Your own book

[sinwen]

Hi all,

Years ago when it came out I bought a nice Epson printer 4000pro. I tried different inks, plaid with it and get really nice prints.
Today I seldom use it, I found cheaper and more challenging to make a book of my pictures.
Let me explain, instead of printing with heavy inks & paper cost, I make series of 30 pictures (one per page) and load them through internet to a company which is making a book from these pictures. You handle everything on the composition of the book.
The book quality has improved with the years and is now of very high quality, at least from this company I use. You can get hard/soft cover, glossy/semi-mat, Portrait/Italian, and a bunch of different formats.
The cost is far below printing yourself, colours are right in. You don't have prints everywhere in the house anymore :angel:

It is also interesting because it forces you to make some 30 good pictures (if you place one per page) to hold a subject, that's not too much nor not enough.

Anyone else does this ?

The pictures I placed in the gallery are out of one of these book :
http://forum.getdpi.com/gallery/browseimages.php?do=member&imageuser=449

NOTE: I didn't mention the company's name because it is in France and I don't want it to be assimilated to pub.

 

[gandolfi]

Sinwen,
You have some beautiful images and I'm sure they make a great book.
However I would like to know more. I do not think it would be incorrect of you to give us all some more information.

Cheers,
Gandolfi.

 

[Ron (Netherlands)]

Why only 30? in my store you can have standard 80 pages with a max of 120. I made two books of my South West USA trip.

 

[cjlacz]

I thought about doing something like this for my parents. Aperture seems to have a pretty powerful book creation tool in it.

 

[sinwen]

Ron,
I don't have 120 good pictures of one subject. It would be tiring at best anyway. But you can stack 4 pictures per page then you get your 120.
They may have bigger book by now I don't know.

Gandolfi,
One book A4 size is around 40€, more you order of the same book cheaper it gets.
Somebody already asked me in a PM the contact of the company which I'll give no problem.
Many companies are proposing this, here is one which seems famous but I didn't try it:
http://www.lulu.com/fr/products/?cid=fr_tab_publish

The purpose of the thread wasn't to speak where and which company is better, no It was on the idea of getting a book instead of printing.

 

[LJL]

Sinwen,
I had started doing the same thing you did at first, with an Epson 2200 printer, then an Epson 4000 also, but I was doing stuff double sided. (Much more work figuring out the offset, feeding sheets, etc.) I sold "custom" books to my clients (equesrian competition) that spanned an entire season, a special event, etc. It was very unique at the time, and the prints were not press prints, but true high quality inkjet prints. (I was using Epson Ultrasmooth fine art paper, as it would allow double sided printing, but its surface is fairly fragile, so it mars easily.) I then moved to single-sided work, but still faced the issue of interleaving glassine and scoring the pages so they would bend at the spine while viewing. Way too much work, and not enough folks willing to pay for all that labor and effort.

The wedding photo business ushered in some very nice new options for creating rather elegant books on heavier backing, scored and mounted in ways that things could lay flat. Still a good option. My other client base (polo players) wanted books of images, rather than buying single prints and creating their own albums. I have been using Aperture for creating these for the past several years, and clients love it. They are not "fine art printing", but standard press printing at a dot pitch about would you see in most good magazines. Very acceptable for casual viewing, and the color fidelity is quite good. The layout options are extremely flexible also.

As you comment, not looking to push one service over another, or anything like that. Merely offering up my experience in that folks do like being able to acquire a nice collection of images in a book. There is always the option that they can purchase a fine art print of any of the images, should they want to do that. (I have had quite a few folks opt for large canvas print versions of some things, so I know that works too.)

One thing worth doing is checking the quality of printing in the various offerings. Some printing houses are now even offering much heavier weight papers, and some even offering prints on fine art papers, still in a book form. I do think that there is a market for this kind of thing, and even as a way to create small, inexpensive "portfolios" for the photographer to have to show others.

I will put in the plug for Aperture, as I have found the output to be quite good, the cost very reasonable, and flexibility of creating the kind of book you want to be very good. I presently do "hardcover" final versions in 11"x8.5" complete with a dust jacket, but also create "pocket books" in a smaller size and soft cover for "mini-collections". Books are a very overlooked offering for folks looking to sell their stuff. The wedding guys still make it a central part of their offerings as "the album", but there are lots of other avenues for photographers to create some very nice things that folks will buy.

LJ

 

[sinwen]

LJ,

Interesting to see the pro side.
As a pure amateur I found out printing a book to be more challenging because you are force to select some 30 pict to complete a subject, thing you never do otherwise.
Then you have to compose the paging, it is a follow up of snaping, we usually never care about coupling pictures, here you have to.
The book is in fact going to be all what's going to be left of the work done, no more hundreds crap slides stacked in shoe box you never watch.
But I find some other avantages, no more disparate prints pilling up into the cupboard, just the digital files of the book keep somewhere on a HD or CD.... and finally a great pleasure to flip through the book anytime.