insight

Adorama, Blurb & Lulu – Book Printing Review

24 Jun 2009 by Raoul Gatepin in Don't Miss / Fieldwork Comments

The ability to print nice photo books easily and fairly cheaply is something that really appeals to me as a photographer. I love the photo book format and its accessibility.

I’ve been hearing and reading about online book printing on demand for a while. Quite often though, opinions diverge regarding the quality of the books and it is difficult to know the real value of these opinions.

So I decided to design and order books from several online printing companies, see for myself and share my experience and results here on insig.ht. I tried to do so from a photographer’s standpoint.

I picked the three following websites as they seemed to be popular choices among photographers: lulu.com, blurb.com & adorama.com

My goal was to print a nice looking hardcover photo book in color. Ideally the quality would be good enough so that I could feel comfortable selling the book.

I also wanted, as much as possible, to:

- have control over the layout of the book
- have control over the printed colors
- minimize the resizing of the pictures by the printer

I chose 23 of my images and used the same files for all the books. All images were JPEG quality 12 in sRGB profile, resized in Photoshop at 300dpi. Those are specs recommended by all 3 sites. When a profile was available, I soft-proofed the images in Photoshop using a calibrated monitor.

I won’t go into details regarding the pricing as it varies greatly depending on the size of the book and the printing options chosen. But, expect to spend $30/$40 or more for a single book. Note that unlike Adorama, Blurb and Lulu offer the ability to sell your books through their site, and you can choose your price.

Now, let’s get to the comparison. I wrote down the technical stuff and you can see short videos of the book reviews…

ADORAMA

 

Website: Adoramapix

You will need to create a free Adorama account to login & access the online software. No need to install anything; you design the book online.

Hardcover Sizes: 4″x6″ – 5.5″x8″ – 8″x8″ – 10″x8″ – 12″x8″
(No Softcover available)

Pages: 26 or 50

Cover: ImageWrap Only

Themes: Lots of silly themes (templates for the book) are offered. Choose “no theme” and get a neutral look to start with.

Software & Layout: Navigating the software is pretty straightforward, controls are easy to understand and pictures are laid out on the book with Drag & Drop.
Unfortunately, the pictures won’t insert in the layout keeping their original sizes. You need to resize them manually to match their native pixel dimensions.
Also, in order to center your images the same way on every page, I recommend clicking on the Grid button and selecting the Snap to grid option in Tools –>Preferences .
The software gets the job and offers good freedom with the layout. However, it can be pretty painstaking to resize each picture back to its original size.

Profile: you can download a color profile at the bottom of this page

Book printed: one 8″x8″

+’s: Real photo paper / Profile provided / Accurate colors / Sharp & vibrant prints / Interesting “flat” binding

-’s: Number of pages: only 26 or 50 / Very thick pages give a unusual feel to the book / no PDF upload / Not possible to sell your book through the site

BLURB

 

Website: Blurb
You’ll first need to download and install the Blurb Bookmark software on your computer and create a free account in order to print your book.

Hardcover Sizes: 7″x7″ – 10″x8″ – 8″x10″ – 13″x11″ – 12″x12″
(Softcover available for smaller sizes)

Pages: from 20 to 440 – Standard & Premium Paper (optional)

Cover: ImageWrap or Dustjacket

Themes: Like Adorama, there are a number of bad looking themes offered. I think the “blank” theme is a good start.

Software & Layout: Easy software to naviguate with Drag and Drop capability.
There are many different pre-formatted page layouts you can choose from. In them, you’ll find fixed sized containers where you can drop your pictures. But if your picture is too big for the container, it will be cropped.
For full control you can now (it’s a new Bookmark feature) create custom-sized containers and personal layouts. To do so, click on Edit Layout in Bookmark. You can then save and re-use your custom layout on any page.
Overall, it’s good and pretty flexible software. But, if you need to use many different personal layouts, it can be a lot of work to build them.
Update: Blurb now also accepts PDF uploads.

Profile: The standard Blurb offering does not provide any profiles.
However, their B3 program offers the download of a profile and a Custom Workflow printing option, meaning that your book should be printed on designated calibrated printers.
This program is still in Beta, so an invitation is needed to get access it; Blurb sent me an invite in a timely manner. You can find more about the program here.

