Printed Photo Book Reviews – Part 4 (including wrap-up)

If you’re just joining this review, so far, I have covered my book-testing plan, reviewed two photo books from ArtsCow, and reviewed my Blurb and Shutterfly purchases.  This post will cover the last two books, from Mixbook and MyPublisher as well as a few final thoughts.

Mixbook

Mixbook was one company about which I could not find many reviews.  I discovered it on one site that listed many, many photo book companies and clicked over to see what it was about.  After looking over their site (and noting their 399-page limit), I wanted to give them a try.

Their book-building software is web-based.  Simply select which book size you want (in this case – 8.5 x 8.5 inches) and then (similar to Shutterfly), which style you would like.  I selected Blank Canvas to get my book as blank as possible to start.  Before continuing, I unselected the “Give me a book that is almost complete” checkbox, as I assumed it would either try to place my photos or give me pre-designed pages (but I’m sure this feature will be useful for someone else). 

I struggled to figure out how to get my pictures full-page in this software.  In fact, I just went back in to walk through my steps and spent another 15 minutes trying to figure it out again (including web searches).  There is an option to upload photos as a background which will work, but I knew that wasn’t what I did when I built the book.  (There is no full-page photo option in their layouts without a text box.)  Finally, I rediscovered it.  On their toolbar is a button that looks like “full-screen” that will stretch the photo to a full page.  Easy.  After the initial discover, anyway!

So, once that is determined, I’d say the software is very easy to use.  BUT the layouts aren’t very customizable, if you’re looking for that.  Then again, they do allow you to resize everything on the screen – just not change the layout starting point (so you’d have to do the same thing on every page, if that’s what you wanted).

I ordered this book on Saturday 5/19 and received it on Tuesday 5/29.  The box was very protective of the book.

Final page:

Back cover:

Spine (sorry it’s blurry):

Front cover:

End sheet:

Along with Shutterfly, this book was of the best print quality of the bunch.  Not too dark, not too light, and good colors.  I think the size of the book helped, too – the pictures were just a little bigger than the other books, and I preferred the way they looked.

Result:  I would definitely use Mixbook again for a family photo book.  I’m very happy with it.  I don’t think I’d use it for a kids’ album (for them to drag around), just because I’m happy with the cheaper options for them.

MyPublisher

I originally decided not to consider MyPublisher – even though they came highly recommended – just because they don’t offer a square book format.  And they only offer landscapes, which wouldn’t be my choice in a non-square.  But, after receiving a free book code, I decided to order one, just to add to my reviews.

Because the book was non-square (5.75 x 7.75 inches), I wasn’t able to use my existing pages that I uploaded for all the other albums.  In the last 10 years of marriage, I haven’t managed to do anything with our wedding photos, so I thought I’d put together a small wedding album for the kids to look at (and me, too!).  But, after doing 5 photo books, and just wanting to finish this, I decided not to scrap the pages myself but just to upload the photos and use their layouts/backgrounds.  (In hindsight, I wish I hadn’t done that, just for consistency.  Live and learn.)

MyPublisher’s software must be downloaded, so after installing the software, I launched it, selected Custom Publisher (more options), and selected my book size.  The next step is to select a theme (limited choices) or “Just Photos”.  Since it was a wedding album, I chose the Wedding theme.  The photo importer is one of the easiest – just select the folder on your hard drive, then drag the photos you want into the workspace.  (I don’t think there are any options beyond getting photos from your hard drive.)

Because I built this book differently, I feel much more strongly about the MyPublisher software.  I felt VERY constrained by the layouts available.  Like sometimes I wanted two vertical photos on a white page, but they only had vertical photos on a green-ish page.  Why??  Again, this is where uploading my own pre-built pages would have been a much more fair comparison.  I’m guessing using the “Just Photos” option would have made it very simple to drop in my full-page photo files.  So, to compare apples with apples, I’ll say the software is similar.

I ordered this book on Sunday 5/27 and received it Monday 6/4.

The box is nice:

Especially the inside – fun!

The book was not as securely packaged as some, but I didn’t see any problems with how it arrived.  It was wrapped in loose plastic, too.

