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I'm Happy
Book Printing
I just received my first 8×10" Blurb publication and I am delighted. Am I particular? You bet. There were 21 reproductions of paintings in my book, and I was completely satisifed with every single one of them. After having read about other customers’ difficulties with uploading, print quality, and binding, I was a bit nervous. But now I can say with confidence that I am ready to start work on my next book. Uploading was a breeze (but I only had a total of 21 images for a 40 page book with text, which might make a difference). The images were richly saturated and crisp—as good as I could have hoped. The colors were spot-on—both images and background. Everything looked exactly as in the preview. BTW, I’m working with Mac’s iPhoto & Arcsoft PhotoStudio. I do wish the 7×7" books were as good! But I could not be happier with my 8×10. This one is bookstore quality.
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7X7 printing
Book Printing
Re: Toner-based printing vs. Ink-based—I just answered my own question with a quick google. Toner-based devices use a powder which they fuse to the paper to make an image. This is the process also used in copiers. I think this probably does explain the difference in quality between the 7×7 and the 8×10 format books. For some kinds of images, the toner-based printing will be just tine. I think it all depends on how you intend to use your book.
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7X7 printing
Book Printing
it’s interesting that another artist who published a 7×7" book found the reproductions too dark, whereas the ones in my book with which I was not wholly satisfied were on the light side. And then there was that marginal loss of clarity, overall. At least now I know it was nothing I did, nothing wrong with my digital images.
(We artists are exceptionally picky, I know that! ) Since we’re having this discussion—what IS the difference in the toner-based process? Could someone explain—briefly?
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7X7 printing
Book Printing
I just received my first ever Blurb book—a 7×7" format. I have yet to publish my 8×10" book, so I can’t compare. Generally, I was pleased with the way the book looked—the cover was very nice, and most of the images looked good. These happen to be reproductions of miniature paintings, and I compared them very, very carefully with the originals, and also with a Mac/Apple book that I had printed previously. The images in the Blurb book had accurate color, compared to the originals, but several of them were a bit light—almost as though they were not quite fully saturated, or just a hair overexposed. The color of the originals is very rich, and even though the images are tiny, the detail is sharp. I’m afraid the images in the Apple book were closer.—both in richness and in clarity. The iamges in the Blurb book were just a tiny bit softer than the originals, or the reproductions in the Mac book. By a hair. But a hair is a hair! The customer service person seemed to think my monitor might not be calibrated to their printers—didn’t say anything about the printing difference. But my issue wasn’t a color difference. I did know about the difference in printing—from reading about it in the forum—but had to see my first book for myself. I suppose I could re-create this book as an 8×10, but the square format is just more appropriate for the size and nature of the paintings. The book is very nice in every other way—just not quite as perfect as I’d hoped. I reserve judgment for the 8×10.
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Trying to Print a Proof Page
BookSmart
At least I am not in a hurry to publish—I’m going to wait until after the holiday rush, since I’ve only been using Booksmart now for less than two weeks, although my books are essentially finished.
However, I have not had any problems designing the book-<del>once I got the hang of it. This is a “Beta” program, right</del>-so that means it is essentially being tested? I’m willing to be patient, though, because I love the whole idea of this. There are obviously things that have to be worked out so they work with greater finesse.
Sometimes you do have to keep selecting a font after it returns to default. Seems to me that happens when you jump to another section of the page—I’m not sure. If you are typing all the text into a single box, the font you choose stays selected.
A lot of folks seem to be putting together really big books-<del>-lots of pages and pictures, so that might make the whole process or proofing and uploading more difficult. Different computers, different operating systems, etc. etc. There must be hundreds of variables. I have found the tech support people to be very responsive, though. But good luck with your book</del>-don’t give up yet!
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Sharing some responces from tech support
Tips and Tricks
AHA! About the local printing being s..l..o..w. I wanted to print a single page, but the application immediately launched the PRINTING function without allowing me to select a range, and I could see after a few minutes that I wasn’t getting anywhere. Not only that, but I was not “allowed” to cancel the print job! Everything else was “frozen” which is always a bit alarming. And I had no idea how long the process was going to take! I wouldn’t even wait an hour, let alone 8!
The only thing I could do was Force Quit Booksmart. Tech support didn’t know why this happened—but at least now I know it wasn’t just my printer. So I won’t be printing any soft proofs. And, if they are not going to look that good, why bother. Everything looks great in Preview, so I’ll trust that. Once I order preview copies of my books, I’ll know for sure.
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Some photos can't select borders
Book Design and Imaging
I found the same thing to be the case-<del>using the Baroque theme and the full-bleed container. However, it was not as much of an issue for me because in PhotoStudio I had already added borders to my images (white</del>-40 pixel). slid I placed them on a gray page, using the center/no crop option, sizing them and positioning them, and they look good with just the white border. But there might be other page formats that would allow similar sizing and the Booksmart borders—I preferred to control the placement and size with the full bleed page.
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Trying to Print a Proof Page
BookSmart
Having designed my first book (s) , I decided to print one page, as you suggest, to see how it might look. All my images are from iPhoto, very easily accessible, and actually I have previously printed them out from within that application on matte heavyweight paper, and they look perfect. (I have also used them in Mac books, with excellent results). The problem: as soon as I clicked FILE/PRINT, I got a window that said PRINTING, and the blue and white barber pole thingy, which just kept loading and loading and loading-<del>I did not even have a chance to choose a range of pages. The printer icon did not drop into the dock, nor could I cancel the printing job—all the other buttons were immobllized</del>-<del>except by Force Quitting Booksmart, which is what I did, since I did NOT want to print all 20 pages, and didn’tknow what to expect. Is this normal? I’m thinking I should just order a review copy of both my books instead of trying to print any proof pages. I can print anything else in a jiffy. Is this also going to be the procedure for uploading? How long is that supposed to take? And also</del>-how can I find out how "big" my books are—in MB?
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Author Name Does Not Appear on Front Cover
BookSmart
Thank you, Ben! In fact, that’s what I did. I’m still very new to Booksmart, but I’m starting to figure it out.
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Author Name Does Not Appear on Front Cover
BookSmart
After adding the title to the cover of my book, I discovered that although both title and author name appear on the spine, it not only does not appear on the cover (after I thought I added it), and there doesn’t seem to be anyplace to add it. I did try reducing the size of the font for the title in order to get my name in as well, but then it doesn’t fit onto the spine. What should I do?
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