Photo Quality Not What I Expected; Please Allow PDFs or EPS Files
I am a graphic designer (over 30 years now) with extensive knowledge of digital printing and I was very excited to order the sample book. However when it arrived and I looked at the photos I was very disappointed. It appears to me they are continuous tone images. Which explains why you upload JPEGs instead of EPS or PDF files. Also, the printing seemed a bit washed out, which may be due to the type of digital press and the process being used in printing the one-off books.
I am still planning to use your service for one-offs, but until the print quality and the allowance for halftoned images is apparent my business with Blurb will be limited to just printing samples and going elsewhere (trade printer) for the additional longer runs of the book.
I must say the overall package is great (shipping, tracking, ordering, website, blog, etc). With a bit of tweaking (I suspect with your print service providers and allowing PDFs from experienced designers) you guys will have a killer service.
Edmund Dantes Hamilton
Chicago, IL
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I agree with Edmund. My black and white photos were almost a sepia color and the contrast was poor in a number of the photos. In one photo the faces were almost unrecognizable because they were so dark. I get much better quality from My Publisher and would love to use your service, but until the quality of the printing improves, I will use My Publisher. I suggest you allow a system that permits at least three 5 X 7 photos to be processed for testing purposes only to see how close they match the monitor for color and contrast. All professional labs provide this service to eliminate errors.
thanks
Robert Gunter
rgunterphotography.com
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Shoot in raw format. Check the reds that skin tones are not too ruddy. Be sure the brightness is over 50 in adobe camera raw and your files should be of good quality. Black and white conversions in photo shop should be done using the gradient map. When using the channel mixer to convert you must use a little blue. The total may go to 102 or so but the conversion is a little more stable for this type of printing. Calibrate your monitor and set custom WB when shooting. Most of your color issues should fade away. Last make the image a little brighter than you think it needs to be. I always print a sample then I edit upload a new version delete the old and fill subsequent orders from.
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I’ve been in the printing industry since 1978 estimating, production and sales and I was surpised how good the digital sample from Blurb looked.For the money. I worked for top printers with many printing awards early on when quality sold the job. Over the last 5 years I’ve worked with Docucolor and now Indigo printers and expected some quality problems. If you came from a world before digital you’d reailze how much we are giving up from the old copy camera separations and 200 to 300 line sheet fed printing on a #1 100lb gloss sheet run by a skilled craftsman.(i miss that) I’ve done too books and they weren’t bad unless I thought I should warm up a supplied photo- came out way red. But I see that too with most of the local digital printing I’m doing.
In all of digital world Im seeing loss of mid tones,and over saturated color. Though, for the money, its not horrible with the adjustments that Pattahan suggested.
If you have $1200 to make-ready the Heidelberg …
All my old employers have moved to digital to be competative and honestly, most non-printer people don’t see it. I think the half tones looking sepia is due to the 4 color “B&W” . It isnt a continuous tone but a very high dpi, I looked through a loop. I’d like to know what to do with Black and White because I have a slew of them I might like to use. Thanks Pattahan I printed out your suggestions.
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I came to Blurb after being very disappointed in the quality of the photo printing at Lulu. I was told Blurb uses the same type of printers that Apple’s supplier uses for the iPhoto books which are of very high quality.
I just received my first photo book from Blurb and I must say I am disappointed. I only have one area of complaint but it is a major one. Maybe my expectations were too high but the photo printing quality is definitely not up to par with the Apple printers. There seems to be a fair bit of noise in the flat color areas such as sky and a lot of reds appear to be clipped and noisy. I went back to compare with the way they appeared in the final BookSmart file I uploaded and the original photos are definitely completely clean. The printing is better than Lulu, mind you, but it is definitely not up to Apple level.
On the positive side, the process went very well. Upload was easy, delivery was just as promised, the hardcover binding and the text printing (white on black in this case) was excellent. I even got used to working around the many limitations of BookSmart which was utterly frustrating at first. If only you guys could get true coffee table photo quality you would have a total winner!
Bo Struye
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Edmund, I defer to your knowledge as a designer of many more years experience than me, but still, I don’t think PDF uploads are the answer to picture quality problems. Why?... because PDF is really just a technology for combining vector and raster graphics. There is nothing that the ‘PDF’ proccess can do to improve raster graphics such as JPEGs; it just bundles them up with the vector stuff and passes them on.
The Indigo press is not perfect; its an inkjet system and suffers from the inherent problems with the technology; namely banding and speckliness on flat colour. I’ve encountered better results with toner-based systems (on the one occassion that I used Lulu) but the printing is flat and matte, which sacrifices the glossiness of Blurb’s Indigo proccess.