Although, the corner was a little dented.  And, after opening just a few times for this review, there is a distinct white-ish crease down the left side of the book.  I can’t imagine it will look very good at all after being opened 100 times or so.  (None of the other books display any type of similar crease.  I did use a white cover for all of those, though and I think a crease will show much less on white – so that was a good choice.)

Last page:

Back cover:

Spine (sorry – blurry again!):

Front cover (text looked very nice – sorry it’s all whited out):

End sheets are vellum – very nice touch for a wedding album!

Random page:

I think the print quality is okay.  It’s too bad that I can’t compare the same images so I can really see if they’re darker/lighter than other books.  I think the images are pretty true to what I uploaded – maybe just a smidge dark?

Result:  While MyPublisher seems to be a decent product, I won’t be using them again without another free book coupon.  I really want square books and don’t see that these books will be a format I’ll choose.  But, based on print quality, I think they’re just fine.

Final Thoughts

I’m surprised by my major take-away from this experience.  That is that ALL of the photo books are basically fine.  If I’m ordering 12x12 photo books, I don’t think I’d mind mixing and matching brands, based on where I have a coupon.  I think they all stand up pretty well next to each other.

Here are a few photos of the same picture out of the books.

From ArtsCow regular book (very light):

From ArtsCow deluxe book (very dark):

Mixbook – middle of the road.  Although I’m surprised by how much noise I’m seeing in this photo.  Then again, it’s a little blurry, too, so maybe it was just a photography issue.  Let’s just look at the lightness/darkness of this photo, for comparison purposes.

Some of the details I noticed:
Least noise = ArtsCow Deluxe and Shutterfly
Best color = Shutterfly and Mixbook
Most noise = Blurb

Taking all of this into consideration, I think my preference will be Shutterfly or Mixbooks, based on how many pages I have (Shutterfly is limited to 100-ish) and what coupons/sales are available.  Kids’ books will definitely be from ArtsCow (inexpensive).  I would consider using them for a family album (12x12) and seeing if it comes out too light again.  If so, I’d probably stick with just using them for the kids’ pictures.  (They’re not as picky as I am.)

I hope all of this information is useful in your future photo book shopping!

Printed Photo Book Reviews – Part 3

So far in this photo book review process, I have discussed my starting point and reviewed two books from ArtsCow.  On to more books…

Blurb Photo Book

Blurb produces many types of books – not just photo books – and has three book-building options.  The online tool (Bookify) is a bit more limited.  It probably could have done what I needed, but I was unsure, so I decided to download Booksmart.  It’s a bit more customizable.  The third tool is really for professionals and is not free.  Blurb provides a chart to assist in deciding which product is right for you to use.  The installation was quick and straight-forward.

Building the book was a bit more of a hassle, though.  I started a new 7x7 book (as they don’t have an 8x8 option) – “Photo Book” layout, which allowed for full-page photos (which is what I wanted since I prepared full-page layouts).  But the program requires a title page and copyright page (because what self-respecting book doesn’t have one of those??).  I understand that it is a general book-building software and NOT specifically a photo book company, but it seemed more difficult than it should have been to get rid of those pages.  With some tinkering around, I managed to get it to work like I wanted it to.  (I believe I had to go into custom layouts and grab a new full-photo layout to add to “my layouts” so I could overwrite the existing title and copyright pages.)

Another complaint is that Booksmart wouldn’t allow me to use my uploaded spine file.  Luckily, it was just text, so it was easy to recreate in the text-only format it uses.  But it would NOT allow me to NOT see “by Hilarie xxxxxx”.  I removed it multiple times, but, it would reappear the next time I viewed the spine.  (Sneaky thing.)  Again, it’s a book.  It really wants to have an author.

After the book is built, it’s just a matter of previewing it, then ordering/uploading it.  I’d say it took me several minutes to upload the book, but probably not many more than it usually takes to upload a bunch of picture files.

(While I did not use the features, the software seemed to have a LOT of flexibility built in.  Beyond choosing from hundreds of layouts, you could also customize the existing layouts by redrawing photo sizes, etc.  If I wanted to build a book the traditional way, I think I’d enjoy using this software for its flexibility.)

