Photo book recommendation

I use Shutterfly and have been happy enough. Their customer service people are pretty responsive. I edit my pictures on photoshop and upload to Shutterfly. If you haven't talked with Shutterfly about the books that might be worth a try. I'm sorry, I don't have another company to recommend. I do use National Camera frequently in Minnesota for photofinishing they could have a photobook product. You might consider taking the books into them and ask for suggestions for photobooks.

The only other comment I can offer is that your PC screen could a factor. I'm told that for working with photos an Apple pc has the best screen quality for editing and also for viewing photos. I have an HP, and I feel that sometimes my screen doesn't accurately reflect what will be the final photo.

My daughter-in-law makes beautiful, high-quality photo books of the grandchildren using Blurb. I am sure she pays extra for the top quality paper.

I also used Blurb to make books of my own kids, and was satisfied with the process and the colors. I was using scanned versions of old prints, not digital photos, so the resolution was not as good, but that was not Blurb's fault. I used Apple Books for one book and that was fine too.

I use Shutterfly for calendars and photo mugs as it is easy and inexpensive. But for books it is Blurb.

Hi Tom,

Recommend Milk as an online photo album service; good quality paper and binding, as well as navigation on image sizing and adding text. Very intuitive method to upload/edit each image, with a view option that lets you see a working copy of the book as you go, so you can 'flip' pages to determine flow (theme?) of the final finished product. In the books we've done, the image quality has been sharp and accurate to the original in terms of light, color, composite. The only limitation we've found with Milk is how many pages their albums can accommodate (determined by thickness of chosen paper stock)... with premium paper the capacity is about 40 pages [~20 sheets]. They routinely offer online coupons, which can be as much as 30% off list price.

The only other comment I can offer is that your PC screen could a factor.

That's a reasonable comment but I don't think so. I say that because what prompted this post was cleaning my work desktop and I found a pdf of last summer's Norway book before I submitted it, which I made for proofreading purposes. Here at work (as at home) the cover photo is fine, but in the book I got the heads are dark almost like silhouettes and it doesn't work, certainly not for a book cover photo. All I can think is that most people take overexposed photos so Shutterfly automatically darkens them, at least for the books. I haven't noticed this for enlargements on photo paper from Shutterfly.

Tom, my biggest beef with Shutterfly is the way the cut their pages. For a 12 x 12 books, the way the process works is that the actual pages get trimmed a bit so they are slightly less than 12 x 12.. That's fine, and I try to account for that. However, they have often cut the pages in ridiculous ways. For example, taking the excess all from the top or one side of the page. Why wouldn't you center the page and cut an equal amount on each side so the page remains centered?! They have been willing to reprint the books and manually view how the pages get cut, but it does seem to be a waste of paper, etc. I have two extra copies of my Rhine book if anyone is interested! ;)

I've use Shutterfly twice with good results. I edit all my photos in Photoshop and they look almost exactly the same in the Shutterfly books. I've been very pleased with the reproduction. As jules m said above, you have to be careful not to put things to close to the edges of pages because of the inconsistent way they trim the paper. I was too precise in my last book and had lots of photo borders cut off because I'd put them too close to the edge of the page.

RE Shutterfly: I always take the time to open each photo on the page and turn off the auto exposure (brightness / contrast) feature. I wonder if that is a mistake? Sometimes the auto exposure feature immediately makes the image dark right on the Shutterfly screen so I've learned to go through and turn it off for every picture.

I use Shutterfly to make calendars, and I also turn off the Auto Exposure for each photo. The one time I did not turn it off, my images printed darker than expected.

I make a lot of photobooks and have used Mixbook exclusively for photobooks for the last several years. They offer a similar user interface as Shutterfly with pretty much the same features. I use an old Dell computer with a Dell monitor. I have to say that the print quality of the photos is pretty much identical to what I see on the screen. I know that what I see on the screen (good or bad) will be what I get. I am happy to know that what I see will be what gets printed.

Mixbook does have a warning if you zoom up a picture too much and the resolution gets too low to print well. I think maybe Shutterfly does the same thing, but I can't remember for sure.

There are options in Mixbook for different paper qualitys, finishes, and of course book sizes. I do hardback books with the standard paper. I believe the maximum page size per book is 400 pages. I have made several hardback books about 125 pages in size. I have been happy with each one. They always have a promo going, and I wait to order until one gives me the best deal. Recently, a 125 page, hardback book on standard paper cost me about $150. Not cheap, but happy results.

I do edit many of my images in Photoshop a little bit before uploading them. Usually just some basic brightness/contrast toning and a little bit of unsharp masking (sharpening).

