Flickr Book?

[daphatgrant]

Hello [H], this past summer I took a road trip around the country and took a ton of pics. I just recently found out about the flickr/snapfish photo books and am wondering if anyone has made one of these?

 

[IdiotInCharge]

I've used snapfish at the most basic level- just the freebie stuff. I can say that the service is prompt and results are representative of what you give them.

 

[nilepez]

Don't know about Flickr, but there are a lot of different services out there. Mpix is often considered the best looking, but they're expensive. My Publisher often has very big discounts available if you're on their mailing list. I've never actually used any of these books (my parents have). They're not as good as a print, but they might be cheaper (sometimes Mpix has very nice sales). I've used MPIX for prints and have generally been happy (and they'll reprint anything you're unhappy with), but not for books.

How big are you intending to print the images? How many pages of pictures? Are you making a book for you or are you getting several copies to give away as gifts? These are things to consider when buying.

 

[daphatgrant]

I've used snapfish at the most basic level- just the freebie stuff. I can say that the service is prompt and results are representative of what you give them.

Thanks!

Don't know about Flickr, but there are a lot of different services out there. Mpix is often considered the best looking, but they're expensive. My Publisher often has very big discounts available if you're on their mailing list. I've never actually used any of these books (my parents have). They're not as good as a print, but they might be cheaper (sometimes Mpix has very nice sales). I've used MPIX for prints and have generally been happy (and they'll reprint anything you're unhappy with), but not for books.

How big are you intending to print the images? How many pages of pictures? Are you making a book for you or are you getting several copies to give away as gifts? These are things to consider when buying.

I'm probably looking at 2 books when I'm done sorting, I should have around 200 pictures. I'd prefer to have them larger than smaller so a minimum of 8x11 but I'm considering 11x15. This book(s) will be for me to have as a physical memento.

 

[nilepez]

Thanks!


I'm probably looking at 2 books when I'm done sorting, I should have around 200 pictures. I'd prefer to have them larger than smaller so a minimum of 8x11 but I'm considering 11x15. This book(s) will be for me to have as a physical memento.

Just in case, I'd sign up at mypublisher.com I see up to 60% off right now with "free super gloss." I don't know if you have to be on their mailing list to get that deal, but if you sign up today, they'll start another offer either Friday or Saturday. Sometimes they have buy one get one free (which could be a better deal than the above...just depends on the details of the deal).

If you're printing hundreds of photos and you're printing most of them that large, I'd strongly suggest you look at a lot of reviews and perhaps consider doing some smaller runs with a few of them. Give their software a try (that part is free). A 100 page book is probably going to be fairly expensive.

Maybe look for a local online photo club. There may be some locals that have books, which you can look at.

I believe that some of these companies cannot do 100 pages, but I could be wrong. Some offer pages that lay flat. I know mpix ( Also known as millers something or other) use to have a metallic paper option (though it's apparently not as good as Kodak's Metallic print paper was or Fuji's Pearl). I think I read one review where there were issues with the spine (but don't know if that was an outlier or not).
I think Adorama makes them to.

Good luck and whatever you do, let everyone know how it went (especially if you used more than one place).

 

[daphatgrant]

Hey all, just an update, I ended up doing a 15" x 11.5" photo book through MyPublisher.com. They had a special on free additional pages and since I was doing an extra 80 pages at $2 a piece that deal seemed worth taking. I did a photo cover, super gloss pages, and lay flat binding. After tax, shipping and the add-ons the book total came to $158. I know that it's not cheap but I'm not going to be ordering 20 of these just one to keep. I'll post some pictures of it when it arrives. In the meantime I'll try to figure out how to share the set of pictures from Flickr.

 

[IdiotInCharge]

Hey all, just an update, I ended up doing a 15" x 11.5" photo book through MyPublisher.com. They had a special on free additional pages and since I was doing an extra 80 pages at $2 a piece that deal seemed worth taking. I did a photo cover, super gloss pages, and lay flat binding. After tax, shipping and the add-ons the book total came to $158. I know that it's not cheap but I'm not going to be ordering 20 of these just one to keep. I'll post some pictures of it when it arrives. In the meantime I'll try to figure out how to share the set of pictures from Flickr.

Just share a link to the Flikr set- you can embed the link with a picture from the set, if you like.

 

[daphatgrant]

Just share a link to the Flikr set- you can embed the link with a picture from the set, if you like.

Here you go

http://www.flickr.com/photos/dunastrig/sets/72157638117418763/

 

[IdiotInCharge]

Here you go

http://www.flickr.com/photos/dunastrig/sets/72157638117418763/

Very nice- you're pushing that T3i and kit lens to their limits .

A few points of interest- try shooting in RAW, and using Canon's DPP software which came with your camera, just make sure to update it. From there, you can apply sharpening, which is absolutely necessary for nearly all cameras, as well as increase the contrast, deal with some of the chromatic aberration, and, most importantly, carefully apply some noise reduction, especially color NR.

The results of careful processing will surprise you; it's like having a brand-new camera all over again .

 

[daphatgrant]

Very nice- you're pushing that T3i and kit lens to their limits .

A few points of interest- try shooting in RAW, and using Canon's DPP software which came with your camera, just make sure to update it. From there, you can apply sharpening, which is absolutely necessary for nearly all cameras, as well as increase the contrast, deal with some of the chromatic aberration, and, most importantly, carefully apply some noise reduction, especially color NR.

The results of careful processing will surprise you; it's like having a brand-new camera all over again .

I'll have to try messing with that, I took them all in RAW and jpg so I do have them all in RAW format as well, took up a ton of space, lol.

 

[northrop]

I've ordered books from WHCC, and those are nice, but just glancing and the prices, they will be significantly more expensive than snapfish option. And since I haven't used the latter, I have no objective comparison. Same with Miller's lab. Great quality, but it's gonna cost you an arm and a leg by comparison.

 

[nilepez]

I've ordered books from WHCC, and those are nice, but just glancing and the prices, they will be significantly more expensive than snapfish option. And since I haven't used the latter, I have no objective comparison. Same with Miller's lab. Great quality, but it's gonna cost you an arm and a leg by comparison.

That's also part of what's kept me from buying Mpix/Millers, but I just looked at current prices, and they're insanely high for Fuji Perl. I remember them being expensive, but not that expensive.

 

[MN Scout]

You have a great collection of photographs there! Nice trip locations. I'm very envious. That was one month well spent.

Photos are excellent in general. I see a lot of potential to make them really shine. Would be a great exercise to get those RAWs you took into Adobe Lightroom and see how they were the best space you ever used up.

Get those photos backed up into 2 more locations. I just had a primary drive die, then the backup had a handful of bad sectors. Luckily I had an online version outside of the house that I could recover those last files from.