I did my very first photo books through Shutterfly.  I only own one, but I’ve made 2 others for gifts.  The one that I have is the 8.5×11 classic photo book with the “suede-like” hard-cover and cut out window.  I’ve had this book for about 3 years now, and it’s gotten pulled off the shelf occasionally… the binding is starting to come undone (at the front cover, and first pages).

I am hoping that my other photo books fare better for the binding.  Other than that, the outer cover is nice. I’m still a big fan of the custom covers, and it looks like Shutterfly  now offers a couple options for those.  But the cut out cover looks really nice.  It opens up to a black page with the cut out, and then the first printed page, which I used for a title page.

Here’s one of the interior pages.  I used their layouts to save time (I usually get a coupon or sale in my email, then have to try to churn one out before it expires).   Shutterfly is my favorite consumer photo book company for their layouts.  The layouts are simple, look nice, and you’re not totally limited in what you can write for the captions (the text gets smaller the more you write). You can, of course, do more if you create your own layouts (using an imaging program like Photoshop, Paint Shop Pro, or the Gimp).

For the printing quality, the pages are not as thick as the professional book, but they aren’t too thin either.  If you look close at the pictures, you can easily see the dots from the printing.  The text from Shutterfly’s layouts is nice and crisp, and easy to read.  The skin tones on the people are good, provided the original photo had good color.  The printing on any of the photo books doesn’t look as nice as the printing on photographic paper (although the professional one comes close), but that comes just from the fact that the printing process for books is different.

For pricing, Shutterfly is currently having a 20% off Photo books sale until June 5.  A 20 page 8.5×11 hardcover photobook like mine would cost $29.99 for 20 pages (sides) plus $1 per additional page (regular price) and $8.99 for standard shipping.  This particular book has 29 pages, and it was actually hard to pare it down, I had to put more pictures per page.

It’s been awhile since I created a photo book through them, but their software was a java app that worked in the browser, and worked pretty well.  I don’t think it was too terribly hard to use.

If you’re creating your first photo book, and want to use pre-made templates, and have something that comes out looking nice, I’d go give Shutterfly a shot.

Tomorrow: I’ll review Winkflash’s photo books.

Update (Since people seem to be finding this post on Google):

A day or so after I posted this, I was contacted by Shutterfly (!!!!) with an offer to replace my photobook for free!  And they offered a free 8×8 storybook with custom cover to compensate for the shipping the old one back to them, and to try out their custom covers. So I have to say… their customer service is bar none.  I replaced that photo book, and ordered the 8×8 and I really love their templates.  The 8×8 one that I made looks beautiful.  (I haven’t had time to post an update with pictures).

I’m currently trying out MyPublisher (now that they have a Mac version), and another Blurb book.  Just in creating the books, I like Blurb’s prices (especially for the 100+ pages this is turning out to be) but their templates are ugly.  MyPublisher has very basic templates (not the beautiful backgrounds that Shutterfly has), but they have enough variety that I can put some horiz and some vert on a page, and their captioning was ok too.  I didn’t like their cover options.  I did like the 50% off coupon I had though, so my 99 page book that would’ve been $105, came to $60 with shipping.  The Blurb one will probably be about the same.  They would’ve been over $100 with Shutterfly, even with their 25% discounts for pre-buying books in quantities of 4.

So I’m still debating about whether I want to have beautiful books that I dont need to design each and every page (I -can-, I just don’t have the time to) but pay quite a bit more and go with Shutterfly, or have cheaper but not as pretty books with the other places.  From what I’ve seen with all the photo book vendors, that’s my choice, and that, is my big review of photo books.