Books printed: one 7″x7″ with the Custom Workflow and one 10″x8″ without it. Both books on Standard Paper.

+’s: Good software / Good & varied book formats offered / Profile available (if B3 member) / Accurate colors even with standard Workflow / PDF upload

-’s: No significant quality increase with Custom Workflow / Flat & unsharp prints / Thin paper / Poor binding / Extra options (Custom Workflow, Blurb logo removal, Premium Paper) increase the price of the book significantly

LULU

 

Lulu offers 2 types of books: a standard Book and a more expensive Photo Book.

- The standard Book is printed from a PDF file uploaded on the site and printed on standard paper. It seems to be aimed towards written and/or illustration books. Most of the offered book formats are in portrait orientation.
- The Photo Book is designed online with the Lulu Studio software and printed on better paper. Less book format options.

1. Photo Book

Website: Lulu Photo Book
You access the software online. No need to install anything. You will need to create a free Lulu account to print your book.

Themes: Same as competitors; I recommend the theme named “blank”.

Cover: ImageWrap Only

Hardcover Sizes: 8.5″x11″ – 9″x7″ – 8.5″x8.5″
(Softcover also available)

Pages: from 20 to 120

Software & Layout: Software is pretty basic but easy to use. You can choose from different containers to insert your pictures into, but there is no indication of their sizes. So there is a good chance that your pictures will end up being resized by the software when you insert it. The resizing done on my pictures seemed OK though.
So, friendly software but with limited control.

Profile: No color profile is available.

Book Printed: one 9″x7″ Photo Book

+’s: Software very easy to use

-’s: Limited controls in Software / Flat & unsharp prints / Color Cast / Poor binding / No PDF upload

2. Standard Book

Website: Lulu standard Book

Cover/Sizes/Pages: Many options are available, too many to list, but you can find the info here.

Layout: You can design your book and layout using any desktop publishing program before converting it to PDF format. I used inDesign. Unfortunately, there is no inDesign template on the Lulu site, which would be nice!

Profile: No profile is available.

Book Printed: one 6″x9″ standard Book

+’s: PDF upload, hence full control over the layout / Good color accuracy / Many formats and binding options

-’s: Flat & unsharp prints / Thin non-glossy paper / Poor binding

CONCLUSION

 

Looking at the books I received, I think that none of these printing services really makes the cut in order to be considered a serious option for photographers’ books. Adorama printing is good, but the product seems limited in use. Blurb and Lulu printing quality is simply not good enough. However, I do think they can be used in certain cases; they could be great for mock ups, promo pieces, or even fancy magazines.

I have started researching other options: smaller printers, printing lesser quantities and more focused on quality but haven’t found the task very easy so far. Where are you hiding, dear printers? I would love if you could share (in the comments) your experiences with the sites mentioned here as well as with any other book printing company.

Links:
- An up to date listing of interesting printing companies: Printer Resources for Independent Art Publishers
- The founder of Edition One Studio interviewed here
- Magazine printing on demand: MagCloud

Thanks to Karen Rudd for the video editing.

  • Raoul, the photos you were printing were medium format yes? Would it be accurate to say that you care about the fine details in such images (I know that I do)?

    Ignoring issues of paper quality and colour accuracy, I'm wondering if the resolution/sharpness problems endemic with the Iris printers used by at least Blurb and Lulu becomes less of an issue for larger books? I know that I was quite disappointed with Blurb's resolution at 'standard landscape' size (10 x 8 inches), but some of the larger books printed as part of the Photography Book Now 2008 competition seemed to have fewer problems. Also, I suppose it matters less for work where fine details are just less important (I'm sure Antoine D'Agata wouldn't care as much).

    Interestingly enough, Blurb announced a new PDF to Book feature today, so that's one more positive string to their bow.
  • Raoul Gatepin
    Hin, I indeed did not mention where the files exactly came from: they were high-resolution flatbed scans of 6x7 negatives.
    So fine details in the prints was definitely something I paid attention to and was taken into account in my final conclusion.
    But it is a good point to mention that those books might be more suitable for other kind of pictures, less relying on details.

