OK let’s talk about making books out of your wonderful images….There are many on-line print labs that provide this book making service however in my opinion there are few as easy to use that produce outstanding quality books for a realistic price than Blurb.
I had a lot of fun creating my book and with a multitude of layout styles including image only, text and image, image and title, landscape, portrait, double page spreads, montage, multi image and many more styles makes it possible to create photo books to suit all styles of photography.
Printing –Blurb’s new offerings use Ingram’s existing capabilities for book production, so we already know what these books will look like (see more on Ingram’s color capabilities below). Trim sizes –These books (Blurb refers to them as “trade books”) will be offered in three trim sizes to start: 5″ x 8″, 6″ x 9″, and 8. Blurb BookSmart is a free application with which you can make an entire book manually or using the assistant tool. It is composed of four simple steps: select the size of the book, a template design, the title, and the pictures that you wish to include.
You can also sell your books on-line by using Blurbs services which is a good opportunity to earn some extra cash from your images rather than them just sitting on your hard drive never to see the light of day..
You have a choice of soft cover, hard cover and dust jackets and image wrap around covers.
Receiving my book through the post within a few days of ordering and how well the book was packaged has bolstered my confidence in using this service to produce books for my clients knowing that they will be more than pleased with finished results.
These books are a great way of showing off your work to certain clients that require a particular genre of photography, I know you can show images via an iPad or laptop etc but there is something special about printed work that brings life to an image and for the rapid service, quality and excellent price of these books you can’t go wrong.
Above all for me was opening the package to reveal my work published in a book that has my name on the cover and knowing the images inside are all of my own work and this gives me a great buzz as I am certain it will for you.
There are many easy ways of producing your photo book which are listed below:
Lightroom 4
You can create books directly from Lightroom 4, Adobe’s photo workflow and editing tool. The new Book module enables you produce a photo book quickly and easily. And if you create your books via Lightroom you will automatically save 20% on the first Blurb book you make with Lightroom 4
Beautiful design options and seamless editing: Choose from more than 100 layouts, use rich text formatting options, and incorporate caption metadata. Edit photos even after you’ve placed them in layouts.
Custom book finishing options: Select from Blurb’s range of high-quality papers, covers and end sheets and get the estimated book price – all within Lightroom 4.
Blurb e-books for the iPad: Upload your finished book to Blurb and convert it to an e-book for the iPad using Blurb’s online e-book editor.
Sell your book and make a profit: List any print book or e-book for sale in Blurb’s online bookshop and keep up to 100% of the profits.
Adobe InDesign
You can also use Adobe’s In Design which with Blurbs new and updated, free plug-in gives you quicker, easier access to blank starter templates for Blurb’s entire book sizes and lets you create fixed-format e-books for the iPad
Automatic template creation: Download the plug-in and simply input book details like book size and page count, and it will generate blank templates with the correct specifications.
Complete creative control: You have full reign over the design and layout of your book’s pages and cover.
Bookstore quality: Blurb books are printed on HP® Indigo presses and include high-end paper options from Mohawk Fine Papers®.
Blurb Booksmart Templates Download
Flexible printing options: Print one or many. Volume discounts start at just seven copies. Books are delivered 7-10 days after order.
The latest plug-in allows you to upload your completed files directly from within InDesign, create e-books for the iPad (available for CS4 and above), and offers two new formats, Brochures and Magazines, in 8.5 x 11 inches (22 x 28cm).
However with the convenience of using Adobe’s outstanding software I chose opt for Blurbs very own Blurb BookSmart, this was a pleasure to use and quite fun as you can preview your book every step of the way and see how the book is coming together, The other great thing is that you have the option to add text either to the top, side or bottom of the image, I used this text to show what camera settings I used for each of the images presented within the book giving further interest to the reader.
No other consumer book-making software gives you this much freedom to build beautiful custom books.
Make books that feature your own page layouts and designs, from large format coffee table books to paperbacks and more.
Whether your project is large or small, Blurb BookSmart® gives you:
Full control and customisation – Use our professional page layouts or push your creative edge by designing your own custom layouts.
Powerful book-making software – Download our software and easily tackle book projects, large or small, online or offline.
More than photo books – With BookSmart, you can create photo books, novels, diaries, portfolios, notebooks and more.
Effortless e-books– Turn any book made with BookSmart into a beautiful e-book for your iPad® and take your book everywhere your iPad goes.
