I was linked to this web site today called Professional Child Photographer . com and it really struck a chord with me.  I go around in circles a lot of times with friends and family about why I do things the way that I do them when it comes to working my photography business.

Basically, my goal is to give people everything of the highest quality that I can give them (ok, there are some limits). Anyone can snap a bunch of ‘pics’ … I am practicing all the time with my camera, studying photography in books and online, I go into a situation and analyze what direction and quality the light is, where would be the best placement of things, how to pose people so they look their best, and I work my camera in manual mode so that I get the results that I want.  With good looking photos to start with, I then enhance them in Photoshop and use my artistic eye as well as lots of learning and practice to get the effect I’m going after.

So if you want a good explanation of why custom photography is expensive, please read that article.  It will be very enlightening!

A while ago, I tried out Blurb to make a book. This was when they just had dust jackets, but now they  have image wraps.  Their novel idea is to not charge per page, so they charge one price for 0-40 and another for 41-80 (and more, but I can’t see any of my books having more pages than that).  This book that I made has 61 pages, because I wasn’t paying per page.

I’m not a huge fan of the dust cover, but it does look nice. (Provided no one rips it). If I try another Blurb book, it will definitely be their image wrap.  Underneath the dust cover, the cover is plain black.  I had no idea what to write for the inside of the dust cover, so I just babbled about Maylie there.

Their templates with words are a bit more geared towards and actual book that is about something, not really for a photo album with captions.  And the layout wasn’t the best for what I wanted it for, but that was my own fault, I certainly could’ve designed my own pages.

The pages are definitely thinner than Shutterfly or Winkflash, but it’s an acceptable thickness.  The binding looks like it’s stitched instead of glued, and the cover easily opens all the way, so I don’t foresee it coming apart.

As you can see, the layout is kind of so-so for showing off your pictures.  At least with the amount of text I wanted to write in the book.  (I got the idea to write stories about the child in the book, anecdotes and things they’ve said, as well as milestones…)

The print quality for the photos is ok.  I’d say it’s on par with Shutterfly and Winkflash.  The text in the book is crisp and clear, but I didn’t have any full page spreads that I created, all the text was typed into their editor.  I’d say it’s an OK book.  I didn’t have problems creating it, and it’s put together fine.  I would order from them again (at least now that they have a custom cover instead of the dust cover).

Pricing (10×8 hardcover): (dust jacket) 0-40 pages – $29.95,  (imagewrap) $31.95. 41-80 pages (dust jacket) – $35.95, (imagewrap) $37.95.  I think they give you a good bang for the buck there.   I do like the size of shutterfly’s books better (it’s a little bit bigger and longer), but an 80 page book for less than $40 is pretty good.

Ok, now this has got to be the ugliest photo book ever.  I’m regretting even making it, I thought I’d be able to customize the cover, and then their customizations only had ugly templates.  And after I’d spent the time to design all the pages, I didn’t want to scrap them and go with a different company.  And I had an awesome coupon for Winkflash.

So anyway… don’t get a photo book there, even if you have a good coupon.  I’ll tell you why.

They don’t give a good preview of what the finished page will look like if you use their text and template.  I stupidly thought, “Well, we’ll see what it looks like afterwards, maybe it’ll be OK”.  No… no… it’s not ok.  That right there was the most attractive looking cover I could come up with, and that’s saying a lot. Their templates are hideous, and you don’t have the option to design your own cover.  You can put the title under the picture (in only one font choice, and only one size), and that’s about it.  And I paid a premium for it! I should’ve gone with the plain cover.

The cover is a plasticky material, slightly puffy.  In the binding you can see that the pages are stapled together for the binding.  Which I suppose is better than the glue in the Shutterfly book that’s coming apart, but for the price I’d expect something a bit better than staples.

That is one of the pages I designed. (I did use their template a couple times in the book… and they look the same as the cover for the most part, very uninteresting and IMHO pretty ugly).  If you’re going to design each and every page, it’s not so bad (other than the cover).

However, their java software was VERY painful to use.  If you upload all the pages all at once, you won’t have a problem.  But if you want to upload 4 at a time, design 4 more, upload 4 more… then the software will not update a folder with the new images.  You have to create a new folder for each upload, and go back and select it every time (at least on my Mac, I don’t know if IE on a PC would be different).  If you go back and select a catch-all folder, it won’t see the new images.  It took a lot of futzing around to complete the silly book.

And then there’s the printing.  I created each page to spec, and the text on the pages isn’t crisp, it’s grainy (more noticeable in the small text).  I create printed stuff all the time, and the text isn’t grainy, but it’s grainy in this book.   On the pages with their templates, that text is crisp, but then I’m pretty sure it’s not printed from a jpg either since they don’t give you a good preview of those pages.

I think the printing is better in the Shutterfly book.  The photos are a bit grainy too (you can see a dotted effect from the printing, so the photos are slightly fuzzy when on the monitor they were sharp).  If you’re just casually flipping through someone’s photo book you probably wouldn’t notice that, but I’m looking closely at the pages because I’m reviewing the books.

The pages are slightly shiny (nice) and they feel slightly thicker than Shutterfly’s pages (nice).  But other than that, I give this book a big thumbs down.  There are scads of other photo book companies out there, for a timeless memento, there’s no point in wasting your time with this place.  Poor Maylie has to suffer with a horridly ugly book for all eternity, don’t do that to your kids.

Pricing: 30.95 for up to 20 pages in a 10×8 book, 50c per additional page. $6.99 to ship the first book.  For a plain cover, it’s $18.95 for up to 20 pages, 50c each additional page, $6.99 to ship the first book.