    I went to the Blurb Photography Book Now 2008 showcase in New York. I have to say that, overall, I feel like the books displayed there looked better than the ones I ordered -even the small sizes... like they paid extra attention to those...

    So it would be great to hear from people who printed larger books and/or different kind of pictures with those companies.

    On a side note, I am also curious about the Black & White printing that I did not test here.
  • I went to the Blurb Photography Book Now 2008 showcase in New York. I have to say that, overall, I feel like the books displayed there looked better than the ones I ordered -even the small sizes... like they paid extra attention to those...

    I would have loved to compare my own copy of 'After the Fall' (I was very disappointed with the resolution of fine details like leaves and especially wires in the sky) versus the copies that Blurb printed for the award showcase, but alas I gave my only copy away as a gift to a friend.

    If you wander through the Blurb forums (which is hard to do because there doesn't appear to be any sane way to search them effectively), there appear to be quite a few posts complaining about colour casts with black and white prints. But because you can't search by date, it's not easy to determine if these are current issues or problems that occurred 1-2 years ago.

    A useful post I found on the web seems to indicate that there are still colour cast issues to consider when printing black and white using B3.
  • mdm
    Really appreciate you putting this together, Raoul. Last time I used print-on-demand in '06 - I tried Lulu, and I did a book when Blurb launched. Both were *very* disappointing in terms of sharpness, clarity, color cast, paper quality, the whole kit-and-kaboodle.

    I've seen better examples since, as technology's advanced. Jeff Rich did a Blurb book for "Watershed" that looked pretty great. Large format scans, with detail.

    Still waiting for it all to approach offset quality, but if you're putting together a scratchpad or a leave-behind for a portfolio review, it looks like the tech's already there.
  • Raoul Gatepin
    Michael, do you know which size was Jeff Rich's Blurb book by any chance? Would be interesting to know to see if what Hin says makes sense.... :-)

    I did this review in the mindset of (pardon my French) "a serious photographer" so I was quite picky about the results. But I agree that this kind of book printing can be used efficiently in many different ways.
    And it is great to be able to print books right from your computer... who would have thought it'd be that easy, just a few years ago? At least no me.
  • Ultimately every 'serious' photographer that I know has either found a good cheap printer (whether in China, Eastern Europe or Scandinavia) and done a cost-effective limited edition run, or embraced a more low-fi printing approach (such as Farewell Books, Jeff Ladd review here).

    For me, one of the problems with Blurb/Lulu is, at least for certain kinds of photography, they sit in an uncomfortable middle-ground, almost a dead-zone if you will: not high quality enough to be considered "good", yet not crap enough to be considered low-fi.
  • Raoul Gatepin
    Any idea idea as to who those good cheap printers are?
    I feel like they don't advertise much (or well?) and are not that easy to find. Haven't put too much effort into my search yet though.
  • Hey Raoul, the book that Michael is talking about was a 13x11" Large Landscape book. That version was pretty good, however the color accuracy varied from page to page a bit. I just received another version of Watershed, same size, but image wrap instead of a dust jacket, and with the premium paper. This version looks a lot better, and the color accuracy is better.
  • Excellent review Raoul. I had some photos in a book printed by Lulu a few years ago. I thought the final product was quite poor regarding sharpness and had unacceptable color casts (purple) in the black and white images. I have also seen a book done a couple of years ago through Blurb and while it was better than Lulu, it was still not very impressive. The Adorama product sounds pretty good so it's disappointing that it is not more feature laden.
    Has anyone tried a book through one of the large commercial print companies like WHCC or Mpix? I'd be curious to see how they might compare. Pretty limited formats I'd assume.
  • Raoul Gatepin
    Thanks for sharing Scott. I am definitely interested in others experiences with other services.
  • cherishbound176
    Great review.... If you're looking for a smaller company try us over at Cherish Bound. We cater to the family story's but have plenty of photographers that use our full bleed freestyle templates and create their own styles and themes. prices are very affordable, quality is amazing and customer service is better than anyone else out there.

