Photography Thailand Forum

[Chris Savery]

I was interested in making a book with my photos for family members and friends and it seems there are heaps of places doing this online now. I even got samples from one but they didn't look that good. Has anyone ever seen any of the printed books from these places? They don't use normal full CMYK offset printing but rather usually some variation of a instant print machine - like colour copies but better.

I have checked out a bunch but the one that looks to me most attractive is 14" x 11" coffe table style books from viovio.com.
I did a PDF mock up of the book I want to print and I'm happy with the layout. The price is around $7.50 plus 0.50 per page which seems to me pretty good. Just wondering if anyone ever did this and what you thought of the results you got?

Chris :)

[Paul Whitehead]

Chris,

this may be of interest - the article's about aperture but it details a place in Bangkok that is producing photobooks from PDFs:

http://www.extensions.in.th/post3/aperture/aperture3.html

[Marc Schultz]

This company is an actual online book publisher for people who want to self publish their own books and eventually get them into the mainstream book market for sale. It is not really what you are looking for I don't think, but they are one of the most well known on the internet and I thought might at least be interesting to read about what they offer as a general reference:

http://www2.xlibris.com/pb%5Fpubservices/

[Chris Savery]

Thanks Paul.
I had a look at the web site for PrintCafe who do the books (located at Sukhumvit 24). It's very interesting and I'll have to drop in there and see some samples sometime. I'm not in Bkk now so next time I guess. From just a quick look their prices seem at bit high compared to online services like viovio. I sent my pdf file in to viovio and have a sample 5 page book coming now. According to their system it was sent by first class mail a few days ago. I'm very interested to see how it looks. This small book cost me $9.95 and has colour covers and 5 or 6 pages in colour. I thought it best to do a small one before trying a larger more expensive book. I made a booboo though. After sending it in I discovered they had printer profiles on their site to proof the colour. I should have done that first. It may not be perfect but chances are it would be better than not doing it. The book I have coming is 14"x14" square with coil type binding to lay flat. Once you have it online you can order books anytime and send them to whoever you like.

Mark,
I came across xlibris once before when looking for services. I vaguely remember what you mentioned - that it seemed more suited to regular books. Another one that I have sample books from is InstantPublisher.com but they are targeted towards people who want at least 25+ books. For those quantities their prices are very good. The samples look good too. Not as good as high quality offset but better than regular colour laser I think.

Thanks for both your input. For now I'm patiently waiting upon this book to arrive by mail.

[Chris Savery]

Just wanted to update anyone interested in the sample book I ordered. It came today. It is quite impressive and better quality than I was expecting, though not perfect. The paper is gloss and very nice. The cover is not as thick as I would have thought but a bit thicker than the inside pages.

I would say it was directly comparable to good quality magazine or book printing (on thicker paper) but a step down from high quality photo prints. I had several photos with skin tones and most of them looked quite decent. One was bad and I think it was because it had too much black in it. It got that negative effect which sometimes happens with offset printing when the cmyk components have a bad mix. Given that I did not proof it with the correct printer profile, as mentioned above, and I didn't check for problems like that, I think the result is very good.

I'm likely going to go through and re-proof the images and submit the pdf file for a full book this time. If you wanted a book with photo quality then I think the best cost sensitive option is to print photos and mount them in a book format. The cost would be about the same as this overall, but more work no doubt.

[Marc Schultz]

Sounds interesting Chris. It sounds like a great way for photographers also to create printed portfolios to present their work, although printed portfolios seem to be used less and less anymore. Did you mention already where you ended up having this done?

[Chris Savery]

This sample was from viovio.com. It's 11" x 14" wirebound. Cost was $7.49 + 0.50/page. Shipping was by air mail and was close to cost from usps, about $5 for this sample one but maybe a bit more for a book with many pages.

I think for an important portfolio where someone may be scrutinizing photo quality this would not be quite there. But in a case where it's attributes other than photo print quality this would be real nice. It's still not cheaper than photo prints in Bkk but it must be cheaper than the same in USA. You can fit a 8x12 with frame and some border on one page, or two smaller prints. I did various layouts of 1, 2, 3 and 4 photos per page. It's not perfect but it is pretty good considering a few years ago the idea of printing a book in single unit qty would have been absurd. You could still print better images on a good Epson printer but you have an investment cost and high consumables cost there as well.

BTW they have smaller 6" x 9" perfect bound books that were $4.99 + 0.25 / page. I was going to print a couple with my Issan photos to give to people in my girlfriend's village. They would probably love that.

[Ellen Agger]

Hi, everyone. This is an interesting discussion. I've recently learned about www.blurb.com. Sounds good, but I haven't seen a book yet, so I can't describe or verify the quality. Anyone have any experience with blurb?

Ellen

[Chris Savery]

Thanks Ellen.

I hadn't seen that one before. Seems like they're popping up all over now. I checked their pricing and it looks like they're a bit more than viovio.com but also that they offer slightly different products so it's a bit hard to compare 1-1. eg. at viovio the biggest photo book is 14x11 and spiral bound, my 48 page one would be about $31. At Blurb they have a 13x11 size that's hardcover and that many pages would be $64.95. I think the hardcover is desirable but it's a hefty jump in price.

Some of the smaller softcover prices are close or even perhaps better than viovio. So it depends on what someone wanted. And this assumes the print quality is the same - which most likely it's comparable as these services are using the latest gen of colour instant printers on the market.

[Marc Schultz]

Recently I was doing some more research into on-line book printers. Not to print a book with photos, but something with text unrelated to photography. In the process I discovered a very interesting site which offers Print on Demand (POD) services. The site also has a couple of useful Flash video tutorials which explain about how the whole process works. Very very easy to do and no up front cost. You pay as you go in terms of the number of books ordered and they seem to be one of the most successfull at the moment because they have no minimums and no up front costs:

www.lulu.com

There is also a very interesting article/information resource that was put up about the whole on-line book printing business. I found this page to be very enlightening:

http://www.sfwa.org/beware/printondemand.html

[Chris Savery]

Thanks Marc. I saw lulu.com before but that other article is very informative about things that someone doing a small publishing run should know.

I did eventually redo the colour on my book and submit it again and shortly after received the finished book. They did a "good" job. I found the colour was sometimes off (a few photos that I over corrected some perceived faults) but I think it was likely my own doing. It does seem very sensitive. If you go a bit too far in some tonal or colour balance adjustment then it will appear much further in print. The problematic part is that since it is a bound finished product any poor images are very hard to redo. I think in future if I want something like this just for my own "pleasure" then I would just make a book myself using 8x12 Fuji prints glued onto pages. It may not look as slick, but the photo quality would be higher and you can can control and redo any single image easily.

Chris :)

[Marc Schultz]

I just saw something being advertised by IQ Lab called PhotoBook Pro, which is a way of making printed photo books. The web site is all in Thai, but you can have a look here: http://www.photobookthai.com/

[lithium_fire]

Hi there,
I'm new to the forum.

Would like to share my experience using Blurb ( www.blurb.com ). I have used their services to print 4 books. I can say i am very satisfied. Their new book 13"x 11" is the one to note. The size alone matches most photographic books you find in the book store. I choose PREMIUM paper. the weight and quality is an improvement over their usual offering. Their printing is good. It matches closely to my color-calibrated LCD monitor. Lately they now accept PDF submissions, so you can design your own layout ( as long as it fits the books they have ). Orders take about 2-3 weeks from online submission to receiving the final book. Hope it helps!

[Marc Schultz]

I just came across this so I thought I would add it to this thread:

http://www.photobookmartthailand.com/