Bookshop-quality print books– Hardcover or softcover, seven different book sizes, and a full range of papers including our Proline range.
Blurb Booksmart Templates Free
Here are just a few of BookSmart’s newest features:
Beautiful two-page spread layouts
Diaries and notebook templates
E-book-friendly, fully licensed fonts
So all in all I would give Blurb products and services 5 stars for their ease of use, quality and fast delivery and would find it difficult to find a better alternative.
Check them out at www.blurb.co.uk
Best wishes
Glyn
Looking for the latest Blurb deals including the recent 67% off Blurb Groupon?
_______
I like problem-solving. That’s actually what I spend most of my days doing, but on a topic that is not as fun as making photo books! I thought I’d share my response to one of my blog readers who asked a question about customizable layouts on Blurb which I had mentioned in an earlier post. Since I think it’s always helpful to have visuals, I have some screenshots that will make it easy to follow. (btw I’m on a MacBook Pro using Blurb BookSmart Version 2.5.1.30022, but it should be similar for you.)
How to create customizable layouts in Blurb
1) If you’re in Blurb’s BookSmart program (download Blurb’s software for free here) and you’ve gone through the few steps to choose book size and basic theme, you’ll come to the main workspace.
To make it easier, I suggest selecting the pre-made layout that is closest to what you’re looking for and edit that layout instead of starting from scratch. Here I’ve selected this simple two photo layout to modify. I clicked on the layout at the top left of the page which you can see has a green checkmark to show that I’ve selected it.
2) Now click the first button at the top “Edit Layout” which takes you to the editing mode.
3) If you click on any “Image container” you can resize it, drag it, move it etc… Here I decided to turn this two photo layout to a three photo layout. Here’s what I did:
- Clicked on the left image container
- Dragged the bottom of the container and made it smaller, into a square
- After making my square, I clicked on “Duplicate” to make another photo box exactly like the first
4) You can see above that the Duplicate function created a copy of the box, but it randomly placed it on the page. We need to line it up.
- Drag the box into the general area where you want to line it up by eyeballing it first
- But don’t trust your eyes! You’ll be pretty annoyed at yourself if your book comes back and it’s slightly off. Let the software do the work for you
- Click on the new square box, hold shift and click on the original square box you want it to line up with (both boxes should be highlighted in yellow)
- Click “Align horizontal” to line up from left to right. Now your two square boxes should line up
- Now if you want the square to line up from top to bottom with the longer vertical box, click on the new square box, hold shift and click on the long vertical box
- Click “Align vertical”. Now your page has three photo boxes, all neatly lined up – yea!
5) Save your layout by clicking “Apply and Save to My Layouts” and you can give it any name that helps you identify it.
You’ll then be taken back to the main Blurb workspace. What’s great is that once you’ve created your own customized layout, you can use it over and over again whenever you make a book of this size. The one I just created is marked with the green checkmark below. You can see that I’ve done a ton of my own custom layouts and I’ll be able to go back to them. They are under the drop down menu heading, “My Page Layouts” at the top left.
Other Tips
Blurb Booksmart Templates Downloads
1) Keep in mind that Blurb books do not lay flat, so you’re going to lose some of the image in the gutter (the spine of the book). To help guide you, turn on the “Trim Guidelines” under the “View” drop-down menu.
- The dotted scissors line is a general guideline to where the book will be cut to size.
- The pink shaded area is where you should not put any captions or photos that you don’t want to get cut off.
- Blurb says it trims about 1/8″ off the edges of the book, but it can vary so keep that in mind.
- When I create my own custom layouts, I make a left side version and right side version of the same layout. With the left side version, I hold shift to select everything on the page then use the cursor keys to shift everything slightly to the left, then save. I pull up the same layout again and shift everything slightly to the right and rename it “CustomLayout#R”. I just want to be sure that my images aren’t too close to the center of the book so they don’t get swallowed up by the gutter/spine. The screenshot immediately below is what I would call a left sided version as there is more space on the right side to allow for the binding of the book.
Well, that’s about it in a nutshell. Hmmm…the post is kind of long and detailed so I don’t know if I can call that a nutshell. Regardless if you found this helpful to you – please let me know. If you’ve done your own customizable layouts before on Blurb or any other company’s program, feel free to post your tips. I’m sure there are a lot more tips out there that everyone, including me, can benefit from.
Do you have a question about anything on this site and want to see it answered by a real person? Post a comment or send me a direct message on my Contact page. Happy weekend!