I agree with you that it would be convenient to be able to upload books as PDFs created in InDesign etc. though.
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I received my first book last night and I, too, was so, so extremely disappointed in the image quality. Without going into technical detail, the pictures are just dull, noisy, has poor contrast and etc. The image quality is just about as good as the USAToday newspaper. Very disappointed!
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Did you read this? http://forums.blurb.com/forums/2/topics/18
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I have to jump in here. I saw examples of blurb books @ photoshop world in Boston last spring. I saw great examples of nice books, nice reproduction of photography. I decided to give blurb a try. My first book was carefully prepared. ALL images were digitally enhanced to remove noise, adjust color to avoid the redness in skin tones and shadow and highlights were checked. I ordered my first book. I was pretty much delighted with the outcome. I changed a few things in my subsequent editions. A few photos were lightened and some were color adjusted. I uploaded a new version and deleted the original version. All subsequent orders are fulfilled using the adjusted version. As a professional photographer I have access to many different publishers. ALL are significantly more expensive. ALL have quality issues that are related to the quality of the images that are submitted. My latest book was made with a 10 mp camera. The quality of that book is better than the books made with the 6 mp camera. The books that are made with raw files are better than the books that are made with jpeg files. I shoot in RGB vs sRGB. I convert to profile later in my editing process. The quality of files that are submitted are directly proportional to the quality of book that returns to you. Digital photography is not like shooting color film that is very forgiving of poor exposure. Digital files that are collected in auto or using auto WB may not have the quality for a large full bleed page. I am preparing a book for my daughters 8 months abroad. She used a tiny 3 mp camera. Every image needs digital enhancement. There are NO full bleed pages in an 8X10 book for her. The digital data just won’t support an image that size.
For the money I like blurb. I can get only a slightly and I mean SLIGHTLY better quality book at another source. The PRICE of the other source is more than double that of Blurb. My clients are thrilled with their blurb books. I am thrilled with Blurb books. I can sell a book and make money. I am in the business of selling photography. Blurb books are a great marketing tool. I have even used them as a giveaway.
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Amen, Patricia, thanks for saying it so eloquently!
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One more thing. Many of the books I’ve made via Blurb do contain only images made with a 640×480 pixel camera (0.3 megapixels, yes, zero point three). But, I made those images jump through MAJOR hoops before I let them on a Blurb page, and no, they never could or will be perfect in the first place, that is not their point of existence. Just like the many enlarged proofsheet soft cover books that I made for clients – which are not for sale – and absolutely blow away my clients. Their point of existence is not perfection either. Bottom line: even when one does not utilize Blurb for top notch “high art,” the products Blurb does provide – at the best price, period – is presently unique.
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Note to techs: no, I did not intend to cross out the text in the above message. No idea how I made that happen.
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Please help here. What is wrong with Blurbs Black and white print quality…the first book the greys were very purple. I sent it back to be re-done. The second book they were all darker, some improved, some not. Some still purlple…this was the large 13×11 book too.
Very disappointed in the black and white. The color book I produced was good to very good. I wouldn’t go crazy over the quality of the color but it was acceptable… but the black and white was a big dissapointment.
Any suggestions here? Are they using K3 inks or quadtones or color printers that are not ripped to adjust to black and white? This is my guess.
They need better print quality and heavier stock for fine art photographers….
Suggestions please…
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I have incorporated black and white in limited quantities in my books. I found that I need to use the gradient map for decent black and white conversions. There are 3 ways I use and I try each before I decide which one will win. There is the afore mentioned gradient map, The conventional method of channel mixer where I find I need to add a little blue to get ok blacks and last convert to lab mode. I try each and choose the image that I feel covers the tonal range I am looking for the best. I have also found that the same method will not work on every image. Each images exposure is different and therefore each conversion needs its own evaluation. I hope this is helpful.
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Thanks, this seems like a lot of trouble for a large book of B & W….
I am scanning wet darkroom silver prints…..already printed black and white prints…
So, what do you recommend here?