I ordered this book on Saturday 5/19. I received the printed book on Thursday 5/24. That was fast!

Unfortunately, the packaging left something to be desired.  This was the only book “loosely” packaged – just rattling around in a bigger box.  And it showed.  The book arrived with a dented upper/center section on the cover, plus a rough/textured lower center section (just under the cover art), as well.  If I had just paid a lot for a family photo book, I’d be really annoyed!  (Now that I look at the picture again, I remember that it wasn’t completely loose.  The book was shrink-wrapped to a larger piece of cardboard.  But it still could move up/down in the box and did manage to get dented/roughed up.)

Dented upper center of cover:

Back cover:

Spine:

Front cover:

End sheet (light gray):

The last page of the book (before end sheet) is the logo – as is the case in many of the books.  However, as is NOT the case in any other books, this is Page 20 of a 20-page book.  As in, we lost our page 20 and could only use 19 pages.  Annoying.  Really, don’t call it a 20-page book if we only get to use 19 of them!

As for quality, I’d say the printing is a bit lighter than expected. And grainy.  When I caught it in a photograph, I started wondering if it’s the paper they print on.  Or the printer?  It’s difficult to determine.  But there’s some sort of visual texture on the page, which is not what you want in a photo book.  (I think it’s the printing, as the blank/white spaces don’t seem to have that textured look.)

Result – Not the best print quality, and, as much as I really want to like them (for printing a 440 page 12x12 book for under $200!), I just don’t know that I’d use them again.  (Although I might consider contacting them to ask if that printing texture is standard.  I can’t believe that no one else has found that intolerable!)

Shutterfly

Shutterfly is another web-building photo book designer.  After signing in and selecting a photo book to build, the user must select a theme for the book.  As I was uploading full-pages (and the theme would not be seen), this was unnecessary for me.  However, I was still a bit overwhelmed with all the theme choices.  I guess that’s good – lots of options for those wanting a theme.  I chose something neutral (all white maybe?) and moved forward.

At this point, the CustomPath software will allow you to select photos from your computer or choose an existing Shutterfly album.  (Other choices include “other share sites” or Facebook.)  Once the photos are selected, the program will try to place the pictures itself.  At which point I yelled at it hysterically, “Stop, stop!  You will not do this right – please stop!”  (And then I saw the “Place pictures myself” button and hastened to click it.)

This software took me longer to figure out than most.  Especially the title page.  Because you must have a title page.  And full photo is not an option.  But, once I added the full-photo spread (after much clicking around), I was moving forward.  Also, for each page, you must select the full-photo layout.  Every time.  I initially tried “Use picture as background”, thinking that’s how I should get the full-page layout.  But that made them muted colors, so something else could be placed in front of it.  Not right.  Then I correctly located the full-photo option and whizzed through the rest of it.  Whew!

I ordered this book on Sunday 5/27 and received it Monday 6/4.

The box is cute.

And holds the photo book in place securely.

Final page:

Back cover:

Spine – for which it appears I didn’t use my uploaded spine file.  If I remember correctly, I was battling with it – trying to get it to appear in the correct location, but it refused.  So I just typed a new spine with the text tool provided.

Front cover – problem alert.  If I left the cover picture where the program wanted to place it, it was too far to the right, so I scootched it left.  (Yes, I scootched it, regardless of how spell-check feels about it.)  I did this on other books as well with no adverse results.  White file, white background – seems like it shouldn’t be a problem, eh?  But Shutterfly decided it needed to put a black line down the side of my uploaded file.  Why, Shutterfly, why?  In its defense, I did see the black line on the screen – I just assumed (incorrectly) that it was to show me the edge of my photo, not that it would print.  Oh well – not a major issue.  Live and learn.

I love the end sheets Shutterfly uses!  I love a little textured paper (when it’s not behind my photos)!

After comparing all the photo books, I found Shutterfly’s printing to be one of the two best.  Colors were pretty good.  I don’t think there was too much additional noise (other than what I uploaded myself).

Result – A winner, other than price.  This was the most expensive book I reviewed.  With a good coupon code, I would use them again.  Once I figure out how to upload a decent-looking cover.

