Blurb Forums

Dust Jackets printing is too soft...

Hello all,

I have printed a few books with blurb now and although we all know the problems with the binding I find the actual printing quality is very good.

There’s one thing though. The same book printed in soft cover and hardcover offers very different quality on the cover photograph. The soft cover is great but the dust jacket of the hardcover is a bit soft and the colours appear faded.

Can someone offer some advise? Different soft proofing profile?

Thanks.

Ancela, you are looking at output from three different devices. The book pages are printed on an HP Indigo press, the soft cover cover is printed on an iGen3 press and the hard cover dust jacket is printed on a Xeikon press. The reason for the multiple output devices is due to constraints on paper size with the Indigo, which is our preferred output device.

You can assume that each device is stable within manufacturers guidelines so I suggest using your current output as your “proof” and adjusting from there to get a more pleasing color on your dust jackets.

Best,

—bw

Hello all,

I have to agree with Ancela, though I was reasonably happy with the images inside my book, the dust jacket was unacceptably washed out and soft, which is (needless to say) disappointing! The difference between the quality of the printing on the hardcover dust jacket (a 7×7 inch by the way) and the images inside the book is massive.

I do think, now I learn that there are not just two different output devices, but three, that more should be made of that by Blurb, ie, clear warnings of such, either in the software, or on the site somewhere. If I had known in advance that the cover would require extra tweaking to make it look as good as the images inside my book then I would have done it – after all, first impressions are important, and despite the old adage ‘Never judge a book by its cover’, most people will do just that!

And it is galling that I would need to spend another £40 just to get the dust jacket to an acceptable quality level!

Best regards,
[ j ]

I printed out copies of my photos and noticed my photos are light – faded.

When I printed them in photo mode they come out fine. 

Wondering how they will come out after publishing?

Should I adjust the color (darker) before sending?