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I wish I could help with that one. I was a black and white darkroom person for the last 20 years. I still go to a wet darkroom once a week just to stay sharp. I feel that the knowledge of editing and intrepreting a black and white photograph helps me be a better digital photographer. Presently the only Black and White film I shoot is infrared. I have scanned black and white negatives in a nikon neg scanner and messed around in photoshop but I am not that keen on the results. Have you tried converting to a digital negative by just using a copy stand and photographing the silver prints? I DO NOT know if this will yield satisfactory results. It may be interesting to try. Perhaps some of the technical people here at blurb would have a better answer. Best wishes if you solve this dilemma please post your results. I have 20 yrs of prints I would love to make into a book. :)
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I have made my photography into 5 hardbound books. All of them were very close to my monitor colors. I shoot digital. All my pictures are high end 8.0 JPGs to begin with and I do very little touching up in Photoshop. I hate raw. Maybe I’m just lucky…some of the photos were even better in the book than in some of the prints. I was highly impressed with the quality. I was not impressed with the softcover edition of my book, though. Its printing was lacking. All my pictures are pretty much full bleed and I have several black and white photos that I made from color pictures. I used Nik Pro though. I haven’t had a problem with the purple. Perhaps the people that have a problem with the book are just used to something different? The books I received were excellent, now that doesn’t mean that the next set will be, but from what I’ve ordered and gotten it has been worth it and my test subjects all enjoy the end product. And I agree LuLu isn’t great for picture printing…but they offer ISBN and a distribution package that is great for just plain print. I wish Blurb would take from their lead and combine the great aspects of each company.
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Two things to remember: 1. I believe that booksmart converts all greyscale images to sRGB color profile. I know it converts all other color profiles to sRGB, so I presume it does so to greyscale files as well. This is an assumption, but until I’m told otherwise I will believe it to be true. Even if this were not true, I doubt the printer would adjust to using only the black ink if it happened to encounter a greyscale file on one or more pages. 2. The printer uses inks that suffer badly from metamerism; meaning that the color of the reproduction will shift under different light sources. If you take that "purple" book out of incandescent and look at it under daylight conditions, it will look better. Likewise, if your black and whites look too green, take them out of the daylight and look at them under incandescent—they will look more neutral. How do I know this? Because I had the exact same book of black and white images printed both too green and too purple; so I know how each shifts under different lighting conditions. Blurb could resolve this (not the metamerism, but the inconsistency between orders) if they had their printers tightly calibrate the equipment more frequently. It is problematic when you spend a lot of money making tests and then the final copy doesn’t match the testing conditions. btw, I work from original greyscale files, convert them to duotone, then convert them to sRGB before bringing them into booksmart.
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> I work from original greyscale files, convert them to duotone, then convert them to sRGB before bringing them into booksmart So, does this path helps? Or no matter what – you can’t get black and white which looks (as normal B&W books in a bookstore) black and white, not dark-purple-light?
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It helps in that it takes the guesswork out of how the printer will read a greyscale file. I calibrate my monitor regularly, so if I send a slightly toned B&W image as an sRGB file, I can have the expectation that it will print roughly as I made it. If it does not, I know there is a calibration problem on the printing end. That said, it is my experience that the same uploaded book will vary from print to print, depending on the time between printings. This is why it’s a print side calibration issue. These complaints of magenta books would support that, because my recent magenta heavy books printed too green about a month ago. In each of those books was a color image, and I can see the magenta accent in the later printing. I think that kind of color accent is subtle in a color image, but quite noticable in a monotone image.
Most B&W books are tri or quad tone and so have color in them. It’s just subtle. The path I mentioned above seemed a close approximation to getting the color of duo or tritone offset, in the Blurb context.
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Kiddawg… Your workflow for B&W…. greyscale -> duotone -> sRGB After profile conversion I assyou saving the files as jpegs? The key here seems to be choosing the duotone mapping prior to profile conversion to sRGB.
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... sorry I meant ‘After profile conversion I assume you are saving the files as jpegs’ I wonder what duotone you are using. My images would work most naturally with a cool tone, but I’m worried that any blues would tend to cause more of a ‘purple effect’ What duotone combination has worked well for you?
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I’ve tried a very light yellow pantone, almost white. It looks good under tungsten lights but quite green under daylight, owing to the metamerism of the inks. The yellow ink was the bigger culprit in the metameric inks of earlier ink jet printers. It may be on the HP5000 as well. And yes, JPG.
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As a follow up to my original complaint concerning the Blurb books, I do shoot in Raw format, convert to 16 bit Tiff file, do my photoshop work, convert to jpg and send to Blurb. I should get a quality print just like the one I view on my monitor. Adjusting the red, etc is pure guesswork. I don’t have to do it for other labs including My Publisher and I do not understand why the quality cannot be better. I calibrate my monitor on a regular basis and do a test print before I send it to Blurb, but my print is always better. Adjusting contrast by making it lighter is again, just guessing on how much to adjust. Blurb needs to allow us to send them at least three test prints in different lighting situations to determine the difference in their monitor and our monitor.
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