Next time, the last two books I reviewed…

Printed Photo Book Reviews – Part 2 (the good stuff)

As I mentioned in my previous post outlining the companies I selected to print from, I uploaded the same 20 page files, front cover, back cover, and spine to all of the programs.  They were very simple, because this was just a test book, so I just grabbed a bunch of photos I thought the kids would enjoy looking at.  A sample uploaded page:

And then the process begins.  Each company requires you to create an account on their site.  Each company has its own software (mostly web-based, but a few required downloads to my computer).  There is some learning curve to each.  I’ll detail the process, ease of use, time from order to delivery, and results of each book, below:

ArtsCow Regular Book

This software is web-based but requires a download of SilverLight to your computer, if you don’t already have it.  (I assume it’s something like Flash, but I didn’t look into it.)  I have used ArtsCow several times, so I already had this software installed.

Click to select the photo book of your choosing (8x8, 20 pages for this project) and it will open the project space.  If your photos aren’t already uploaded, there is a button there to do that.  If/when they are uploaded, select the album of photos you wish to use to create the pages.  For full pages, this is the simplest program to use.  Just drag and drop from the album space into the project space.  That simple.  There is an option at the bottom to remove page numbers if you wish (I did).  Once you’re done placing pages, just preview/add to cart.  I’d say this took me 10 minutes or less, even allowing for review time (I’m extra-careful).

I ordered this book on Saturday 5/19.  I received the printed book on Tuesday 5/29.  10 days – not too bad, considering it’s produced in Hong Kong.

Packaging:

Neatly contained inside packing foam for protection.

And shrink-wrapped for even more protection.

Back cover (note bar code):

Spine:

Front Cover:

End sheet (plain white paper):

Open book (note stitching):

This is the only book I received that is stitched (not glued).  Because of that, the pages lay much flatter than any of the glued books.  Not completely flat, but it stays open pretty well by itself.

As for quality, I’d say the printing is lighter than expected.  It’s not awful, but definitely not the best of the bunch.  The actual book quality seems to be really good.  My kids have had ArtsCow 8x8 photo books for a few years now (maybe 3 years) that they carry around randomly – and these have both held up really well.

Result – Not the best print quality, but maybe I could compensate by sending slightly darker files?  But I think the books will hold up.  And the price (often free) can’t be beat.  I’ll definitely use them, especially for books that are for my kids.

ArtsCow Deluxe Book

See above for software and building details.  The process is identical.  I could not order the same book in “deluxe” and “regular”, though.  I had to build the book two separate times.

I ordered this book with the one above on Saturday 5/19.   While I received the other one on 5/29, the deluxe book did not arrive until Monday 6/4.  I guess the printing process/timeline is different for these books.

Also, this book came in the same packaging, packing foam, and shrink-wrap as the other ArtsCow book, so I won’t duplicate the pictures.  I will reiterate that the packaging was very protective of the book, though.

Back cover:

Close-up of the bar code:

A very thick book for 20 pages!

Spine:

Front cover:

PLEASE NOTE  - This book is laid out differently than most!  Page 1 is not on the right-hand side, as in most books.  It is, instead, glued to the front cover.  So, if you planned your book with matching pages (pages 2 and 3 facing each other), this book will not work correctly.  Similarly, page 20 is glued to the back cover.  Fortunately, I uploaded simple white pages throughout the book, so this did not affect me.  But, when I’m planning books more carefully, I do two-page spreads, so I’m sure this will affect some people.

Note the true lay-flat binding.

This book’s pages are thick, like a board book.  They are smooth and look like they’ll really hold up well.  I wouldn’t hesitate to print these books for children to use regularly.

As for quality, I’d say the printing is darker than expected. Like the other ArtsCow book (which was light – strange that they wouldn’t be the same) it’s not awful, but definitely not the best of the bunch.   If this book was not sitting next to other books, though, I’m not sure that the darkness would necessarily annoy me.

Result – Not the best print quality, but maybe I could compensate by sending slightly lighter files? But I think the books will hold up. I would consider using them again (especially for kids), BUT, the limit of 32 pages means they won’t be used for any of our regular family books.

And, as this seems to be getting to be a fairly full post, I’ll need to continue the review next time…