On demand publishing evolves … a chance to win!
April 18, 2008
from Blurb.com
The world of on demand photo-book publishing keeps evolving, with one of the main players here in the USA, Blurb, moving into the right direction. In the coming future they will be launching a new service [they call it B3] tailored to photographers that do care about color managed printing. At this stage the B3 program is still closed to a restricted number of photographers, but it is expected to lunch as a paid service this year. It will be interesting to see how it comes along. They are even considering to use printers with GRACoL certification.Lack of color managed printing has been, in my opinion, the key limitation of the current publishing system followed by Blurb. No color management has meant unreliable printing, with some images coming out very well and others resulting in unacceptable color shifts. When part of a photo book, even few poorly printed images have a very negative impact in the feel of the photo-book, thus my reluctance to use the service as much as I would like to.
Talking about Blurb, they are launching a photo-book competition, "Photography Book Now" where anyone can create and submit a book using their service and win a number of important prices, with the Grand Price being $25,000. The deadline for applications is July 14th 2008, and the rules and submission guidelines are here. It is a good opportunity to get visibility for your work and perhaps even hit a major score with a price.
If you care about copyrights [and you should] for the images that are submitted, it looks to me that the conditions for submission are a reasonable compromise. Copyrights belong to the contestant and the images can be used only by Blurb for advertisement and promotional purposes.
Copyright and all other rights remain those of Contestant and/or any third parties from whom Contestant has obtained permission to use the third party's material(s). Any book or image of the book used by Sponsor shall carry the photographer's credit line. Use may include publication in any Blurb publication or web site. All Contestants understand and agree that any Submission may be used by Sponsor for marketing and promotional purposes including in any media such as exhibitions, print and digital media. All winning Contestants understand that their name, likeness and winning Submission will be used for marketing and promotional purposes including in any media such as publicity, exhibitions, print and digital media. [from the rules of submission]
Miguel Garcia-Guzman
Posted in Books, Photography
content rss
April 23rd, 2008 at 7:43 am
I would love to see a color management system. I just designed my first 20 page “mini-book” teaser (via viovio.com) for a fun & free handout to folks I like. It has been produced and is on it’s way via post as I type.
I’m not holding my breath on it’s quality, because I don’t plan on using it to promote my work. It will be more of a thank you card that I will send to publishers that have written about me, collectors who have bought my work, or bloggers who have written lovely reviews (yes, that means you Miguel). So, if it’s of reasonable/acceptable quality, I will start mass producing them soon.
April 24th, 2008 at 5:50 am
Hi Aaron,
Nice to hear from you. I did not know about viovio.com but after reading your comment I visited their website. They have products that perhaps will work well … will be interesting to hear from your experience when you get the mini-book … they appear to use Xerox iGen3 printers … never saw the output of those … maybe I should try them myself.
Best regards,
Miguel
May 4th, 2008 at 3:43 am
Thanks for this information. I wonder what the quality will be like for black and white work? I’ve found that, even though I use a color-managed workflow for B&W, nobody can seem to get my prints right except me. I’m sure if I worked with a high-end publisher that problem could be quickly solved, but I’m not sure any of the Print on Demand places can handle it yet. I’m looking forward to trying out this new system to see if it works.
May 4th, 2008 at 6:02 am
Hi Dalton,
If you have problems printing in B&W and you are referring to the presence of color casts in the prints (lack of neutrality) I recommend two options that work better:
1.- You can add toning to the images, and in that way at least you will get the tonality you like rather than the one the printer generates
2.- If you like neutral B&W, one option is to convert the files to gray scale before sending them to blurb. In that way the printer will not use color, although perhaps may lose some dynamic range.
Best
Miguel
May 5th, 2008 at 5:53 am
Update: Got the mini-books/catalogs. Ugh! with a side of Ugh. A few of the images are only slightly acceptable, and a couple are just downright awful! All of the details in the darkest portions that show up in my exhibition prints is completely gone to black muck and even some of the midrange detail is completely muddy.
I’m not even sure I’d mail these as a thank you/follow up gift. Although I will mail you one to show you what I mean.
I guess I’ll hold out until a high-end publisher contacts me to do a “real” book.
Although I assumed this would be the outcome, it is still dissapointing.
May 6th, 2008 at 2:02 am
Miguel, thanks for the information. Yes, I am worried about color casts and also a lack of separation in tones, especially in the darker areas of the image. I’ve found that even when soft-proofing, the end results can quite unpredictable.
I print black and white inkjet and tend to prefer a warm tone print. At home I work in grayscale and handle the toning in the printer driver, but to replicate this effect in a book, I will need to send the files in RGB. That would be OK as long as the soft-proofing process is accurate, but I’ve heard a lot of stories like Aaron’s and I am wary.
Dave Beckerman has been working on a series of posts about Print On Demand and has some interesting results: http://beckermanphoto.com/category/pod-books/
Cheers,
Dalton