yup. I got my first yesterday.

I’m on the fence so far. It feels a bit “cheap” – kinda like a bad yearbook. But I may be influenced by the fact that it arrived damaged. It makes me wonder if it will hold up. (I’ve sent the email request for help- haven’t heard back yet except for the “we got your email auto response) I’m not fond of the surface gloss level- I much prefer what I’ve been getting with both the hard and soft covers previously.

I’m on the way out the door- but I’ll be back and post some links to my photos of the book on Flickr later.

Amelia

I have some photos up on Flickr.

This one shows the ImageWrap in between a soft and a hardcover. I was trying to show the difference in glossyness of the covers, but it didn’t come out very well. If you like a matte finish, you will love the ImageWrap.
http://www.flickr.com/photos/flyingfur/2512051987/in/photostream/

this one shows the edges of the three types of books so you can see the difference.
http://www.flickr.com/photos/flyingfur/2512879914/in/photostream/

I’m still on the fence. I know that the fact that the book arrived damaged in the upper left corner is coloring my opinion. It makes me wonder if the book will hold up to repeated handling. There are also white flecks on the cover- but that’s due to the printing process and I’ve had issues with that on many of my Blurb books.

I still feel the book feels somehow “cheaper” than a book of the same page count does in hard cover. But I’m not sold one way or another.

Amelia

(forgive me for not posting the photos here, but last time I tried that they got all squished and looked terrible. and since we can’t edit our posts- I didn’t even want to deal with it)

Teri-

I’ll let you know. And this weekend my husband comes home- he’s my major reality check. Sometimes I get hyper picky about things and he’s quite good at giving me a figurative slap upside the head. So we’ll see what he thinks.

Amelia

I’m sure people’s taste will vary. Some like glossy, some like matte. Once they start letting you order a book with BOTH the ImageWrap and a dust cover, then we will be in business!
Every other time I’ve held one of my books in my hands I’ve felt: “wow, this is so cool, it really is like a real book”. This one feels like: “hmm, why did we go with the cheaper company this time?” (when in fact, it was more expensive. go figure) anyway- as with almost all that is discussed on these boards: it’s a matter of taste. But in all honestly- if I picked up a book like this in a bookstore. based on it’s feel. based on it’s weight. I wouldn’t pay the just under $50.00 it cost me to print and ship it here. I have another book from Blurb that cost me just under $100 to print- and it’s worth every penny to me. So I’m sure some of my “I’m not sure about this” comes from the damage, some comes from the recent cost increases. For now, however, I’ll probably stick to the hardcover until they get a choice of both ImageWrap and dust jacket.

Amelia

Hi Lee-
It’s not exact. It seems to be anywhere from 1/16” to 1/8”. Do you have any Blurb hard cover books? Because it’s really just like those- except it’s your printed cover that wraps around instead of the black “fabric”. Hope that makes sense. If not- let me know and I’ll take some more photos.

Hmm… just re-read your question. I was answering based on what is visible not the physical amount. As for physical amount: there appears to be 3/4” of cover from the edge to the inside that is then covered with the white paper.

Amelia

Amelia,

Thanks for the photos… very helpful. I personally think the book looks great but i can appreciate the difference in "FEEL" as i have not orderd a book yet.

 I think someone with more experience with the forums/website should post a link to the flickr group with all the pictures of books! very insightful and wonderful too see. And will put minds at ease to see beautiful finished products instead of reading some of the bad reviews found here in the forums and getting frightened like i did. just a suggestion.

 Also, Amelia, how did you create your cover with all the scattered polaroids? Photoshop i presume? something i cant afford or probably even use for that matter.. hehe

- bobbie 

Nice! I didn’t know those pictures were available. Thanks for the link.

Teri 

bobbie – I did a very similar style of cover with overlapping "Polaroids" on my book here: http://www.blurb.com/bookstore/detail/246773

I don’t have Photoshop but I did it in Paint Shop Pro which came bundled with an old digital camera I had. You don’t need a very advanced graphics program – I just put white borders round each picture in the right sizes, added a text box for the writing on the bottom border, then dropped each one as a new layer/selection onto the page and added a drop shadow.

