Hello-
I know there have been a number of discussions about this, but don't even know where to start looking so I am starting my own post! I want to start putting a book together of my 365 project, but not sure where to get it printed. My other concern is finding a place that will make books with enough pages to hold 365 photos without the photos being tiny. I know Shutterfly only does 20 page books and it costs $1.50 per extra page which could add up! Has anyone used Blurb or Mixbook? Any suggestions would be helpful, I would like to get started asap! Thanks!
Hi Amy, I used Paperkiwi for mine. You can create your own layouts and they have templates you can choose from. I've also just ordered a photobook from Adorama but I don't get that for another 2 weeks so I can't compare it yet. My books were 8x8 and you get 20 pages with extra pages being 50c each.
I'm also slowly doing a 365 photobook with 7 photos per page. I guess it'll be 52 pages in the end or I'll do 2 books. This is how I've been doing the pages (I like digital scrapping, when I get the time!!)
OMG I was just thinking about this!! Shutterfly, who I normally love for family photos, is not good for the 365. Shutterfly does their own cropping and takes away from the images. I started to put my images in an album on there and just grew frustrated. Even a full page image is Shutterfly cropped! Very annoying. And, you are maxed at 100 pages (that typically fall out if looked at too often). I am looking at Blurb...but I have never purchased one from there. I can let you know if I have success.
A friend of mine put together two civil war photography books using Blurb. I am not sure about the first book, but the second was 160 pages and the photos were relative in size to what you'd see on this site. I don't know anything as far as pricing, but the quality of the books that he's made was good in my opinion.
I just recently thought about putting together a calendar for 2012, but as it's so close to the new year, I doubt I'll be able to get it done.
I've used Blurb before and I don't think there is a limit to the pages you can have in a book... you just keep adding as many as you like as you need them Plus there are different formats and templates to play around with. You can change the templates to your own specifications or design your pages from scratch. There is also a choice of premium papers and covers.
You could try www.123cheese.com.au. I just looked at their website and they send outside Australia. I'm not sure if it will suit you, but just though it's something different you could look into.
I would highly recommend Blurb - used them for my 2011 365project photos - got a beautiful hardback book with all my 365 pics in plus all the notes for each day (and I don't skimp on my notes!) - at what I thought was a really good value price. They have preformatted templates which you can use, but you can customise the templates easily to fit your needs.
We've just done a book on some of our pics for my dad. We used Photoworld.co.uk. It might not be of use to anyone outside the UK but I'd like to say the service was excellent and the book looked amazing. You design it all yourself from their templates. I couldn't have been happier........except maybe the price was a little more than expected. I didnt mind as it was a present though :)
I used Blurb too - I did a page a day, plus some other stuff, I think it ended up being something like 450 pages. The quality is superb (great hardback) and the software is really easy to use. It cost £65. I have used them for other hardback travel books too.
I have used Blurb and it was awesome. Here is a link to my 2010 book so you can check, out the layout if you like. http://www.blurb.com/books/2698909
My folks bought me this for Christmas and it looks great! This was with the premium matt paper. I've also ordered a wedding book from them with the ProLine Pearl paper, and it was great.
For 2011's book, I have been a lot more selective about which photos to use, so I will get like an 80 page book with the ProLine Pearl paper and compare it side by side with the premium matte paper book from 2010.
@twinsplusone You decide what you want per page. Blurb has page templates and you can decide which one to use per page. I also created a bunch of my own.
@musicguy1982 that is a really wonderful book! I really want to make one but it seems so overwhelming. Seeing yours helps me to envision the possiblities. Congrats that yours is done and thank you so much for sharing!
i'm using shutterfly, just because i'm obsessed with shutterfly
they've changed the books a little bit so you can customize each page, and not just use the layouts they supply....
if you catch it at the right time, the books can be up to 40% off...or sometimes a free 8x8 book, and you just have to pay for pages past 20 pages...
there are some pictures i'm not too happy with, so i didn't need a full page per picture, so i just fit each month onto 2 pages.....
this is how it looks so far (obv i'm not done with dec yet...and i need to work on a front cover) http://danielles365.shutterfly.com/pictures/197
I used snapfish.com I ordered three 12x12 hard covers for around $75. They are having a pretty good sale now. If you search for "coupon codes" you may be able to get a better deal at any website you choose. snapfish did crop a few photos with a few of the layouts that I chose. But over all I was happy with the end result.
@kiwichick@musicguy1982@dkg Looked at all three albums. Very impressive. Maybe it is affordable, doable, and handsome. @mandyj92 Did you mean you got 3 books for $75 or $75 for each book? I'm going to look for discounts. Thanks for your help!
I used photobox ofr my wedding album and was able to comment on each photo, plus create my own layout.
I have also used LIDL on line, not sure if outside UK, the book was also nice but software not so easy to use as photobox.
Plus I paid half price for my photobox books, I waited for the offer to come up :-D
@kmrtn6 I started playing around on Blurb, did you find it took awhile to figure things out? How many pages are you doing? Just curious. It seems it will take some planning to make a book! :)
you can design a layout then copy it for the entire book - text included. took me about 100 pages to work it out, but now its ok. mine has the 365 photos, a blank page at start and some at the end a i'm going to index it @amers79
using as of recommendations on here really, apparently the quality is great
MyPublisher will also work. They have a limit of 20 pages for most books, but ALWAYS have specials. My wife says, "NEVER buy a MyPublisher book without a coupon!" She says they do specials often (including no extra charge for books up to 100 pages). The whole process is done on your own computer, then you upload the whole file to the website. You can save your project for months until a special runs, then upload and order... http://www.mypublisher.com/
@lisjam1 I am trying Blurb, just curious how many pages you will end up with? About how many photos on a page? I don't want my photos to end up being really small!