    Check us out... www.cherishbound.com

    let me know if you have questions.
  • thank you so much for this thorough and informative review! i have been considering my book printing options and your commentary here helped make up my mind... to keep looking.
  • I think these services are good for making first drafts as they offer a cheap and easy way to make a halfway decent mock-up which you can learn from in order to put a better copy together at a later point.

    I would never use them to produce a run of say 100 copies or more as they work out to be rather prohibitive when compared with any local printer that has a decent digital set-up. This is especially true if you're planning on printing a black and white book, which works out at less than half the price per unit cost of an equivalent Blurb product.

    The other advantages of using a local printer is that you can specify exactly how big you want the book to be and not rely on the standard templates that are offered and put up with their logo on the back unless you pay extra to remove it.

    Another piece of advice I received from a established publisher is to stick with doing a softback when printing digitally as the casing isn't cut to fit so it can end up being either too thick or thin. They do a perfect bind as well, so the pages don't lay flat as you'd expect in a hardback.
  • James Hendrick
    Good point about the possible serviceability of these products for producing mock-ups. Blurb would seem the least useful here because of the confinement to Blurb's templates. And since most serious printers accept PDF and Lulu does, too, might it make sense to use Lulu so that the final mock-up can simply be sent off to your chosen shop for the real print run?

    David, I seem to remember that you were researching printers in China, and it also sounds like you've had some experience with local printers. Are there any specific shops you'd recommend?
  • Raoul Gatepin
    might it make sense to use Lulu so that the final mock-up can simply be sent off to your chosen shop for the real print run?

    I guess it does if you are printing the same book format with similar dimensions. You'll also have to pay attention in the differences in paper, profile...etc...
    But it would probably be easy enough to tweak your inDesign (or else) file to fit the final printer requirements.

    Also note that Blurb now accepts PDF as well.
  • I tried researching printers in China about a year ago but it seems that many of them are not yet set up for really short print runs, saying they wouldn't consider anything less than 2000 copies, so I decided to look locally by googling the HP Indigo 5500 printer, which is the machine that Blurb uses.

    Most printers will ask you to approve a set of proofs they make before making a final print run, so sending them a Lulu copy may only be useful for rough colour matching (I've not used Lulu so I've no idea on their quality). You should always ask for a quote for separate amounts of say 50, 100 and 200 copies so you get an idea of how much the price per unit decreases in relation to the amount and get them to send you a sample of the types of paper they use.

    In the end I've decided to try out this place, because their prices were reasonable and they have experience printing books. I'll be printing a black and white book with them hopefully next month and if all goes well I'll get the colour one done there too.
  • Sorry to read that the new photobooks from Adorama don't meet your requirements - the feedback received so far has been very positive indeed. However, we always welcome suggestions for improving any parts of our service. I would be delighted if you would like to contact me directly with your comments, which I can pass on to the team at AdoramaPix.

    Sincerely

    Helen Oster
    Adorama Camera Customer Service Ambassador

    helen.oster@adoramacamera.com
    www.adorama.com
  • Raoul Gatepin
    Helen, I really appreciate you jumping in the conversation here! Seems like Adorama pays attention to feedback, that's great.

    As I mentioned in this review, the Adorama product is actually the only book, amongst the ones I tested, that I thought was good in terms of printing quality and build. The book really does feel like quality prints binded together.

    However I felt limited by a few things independent of the book quality itself:
    - number of pages: limited choices
    - software: need to resize each picture and no PDF upload (I think photographers would love a PDF uplaod capability)
    - paper: current paper quality is great, but i would like to see if it were possible to get the same printing quality with a paper half as thick.

    My feeling is that for a fairly new product you have, it is a very interesting one. With a few improvements, I think it could be a great one.

    Again, your comment is much appreciated here, thanks a lot Helen.
    raoul

    Oh and I am willing to test plenty more books if you are interested :-)
  • Hi Raoul,

    Thanks for the review! We really appreciate your interest in AdoramaPix and our new photobooks.
    The book pages are printed on Fujifilm Crystal Archive Album photo paper, a paper specially developed by Fujifilm to have a thinner base so it can be glued together back-to-back in photobooks like ours, so the high quality of the paper the pages are printed on is the source of the thickness of the pages as well.

