The Milk lot look way too expensive to me, see below snip. But it's down to your preferences and what look you want. I have done eight books with Blurb largely because they import a PDF straight from InDesign, and they use photo paper which not only works great for images but text as well, my books are 60,000-90,000 words so not just photo books per se. I've made one or two at 220-240 pages, with 380 images in one. The books feel like they will last a hundred years given benign neglect at least.
Their pricing page is interactive, just enter your page count to test how it works out for you. They offer 40% off every few months, 50% once a year or so. Thie ImageWrap is great for durability. As an example, Blurb does a 180 page in 13x11 for $US260 straight up, prophoto pearl paper and ImageWrap.
In my last order they made a few printing mistakes, but wouldn't redo the job. So I'm dark on them at present and want someone else closer to home, though shipping is incredibly cheap for the weight. Blurb only have one profile for all their papers so they don't really care about CM much. Nevertheless the books have mostly been excellent.
If anyone is looking for one in Europe, Saal-Digital impressed me. I ordered from the US and had it in about 7 days. Here are the settings:
12 x 12 Professional Line Photo Book, Cover: brushed metal print + leatherette, Cover surface: leatherette black, Barcode: no barcode, Spreads: photo paper matte: 40 pages
I used the metal print for the cover. It's very hefty but the printing on the metal cover isn't as good as I would have liked (it's kind of a slightly faded printing). If I was to do it again I would either go with a different cover or choose my cover photo differently. Other than that though the pages and printing is excellent.
Here's my review of it. It's not a great review in terms of video and audio quality and I was rushed at the end to fit it all in, but hopefully it still does the book quality justice.
artsupreme wrote:
Thanks for all the great info, it sounds like I'll be happy with MILK's premium photo book line with the hand stitching. I'll give them a try.
Which size are you going with at Blurb? I just looked at Blurb again and I guess I could live with their large 13"x11" landscape book as it looks decently priced for 100+ pages with the mohawk prophoto pearl paper.
With blurb? The smaller landscape 8x10 I think. I find storage of anything ore than 11inches difficult so personally avoid. They are a good price and software is easy to use, although I am using third party in this instance.
I have their sample kit as I’m working with a client on some portfolio books of their work to use for sales / marketing of their work. The samples look great and prices seem reasonable.