I used blurb for a themed photography book I created for a mid-term project in my Advanced Photography course. I had between 100-200 images on 81 pages. Some pages held multiple photos in varies configurations and some photos covered 2 pages.
At the time I made the book the 2 page spread had to be manually done but I figured it out easy enough. Blurb has since updated their 2-page spread functionality. I haven't made another book since that project so I'm not able to share how well it works. There was a bit of cropping on some of my images, like the ones used on the covers (because I chose image wrap) and especially the ones I used for the 2 page spreads. If you want a 2-page spread you'll have to sacrifice the top or bottom of your photo to fit it across the length.
The end product came out gorgeous. I did the hard cover, wrap style in the biggest option with the highest quality paper choice offered. Because it's a one-off process buying the book is pricey to some but affordable for others - it's all relative. My 81 page book retails up to $88.00. I might try other vendors for future books, but I was so happy with how easy it was to use blurb (and customize it to my own liking) that my next book will also be with them.
If you are curious, you can see the preview. I have it set to view all pages:
I DO NOT like MIxbook. I had a groupon for them so I made a sample album to test the quality. Thier pages a re thin, their turn around time is slow, and their shipping and handeling charges are outragously high in my opinion.
I prefer Album Epoca. The are a pro site, and you must have your tax information to set up an account. They are amazing and offer free design service with unlimited number of revisions. Don't get me wrong, they are a LOT more expensive then shutterfly etc. But you pay for what you get...and you put a year of your life into this project so I would not skimp on the quality of album.
@dkg Your book is looking great Danielle. I really want to make myself a book and am inspired by all the examples on this thread. I really didn't want to cram a whole month worth of photos onto a few pages but it looks great that way in yours. Decisions, decisions!
@kjarn thanks!
i started out using the layouts they provide, but there's a customize page option now that lets you change the size of the pictures and move them around a bit, and add more to the page....i've spent a lot of time getting it to look right....
only 2 more days and i can order it!
well, i need a good cover page first....
Try ArtsCow.com ... they send a bunch of coupons ... their books are very reasonably priced ... I've seen people do a 2 page spread for each week ... a lot of times on artscow.com you can get several free books ...
Tweets ahoy!
Join the Group
Pin With Me
Would love to help you and suggest where to print but unfortunately I´ve only know some places here in Germany ;)
I'm also slowly doing a 365 photobook with 7 photos per page. I guess it'll be 52 pages in the end or I'll do 2 books. This is how I've been doing the pages (I like digital scrapping, when I get the time!!)
I just recently thought about putting together a calendar for 2012, but as it's so close to the new year, I doubt I'll be able to get it done.
My folks bought me this for Christmas and it looks great! This was with the premium matt paper. I've also ordered a wedding book from them with the ProLine Pearl paper, and it was great.
For 2011's book, I have been a lot more selective about which photos to use, so I will get like an 80 page book with the ProLine Pearl paper and compare it side by side with the premium matte paper book from 2010.
they've changed the books a little bit so you can customize each page, and not just use the layouts they supply....
if you catch it at the right time, the books can be up to 40% off...or sometimes a free 8x8 book, and you just have to pay for pages past 20 pages...
there are some pictures i'm not too happy with, so i didn't need a full page per picture, so i just fit each month onto 2 pages.....
this is how it looks so far (obv i'm not done with dec yet...and i need to work on a front cover) http://danielles365.shutterfly.com/pictures/197
I have also used LIDL on line, not sure if outside UK, the book was also nice but software not so easy to use as photobox.
Plus I paid half price for my photobox books, I waited for the offer to come up :-D
using as of recommendations on here really, apparently the quality is great
http://www.mypublisher.com/
At the time I made the book the 2 page spread had to be manually done but I figured it out easy enough. Blurb has since updated their 2-page spread functionality. I haven't made another book since that project so I'm not able to share how well it works. There was a bit of cropping on some of my images, like the ones used on the covers (because I chose image wrap) and especially the ones I used for the 2 page spreads. If you want a 2-page spread you'll have to sacrifice the top or bottom of your photo to fit it across the length.
The end product came out gorgeous. I did the hard cover, wrap style in the biggest option with the highest quality paper choice offered. Because it's a one-off process buying the book is pricey to some but affordable for others - it's all relative. My 81 page book retails up to $88.00. I might try other vendors for future books, but I was so happy with how easy it was to use blurb (and customize it to my own liking) that my next book will also be with them.
If you are curious, you can see the preview. I have it set to view all pages:
http://www.blurb.com/books/1838513
I prefer Album Epoca. The are a pro site, and you must have your tax information to set up an account. They are amazing and offer free design service with unlimited number of revisions. Don't get me wrong, they are a LOT more expensive then shutterfly etc. But you pay for what you get...and you put a year of your life into this project so I would not skimp on the quality of album.
i started out using the layouts they provide, but there's a customize page option now that lets you change the size of the pictures and move them around a bit, and add more to the page....i've spent a lot of time getting it to look right....
only 2 more days and i can order it!
well, i need a good cover page first....