    We are constantly working on improvements to the PixPublisher program and the books themselves based on feedback like this; I hope you'll make more books with us! Thanks so much again for taking the time to do the review, and if you have any other issues or questions please contact me directly.

    Ingrid Spangler
    Marketing and Promotions, AdoramaPix
    ingridspangler@adorama.com
  • Raoul Gatepin
    Thanks for your input Ingrid. I'm glad to see that you are paying great attention to feedback from users.
  • jaylarson
    Asuka Book seems to be quite bnice. I haven't tried them yet, but I have tried Blurb. Asuka seems to be the best out there as their price dictates. http://asukabook.com/
  • Stuart_duffy
    Hi Raoul,
    It can be a bit hit and miss finding a printing company in china and the savings in eastern europe are not really there any more. There are new emerging countries in Asia who now actually supply to China ! such as Vietnam and Bangladesh but only some of these printers actually will produce to our high standards even though they use exactly the same printing presses as europe. We used a company called Direct Print International at www.DPIlimited.com, They know exactly where to place your work and take the worry out of using Asian printing companies, the price they gave was much cheaper than we could find and the quality of the finished book was perfect. Your dealing with someone in the UK so all your specifications are met properly.

    Hope this can help.
  • Raoul Gatepin
    Thanks guys for the tips, much appreciated!
  • joshualevy
    Did you try www.viovio.com? Have you heard anything about them?
  • artford333
    I've used WHCC to print out a photo book and I was pretty impressed with their quality. They offer several different paper options and I've always been pleased with their customer service. They are very consistent and I don't hesitate to recommend them to other photographers.

    (I am not affiliated with WHCC in any way - just a happy customer of theirs).

    For what it's worth, they are also having a 25% off sale this week on their press printed books.

    For more information on their books, you can check out http://www.whcc.com/products/press-printed-books/.

    Cheers,

    AJ
  • THANK YOU SO MUCH FOR DOING ALL THIS!
    i just got my blurb book in and i'm very disappointed. i have one also from memoryescape which has better hardcover binding and paper, but less options and really lame glossy cover.
    ASUKA is supposed to be great, but pricier. i'm going to test them out anyway.
    i'm also trying MYCAVAS ( offered through smugmug)

    have a look into those.

    hope that helps too
  • audreyt1947
    Smilebooks by CEWE has the best photobook color, paper quality, easy and flexible software and prices (with nearly constant SIZEABLE coupon specials). The only downside is that it's based in Europe and has no rush order capabilities that I've been able to find. Also, there is seemingly no way to contact them with questions. I had a couple during book creation, found I couldn't get an answer, and proceeded to figure it out myself, so I guess there really was no need to have a contact number. I've tried mPix (awful, despite the positive online reviews) and while their rush capabilities were impressive, the rest of my experience was not, ranging from their incredibly non-intuitive and quirky software to the lack of choice in papers with, incredibly, NO gloss/semi-gloss option (like a coffee table book)! Adoramapix fared little better in the software department and I can't tell you whether the book quaility is any better, since I spent hours online fighting the software to eventually come up with a 26-page masterpiece, only to encounter "Web page cannot be displayed" error message every time I hit "Proceed to Checkout" (day after day). Calling their phone number to order didn't work either, as I waited on hold for almost an hour. I used that time to convert my Adoramapix book to the Smilebooks software and ordered my book from them, which I should have done in the first place. I never did find out if Adoramapix would have taken me off hold and allowed me to order, since, having placed my order with Smilebooks, I hung up on them! Holding my Smilebooks order as I type this, and I'm telling you, you can't go wrong with this company.
  • Thanks for this blog. I've been browsing around as well and was also a bit dismayed by the resulting print quality reviews, especially as a semi-professional author/photographer.

    For me, there's really no point in having a sub-par product printed out and marketed. After following the links from this blog I'm more convinced that Asukabook is a way to go. But they also use Indigo printers -- the same as Blurb! So if anybody else out there has reviews of Asuka I'd love to see that here.
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