewrap hardback service. The pages don't fall out (as can happen with some of these firms) and I was happy with the quality of photo reproduction. I don't know about the softback versions.

The P&P isn't the cheapest in the world, but the books arrive well packaged and when Blurb say they will (I have also had a couple of text only books made, with my photos on the cover).

If you're worried, or thinking of getting a large quantity made, you could make the smallest (ie cheapest) book possible and then order one copy. Then you can see if you are happy with it and go elsewhere if not. Make sure you include the full range of shots you're going to include e.g. different sizes, colour and B&W etc. That's what I did and ended up with Blurb.

Good luck with it!
 
had some done by photobox.

very happy with the results.
 
I had a book printed by CEWE, through WHSmiths, but you can go direct and CEWE provide the service for other highstreet shops.

They only slight issue is that they had to have two atempts as there were the remains of a squashed fly on a couple of page, blood and all !!!

Oh well the final copy was brilliant and very well received by the friends we have prepared it for.
 
DrRusty said:
I had a book printed by CEWE, through WHSmiths, but you can go direct and CEWE provide the service for other highstreet shops.

They only slight issue is that they had to have two atempts as there were the remains of a squashed fly on a couple of page, blood and all !!!

Oh well the final copy was brilliant and very well received by the friends we have prepared it for.
Click to expand...

CEWE gets my vote too, best quality photobook I've had

Simon
 
To be honest I have had quite a few photobooks through Photobox so for a change I decided to try another source to compare quality / delivery etc.
There were a few recommendations on here to try CEWE so I gave it a go.

It arrived yesterday and I'm not sure that I will be using them again. It was for an A4 wedding album. The font, as my wife put it, looks like I had written it using my left hand. I am right handed. In addition there seemed to be graininess in the darker areas of the images.

In addition compared to photobox I found the software a bit of a pain to use.

So let the arguments begin......;)
 
I've done one with Jessops, and was really very pleased with it.....

A friend did one with 'bobs books', and when I saw it I wished I'd shopped around and found them first .....

reasons for wanting to use bobs:

it had a better quality feel about it
when you open the pages (i.e. a double page spread) the pages lie flat
the paper used was really excellent quality, and I would almost say all the pages were photographic paper

next time, I'll be using bobs. :)
 
Thanks again, all. I'll take a look at Bob's Books. I'm also perhaps erring towards Blurb, as they print from pdf's, which would allow me to design the book in InDesign rather than use some useless software. Maybe some others allow that too?
 
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A.N.Other said:
I recently did some shots for a couple I know and would like to give them some images in a photobook. I generally do all my printing at a small place local to me but they don't do photobooks.

I was after some suggestions for online printing places that will do a good job - I don't mind spending £50+ if necessary, but I'd like it to be stunning. I've seen Cewe seem to have a good reputation ... thoughts or other suggestions?

Thanks, people :)
Click to expand...

I did the same thing a while back and used Kodak, well pleased with the results.
 
Had two from photobox, great quality even the base spec - not to mention cashback and discount codes! :)

Drew
 
i recently used the cewe service provided by jessops, and tbh, im not sure id use them again,
the final, printed version had a different crop in nearly every picture, compared to the original, and if im honest, the print quality was nothing to write home about either.
although, the physical build quality of the end product was good.
i got mine free when i bought my camera last year, otherwise i wouldnt have bothered doing it in the first place.
 
martymac said:
i recently used the cewe service provided by jessops, and tbh, im not sure id use them again,
the final, printed version had a different crop in nearly every picture, compared to the original, and if im honest, the print quality was nothing to write home about either.
although, the physical build quality of the end product was good.
i got mine free when i bought my camera last year, otherwise i wouldnt have bothered doing it in the first place.
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But the free photobook you get with the camera is the cheapest option photobook. They have a very thick lustre professional graded paper option now, and the images look stunning on them :)
Plus regarding the cropping, I think all their photobooks (apart from the square ones) are a 3:2 aspect ratio so if you're camera is a 4:3 or 5:4 ratio camera there would be cropping expected anyway.
If by cropping you mean bits missing all the way around the outside of the images that's because there is a bleed on the images.

Hope that helps.

Many Thanks
Jamie
 
Hi Folks a search on google brought me here. My first post.
I have been playing Blurb for a while, got a few family books made with them, the most recent one is a portfolio book.

One thing with Blurb is the colour profile (ICC), which goes from RGB or sRGB from the photo to CMYK, one has to realize that it is paper book even with the premium paper.

This is why I am interested to hear from you on 'cewe photo paper photobook'.

The answer I got from jessops customer service is that 'they convert the RGB to CMYK' which I don't believe - if printed on photo paper, sure the RGB is used?

Anyone had used 'cewe photo paper photobook' can cast some inside to this - do you calibrate your monitor? do you find the colour shift compares 'cewe photo paper photobook' to on screen? how about compare it to photo prints?

Many thanks
 
CeWe are a huge operation - I believe they did over 2 million books - they have deals with loads of companies - Jessops, Aldi, WH Smiths etc...

Some companies like Blurb use a number of printers - some in Europe, some in the USA - and I'm told the output can vary a little
 
HopefulM said:
I've done one with Jessops, and was really very pleased with it.....

A friend did one with 'bobs books', and when I saw it I wished I'd shopped around and found them first .....

reasons for wanting to use bobs:

it had a better quality feel about it
when you open the pages (i.e. a double page spread) the pages lie flat
the paper used was really excellent quality, and I would almost say all the pages were photographic paper

next time, I'll be using bobs. :)
Click to expand...

Was the one you did with Jessops also 'photographic paper'? Or was it their normal paper, as they have the photographic paper option now. I would like to know if its an apples to apples comparison as I am looking to print my cousin's wedding album! Cheers :)
 
J H B said:
I've had two photobooks done, one by Blurb and one by Lulu.

I will be getting Blurb to do my next one. The free bookmaking software is a doddle to use, and you do it all offline on your PC. When it's ready you hit publish and off it goes to Blurb (can take a while to upload depending on the number of photos, size, your broadband speed etc). I find it very easy to use and fairly stable.

The quality of the book was good, though I have only used the Imagewrap hardback service. The pages don't fall out (as can happen with some of these firms) and I was happy with the quality of photo reproduction. I don't know about the softback versions.

The P&P isn't the cheapest in the world, but the books arrive well packaged and when Blurb say they will (I have also had a couple of text only books made, with my photos on the cover).

If you're worried, or thinking of getting a large quantity made, you could make the smallest (ie cheapest) book possible and then order one copy. Then you can see if you are happy with it and go elsewhere if not. Make sure you include the full range of shots you're going to include e.g. different sizes, colour and B&W etc. That's what I did and ended up with Blurb.

Good luck with it!
Click to expand...

Blurb looks very good, just what I was looking for - thanks (y)
 
Both my daughter and myself have used Bob's books, the paper quality is very good, and to date no issues with any of the books.
 
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