neighbourboy
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 Uncle Bob does an album (updated w/album review) | |
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Just another quick thanks for all the suggestions. I put many of them to use before sending it to the printer. I thought I\'d do a quick review, \'cuz I know there are some amateurs lurking around like me, that might be interested in the consumer line books like this. I don\'t do much printing and have very little experience with books, but here are my thoughts anyway.
I used AdoramaPix and did their lay flat book. It was just a little over $50.00 for a 50 page book, which I\'m guessing is quite inexpensive. Although I\'m not sure what the really high quality books cost, because most of them don\'t seem to list their prices unless you have an account with them.
For the most part, I\'m happy with it, but there are a few things I think they could improve on.
First off, the things I like:
- As I mentioned it\'s inexpensive, I think one of the more inexpensive ones I found for lay flat.
- I\'m really happy with the print quality. I used the Lustre finish and really like how it looks.
- The pages seem nice and thick.
- They were super fast. I put the order in last weekend and had the book on Wednesday.
- The online interface to build the book was fairly nice and straight forward. But I like to build everything myself, so I just uploaded my pictures and used my own format. It would be nice if they had a PDF template to use, especially for the cover. I couldn\'t find one, unless I just missed it.
The stuff I think they could improve:
- Packaging. I do have to give them credit - they did try to do a good job here and maybe USPS thrashed it, but the packing was pretty torn up. They did put the book in a tissue sleeve, then a paper cushion inside a cardboard box. But the tissue was pretty much destroyed and the book had broken through the paper cushion on the edges. But it was at least still held in place, so it didn\'t bang around against the box itself.
- The edges were a bit banged up. Not really dented or anything, but the ink was worn off or something. I don\'t know if it was from banging around in the packing, or because of the bends on the paper. I would have been curious to see it before it shipped and see if the edges were white like this before shipping.
- B&W pictures that cross the seam have a weird purple line on the seam. It\'s not that noticeable, I really have to look for it, but it\'s there. Maybe that\'s one of those things that can\'t be avoided, when you end up folding a B&W picture like that. Oh and the picture below is a little exaggerated. I boosted saturation a bit, to make it more visible.
- The first and last page are glued directly to the cover. You can see where the cover wrap ends, because there\'s a about a 1/2\'\' thick ridge around the border of the first and last page. I\'m not sure how they\'d fix that, other than have an extra cover sheet, or maybe put a piece of cardboard between the first page and the cover.
- On the binding side of the first and last page, it kinda comes off a little from the cover. I\'m guessing it will be OK, but it does make you a little nervous that it might start to peel off the cover. Plus it just looks a little goofy. So you combine the ridge with this and the 1st and last pages look a little off.
Anyway, I know that sounds like a lot of improvement suggestions. But really, for the price I paid, I would say the book meets my expectations. Like I said, I\'m really happy with the picture quality, which was the most important thing for me. This is a free gift for them, and I know they\'ll be happy with it and won\'t worry about the little nit picky things that I brought up.
Would I use them again? Yes, I think I would. There aren\'t a lot of options as far as lay flat books go, for folks like me who aren\'t a professional. Picaboo looks like they have a very nice product, but not surprisingly they are also a lot more expensive.
Take care
--David
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Greetings,
I did some photos for my friends in Uncle Bob capacity back in 2009. I think the whole wedding was done for under $1000.00. Most of the stuff was done by friends for free: cake, locations, decorations, photos, so it was a very simple affair.
I was planning on surprising them with an album shortly after the wedding, but they moved outta state, we lost contact and I kinda forgot about it. Well they moved back in state, so I remembered that I was going to do this and I\'m putting it together very quickly. I\'m planning on trying the lay flat books by Adoramapix, because they seem to be the only consumer end printer that offers the lay flat books. All the other guys want you to be legit, which I\'m not.
I\'d love to get any thoughts on the layout. Or if you just want to make fun of uncle Bob, I\'m cool with that too. 
I tried to stick with a very simple layout. The bride\'s father is also pretty prominent throughout. She asked me to get lots of pictures of him during her wedding, because at the time he had recently been diagnosed with cancer.
Thanks for looking
--David
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