I disagree – I’ve just received my Image Wrap book and it looks fantastic – certainly not cheap in any way. I think the matt cover looks a lot more professional than the glossy dust jacket with plain black linen covers.

 More in-depth comments and photos to follow in a new thread when I get a chance, but in a word – Wow!

Thanks Rob, thanks Teri,

with both of you saying they’re OK I’ll give it a try, though it will be about 3 weeks before I finish the book and order, but you’ve given me comfidence in the product.

Amelia, how did your hubby’s reality check go?

.........Tony

After reading Amelia’s comments, I would also toss in that my book’s cover was predominately (90%, I’d say) photograph, so not much blank color.  Further, the cover is admittedly VERY matte, which dulls vibrant colors somewhat, so those are some things to keep in mind.  Personally, I was very pleased, but I can see how someone wishing for a more accurate representation of vibrant color may be disappointed.

I must say I’m puzzled by the number of people who say they are not impressed by ImageWrap. To me it looks several orders of magnitude more professional than the dust jacket. Different tastes I suppose, but having the picture directly on the cover with a very classy matte finish looks a lot better to me than an overly shiny dust jacket that will soon get creased and torn.

I got my image wrap today June 3, 2008 and it does feels and look cheap.  It feels I have glue or something rough on front and back cover.  I avoid Image wrap.

That has to be a printing glitch, I’ve never seen anything like that, especially printing from the same file.  I would certainly think that you should contact Customer Service about that, see if they will reprint it for you!

>>I must say I’m puzzled by the number of people who say they are not impressed by ImageWrap. To me it looks several orders of magnitude more professional than the dust jacket. Different tastes I suppose, but having the picture directly on the cover with a very classy matte finish looks a lot better to me than an overly shiny dust jacket that will soon get creased and torn.<<

Actually, count me in on those that think the dust jacket is a much more professional look. Think about it—look at any quality hardcover book in the bookstore—it has a dust jacket. What’s under that jacket? A linen cover, with usually just the title,author and publisher embossed or printed.  That, to me, reads "quality" book. ImageWrap looks to me like something you’d find on the bargain table.

 Now, a perfect Blurb book for me would be the dust jacket version, with the title/author printed on the linen spine and cover. ImageWrap doesn’t appeal to me! That said, I was curious to try it but after reading these reviews won’t bother, as what I’ve heard reinforced my first impression. 

The image wrap looks OK. I also lost the inside flap info. Noweher did it say I would lose that when I ordered. I was under the impression that would wrap inside.

But my biggest problem is the binding. The book is not flush to the spine at all. It cracks and crackles when opened and paged through. There’s a good 1/16 of space between the bound pages and the actual cover spine. As a photo pro, I have enough exposure to printing to know that the pages will soon come loose.

Is this a one off or all they all like this? The color is fine but the binding is a real problem and I would not recommend getting Imagewrap if this is the way they’re all done. The books will simply fall apart in a short time.

TR 

My Book called Yellowstone, after receiving my book two weeks ago, the imagewarp has glue like substance that is coming undone from the book.  When I ordered the imagewarp, I assumed that I would receive both the book cover and the imagewrap together, I was wrong. After watching the video posted on Blurb few days ago, I see you don’t receive both.

 If anyone is reading this blog, the photo I use for my book cover should be colorful but it seems that the process of imagewarp really dulls the colors and the texture of the photo.  Will it be safe to go with a bookcover to avoid the loss of color in the photo and to avoid the white glue tint diplayed when using imagewarp?

 Thanks Everyone!

