Don't wast your money here, picture are too dark
My pictures are too dark printed. Blurb does not want to solve the problem but give a lot of excuses. I am very disappointed! Incident: 080911-000281
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I can understand your frustration and disappointment. Photos too dark are probably not Blurbs fault, however. No doubt your monitor is showing them too light, so you’re compensating by making them darker. The end result is that you end up sending them to Blurb already too dark. What did they look like when you made test printouts on your inkjet printer? I use a Mitubishi CRT monitor, with the correct color profile for the HP printer used by Blurb, and it shows things pretty realistically. As a result, the photos in my Blurb books come back breathtakingly perfect.
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I am sure the brightness are perfectly good as shown in the camera and the monitor are not set "too light". Besides, I printed the photo with my inkjet printer as well as local printing company both showed perfect brightness. I guess the printer of Blurb was set too dark. GIVE MY MONEY BACK, Blurb!!!!!!!!!!!
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curious, what format book did you print ericyhk?
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http://blurb.custhelp.com/cgi-bin/blurb.cfg/php/enduser/std_adp.php?p_faqid=42
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Have you by any chance calibrated your monitor? I had the same sentiment after publishing two books. All the images were far darker than on my monitor. After investing in a screen calibration tool it turned out my monitor was way too bright. Solved my problem in any case.
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My experience today is that my book is also too dark. Printed the images, they are OK, but the book is a bit darker than the originals on the print and my screen. I’ll contact Blurb today about this issue.
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Let me guess, night/indoor shot? Calibrate your monitor, adjust the contrast using Photoshop or paint.net, and stop crying. All these photo companys use the same print facilitys who produce thousands of books a day, believe me they would know if there was a issue with the printers. I can’t believe how many people believe their custom product should come with a warrenty, this isn’t something you buy off a shelf. It prints AS IS, send the photo to blurp if you are unsure. With custom products you really do have to be careful.
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Well said, Shaklena, I have just finished my 5th book for the year. My last on was an 8×10, 360 pages with 498 images; in black and white and color photos. They have all come out just as I wanted them too. I have been happy with all of them. On the black and white, I scan then in RGB at 300 dpi, take them into Adobe PS, Select "Desaturate" and all have come out fine. No color cast on them.
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I encountered the same problem as said. The book printed is too dark. I have calibrated my LCD monitor by Spyder3Pro. I have counter-checked my photos with photoshop (we can always use Auto function to see how the brightness of a photo. Though, it may not be 100% correct for every photo, you can at least get some ideas if you try many photos). I have printed several books by adjusting the photo brightness by +0.5 to +1 stop so that it can make them look more natural. However, it is a poor experience for me to do so each time.
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I have to say that after completing five books, the only issues I have had with pictures darker than ideal has been my first book. For that one, I did hardly any touchup in photoshop at all (I was new to using photoshop) – and the pictures themselves were kind of dark. Since then, I’ve gotten more comfortable in photoshop and have been touching up photos as needed. The result – the pictures look great. I’m also not big on softproofing…I guess I’m just having a hard time understanding exactly what I’m supposed to do, or what I’m looking for. So most of the time, after I adjust the pictures to my liking, I try to softproof…don’t see any marked changes…save…pull into Booksmart and presto – a great book! I have seen some posters state they would like Blurb to ‘auto-adjust’ the pictures so they come out great each time. I think if that were to happen, there would be even more dissatisfied customers out there. The problem is – the beauty of pictures is, literally, in the eye of the beholder. If I adjust a picture to my liking, someone else may look at it and say it’s too dark, to bright, etc. It’s individual taste and preferences. I just need to look at the preferences between my husband and I – he likes pictures a little darker, I tend to like them a little brighter. Just my two cents… Regina
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Hello, SAme problem for me… Just got my 1st book. I am quite disapointing. Pics are far to dark. I am going to lodge an incident ticket. I have been reading a couple of posts regarding the "dark" problem. I reckon +1-2 ev for the whole book and things would be ok. Even by putting the brightness of my screen to 0, the pics on the screen are still more brighter than on the book! Best regards Alban
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I have yet to receive my book yet, but I have been interested in this post. I work at a photolab. Based on those who mentioned what kind of monitor they had, those with dark prints usually had LCD monitors. Those whose prints were good had CRT monitors. Since CRT monitors can’t be calibrated as bright as the LCD monitors, it seems that the printer profile is uses the darker CRT monitor luminance. I usually like to try to set my LCD monitor brightness to a luminosity of around 120. ( usually that is as low as I can get it- fyi most CRT monitors can only reach 100 ) When I print to our digital press, it seems the monitor luminance plays a part in creating the profile for the printer and getting an accurate soft proof. I don’t know if this helps at all. Lisa
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[Incident:081005-000133] for me….
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I think you just have to do your research and go in with the knowledge of the shorcomings of Blurb. I certainly did, and took into consideration the too dark criticism. I did a wedding book for my neice and on the whole it was good, one or two were too dark, and they were photo’s that when printed separately looked absolutely fine. So my conclusion is Blurb do print too dark but so long as you know that you can make the necessary adjustments before submitting the book. For the money blurb books are great value, but they won’t be high-end that some seem to expect. My neice was overjoyed with the results and probably never noticed some photo’s being a bit dark, just I noticed as they are my photo’s and I have a more critical eye.
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