Anyone buy Photo Books

mebfalcon

Mouseketeer
Joined
Sep 10, 2005
I recently did a photo book. Created the pages in photoshop, uploaded them etc. Didn't get any warning that pages weren't up to standards. The book arrived today and I'm so disappointed. Some of the pages are beautiful but some are terrible. Some are mistakes I made (it was only my second one and I tried some different things) but some definitely look like poor print quality.

I used the online company My Publisher.

Has anyone done this with great success?:confused3
 
I did a Recipe/Photo Book through Shutterfly, for family Christmas Gifts. Everyone LOVED them and they look very professional
 
i also had terrific results from shutterfly.
 
Another vote for Shutterfly. I've done a couple of vacation books now and going to start doing loose pictures into books soon. Very user friendly and you can pick what kind of book you'd like. It can be very professional with the big leather bound or it can be smaller like a child's book.
 


Shutterfly is great!

CVS is also great and takes very little time. It's $12.99 for a 6" x 8" 10 page Kodak book with wipable pages and often there are $3 ECBs for each and often $3 coupons print on register receipts (or can be asked for within the store).

You can make them in-store and have them within 10 minutes, the pages print while you are there and the cashier assembles the book.
 
I was just getting ready to put together my FIRST book on My Publisher ~ vacation pictures.

Can you give any tips of what didn't work for you? Was it too-low resolution photos or something like that?

I don't want to make the same mistakes. Thanks!
 


Shutterfy here too-even made wedding books on it! This year for Christmas, I will be scanning and uploading all my childhood pictures and making a book for my sister-she'll love it.
 
We did Snapfish for Christmas, and while they looked good, the pages were thin and wrinkle easy. We have since decided to try Shutterfly next time. Have seen other albums that look nicer.
 
I haven't done them on my own like you did, but through shutterfly and photoworks. I like both of them. I figure that until I'm an expert at editing things and creating things, and unless I want something that I can't get on the pre-made sites, I'll just stick with the premade sites.
 
We have a Mac so I use iBook, and they're really nice. It will give you a warning if the picture quality isn't good enough for the large size, so that's helpful. I've been very happy with them.
 
Trixiezzz-the photos were fine (professional in fact-my brother's). The main thing I did wrong is try to have bleeds (where the picture goes all the way to the end of the page). Don't do that unless there are no people towards the end or anything you definitely want. I didn't use their layouts because i wanted something more creative than they allow. I do love the shape of the book and many of the pages are very pretty. I really do think a lot of it was the printing issue. Good luck!
 
Another vote for Shutterfly! I've made a few and have been very happy with them. I would advise "upgrading" to the leather cover though. I didn't, and wish I had.
 
Looking for some advice. We just got back from Disney, we did the 4 day cruise and 3 days at Disney World. We have about 40 pictures on Disney's photopass and about 300 between whaa we took at Disney and what we took on the cruise. I have been considering doing the photobook on the Disney website (I would upload some of my own photos) but it will only allow me to upload 80 photos. I don't want to end up with 2 photo albums and to buy the pictures individually costs about $12.95 per 5x6. I really like some of the pictures that were taken on the photopass and to buy the cd is $125 and that doesn't include my photo book.

Any ideas?

Thanks:confused:
 
Looking for some advice. We just got back from Disney, we did the 4 day cruise and 3 days at Disney World. We have about 40 pictures on Disney's photopass and about 300 between whaa we took at Disney and what we took on the cruise. I have been considering doing the photobook on the Disney website (I would upload some of my own photos) but it will only allow me to upload 80 photos. I don't want to end up with 2 photo albums and to buy the pictures individually costs about $12.95 per 5x6. I really like some of the pictures that were taken on the photopass and to buy the cd is $125 and that doesn't include my photo book.

Any ideas?

Thanks:confused:

What I did for our trip was buy the Photo Pass CD and then I had a coupon code for a free photo book at Shutterfly (you can buy coupon codes for Shutterfly on eBay too). I had to pay for shipping.

The book I made for our WDW trip was one using a collage on both the front and back covers - I chose the shiny book-binding-like cover rather than the more expensive types. This way, I was able to use all of the pictures - I put the ones I didn't like as well into the collages, and used the ones I liked most as larger images inside the book and wrote captions for each day/park. With 300 pictures, you might have to make two books, one for the cruise and one for WDW, but I know you would be happy with the results.
 
I actually used Blurb.com for my photo book (my first) and LOVED it - I wish I had upgraded to a hardcover, but since it was my first time out I didn't want to spend too much money on it in case I wasn't happy. The pics were easy to upload, their software was easy to manipulate and I was able to get a code online that gave me free shipping!

Good luck!
 
I have used mypublisher many, many times in the past and have always been happy with the book. I have done full bleeds and as long as you follow their size standards exactly, then you should have no problems. If you took the sizes off thier site wiht their resolution sizes also, and you still had a problem, then you can e-mail them and they will try to fix it. they really stand behind any mistakes that have been made on their part.
 
I ordered a shutterfly photobook of pictures from our Disney trip for my husband for Christmas and love the quality.
 
Thank you for all your advice. I still have a few more questions. Has anyone purchased Disney's photobooks, if so how's the quality? Also I heard that you can link cards with people you know. How do you do that?

Thanks again
 

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