 Joseph

okay, as I was one who dismissed Image Wrap (see above) I have come back to post with a somewhat revised opinion. In a fit of curiousity I dashed off a small format 7×7 book (my first of that size) and dared to try Image Wrap. Surprise surprise, I really liked it for this particular book! Yes, the cover is extremely matte but it somehow works well in the small format, it does look like a book you’d pick up on the "counter rack" at the bookstore rather than from the shelves, but it suits this small format. I would not likely use it or offer it for a large format coffee table book, at least not one that I considered an "art" book, as I still think the dust cover looks much more professional. But I like it for this.

On a related note, this is my first 7×7 and while I’ve read complaints here about the printing for this size (as its a different press than the larger formats), I have no issue with the printing. Image colors are true (except for the background color, which looked like it was going to be red but printed more orange—this I think is my fault as I was too lazy to do a true color read-out and just picked it by swatch) and one black and white image printed nicely too, with no color cast. I may do more of these little books!

I like the overall appearance of the book but my came damaged as well. It’s scratched all over and looked like it’s been in the hands of many people. I’ve contacted support but yet to hear from them or received email confirmation of my complaint. I’m guessing I’ll hear from them tomorrow as I just sent it today.

I received my book on 28 Jun, and it turn out to be quite disappointing.  the lamination on the image-wrapped cover pops up along the edge of the joint where we flip the book.  Now it looks so awlful.

The matt surface finishing also  makes the image on the cover look dull and less sharp.

I’ve made my comment to the support team, i hope they could help me.

I just received my first test run of the imagewrap.  My first impression was that it was nice, but then I noticed a few things about the quality. 

I opened the cover just once and noticed the lifting of lamination that was described above on the hinge crease.  The more you open the book, the more defined the crack becomes.  I’m thinking over time that will get worse and most likely flake. 

The other thing I noticed was something mentioned above… the seemingly inconsistent cropping of your front and back cover images.   It states on the FAQ section: 

"For ImageWrap books, we recommend allowing 7/8" to 1 inch of space between your critical content and the edge of the cover page.

For this binding type, 3/8" of the outer edges of a full-bleed image will get wrapped around the edges of the hard cover. After the 3/8" wrap, your text or other content placed at 1" will now appear 1/2" from the edge of the finished cover. "

It seemed that the wrap wasn’t really identical on all sides and pulled anything that needed to be in the center to out of center by a noticeable amount.  Also the front image was a full bleed and it overlaps onto the spine, so when the book is on a shelf with the spine showing you see a slice of image running down it.  Not cool.

Overall I’ll was hoping for something a bit more durable than the dust jackets, but this seems less. <font>I still wish there was a way to order a second dust jacket with every order.   That way the first dust jacket that gets a little ruffled after the initial 50 look-throughs could then be replaced with a new one and you’re book would be good for life.  I think I’ll start a thread on that and see if anyone else things that would be a good idea.  </font>

Where is the edit function gone? I just realized my keyboard batteries are running out and that has caused that I have missed a few letters here and there, causing mispellings, which I apologize for. Next time I have to run a spell check before hitting the "post" button.

Hi guys

I have just received my first imagewrap book (and 5th Blurb book) it is brilliant! Just beautiful, I am really hard pushed to fault it. I’ve ordered another two copies already.

My book is a collection of my blog and rather suits the 10×8 format and the photo I chose also suits the matt cover. 

Check it out.

I also made my own wrapping image, by chopping in half a photo and filling in the spine with the colour of the missing bit of image. It was an experiment and I was convinced that the colour of the spine probably wouldn’t match the rest of the image the first time I tried it, but more by luck thean judgment it has arrived and it is astonishingly good.

No wraps, no unstuck sticky bits, no problems.

Blurb! I love you! :-)

Clare 

how did you specify the spine color to be the same red as the cover (of the Fotos book)?

Becca, I just did it by eye and wasn’t expecting a perfect match, but I was lucky and got one! As Tony & Lee said though, there is a better way of doing it…

Lee, life in deepest darkest Alberta is pretty good now that the sun is shining! It’s not stopping me from nipping back to the UK next week to escape the mosquittos though! ;-)