One time, a book was damaged in shipping, and Mixbook reprinted it, no charge. One other time they had trimmed some pages weird before assembling it into the book and some pages were mispositioned. They also reprinted that for free. I have been happy with their customer service.

We use Costco for our photo books. Probably not the best quality but we have been satisfied with our books. And you can't beat the price.

This may be a dumb question but how do I get PhotoShop? Is it an app?

Judy: Photoshop is a professional-quality image editing program and quite expensive. There is a somewhat stripped-down version called Photoshop Express that I'm not familiar with. The app is free, but for full functionality you need to subscribe to Adobe's Creative Cloud service for around $10 a month.

I worked with Photoshop everyday at my former job and we have an old version that we bought years ago before Adobe switched to the Cloud model. Happily, our old, creaky version works just fine for my needs.

I use Photoshop Elements, $100 (but I use an older version), and that works for me. It is not a friendly program to "just pick up."

I see the full version of Photoshop is $20/month and no longer available for sale.

I use an older version of Photoshop Elements. It is a stripped down version of full featured, (expensive) Adobe Photoshop. Elements does everything I want (or need) to do to my photos You can get a standalone version of the current "Photoshop Elements 2019" for about $100 (Amazon & others). No monthly or annual subscription required. I probably spent $80 five years ago for the old version I still use today. For me the price back then was worth it, as I find it easy to use and I mess with a lot of photos. I know the newer version does more fancy stuff, but I haven't seen a good reason to upgrade yet, and probably won't as long as my old version continues to work on my computer.

There's other free or cheap photo-editing software that works as well. My husband uses the free editing software built into his Windows 10 computer.

Tom, I typically allow the auto edit to my photos. I don't necessarily think Shutterfly is the be all end all, there are things they could do better. But, technical support/customer service has generally been pretty responsive and they have reprinted books for me. If you haven't talked to them, that could be a first step before looking for a different company. For me, I stick with Shutterfly because perhaps I make my books too involved, but I feel like I'd if to learn a whole new system if I switch companies.

In addition to photoshop (and versions of it) there is a fairly new product called Pixelmator which I find is just as good as photoshop (and I have the full version of photoshop, most of which I don't ever use). It's only $39.

I use Blurb for books, great quality, can integrate a lot of text, etc. But not totally intuitive to use.

Looking through MILK, Mixbook, and Blurb, I feel that MILK has the classiest webpage. The cost of any of these 3 is not much more than Shutterfly, but if using other Shutterfly products like calendars, they would require another upload of your photos to a new site.

I also use Mixbook and have been very happy with them. As I usually don't have time constraints, I wait to order when I like the sale they are running which helps some with the cost. I don't do any editing to the photos before I upload them, but do use their program to make some basic edits to color and contrast. Occasionally I have printed a book with the warning about a blurry image on a few photos because I did not have a better image. Even those pictures have turned out okay.

I’ve made about 20 books in Shutterfly and have never had a problem with photos. I have used Snapfish & Blurb & neither allows the degree of customization that I get from Shutterfly. I’ve even used some very low resolution images and they have printed fine as long as I make them small enough that I don’t get the “low resolution” warning.

Prior to uploading to Shutterfly, I sometimes sharpen or lighten photos on my HP computer with the photo editing software that came with the computer. But I don’t make any changes to the standard settings within Shutterfly.

If you would like to stick with Shutterfly so you have access to all their other products, I suggest you talk to them. Find a photo that looks good on your computer but printed too dark/contrasty in your book . Ask them to explain what’s happening.

Tom,

Although I've never tried to make a photo book, one thought that came to mind is that you might try Smugmug - https://help.smugmug.com/book-framing-and-other-product-options-rJkexxvyVrM . However you'd have to become a member on the site, which has a small yearly charge. I've always found them to have great customer service and if the quality of the images is not to your liking, they'd probably be able to help.

Your post has prompted some thoughts about creating my own photo book for family. That sounds like a good winter time project.

Good luck!

I too use Shutterfly. I would add -- watch the sales, they are often, can be fairly hefty discounts, 25 to 50% off not unheard. At times I will have a project completed but wait for a sale to order. The same works with other companies also. As to the quality -- I have returned items on occasion and received a refund quickly. My biggest gripe is they do tend to change their editing software on occasion, discontinue some options,and move items around on their web site. I also have not had much luck at every getting a person to talk to in customer service. There are several "forums" where you can ask questions -- but it is unclear if they are actually being overseen by company employees, or just public chat rooms.

Just a note because it was mentioned, Apple Books went away at the end of last year.

Apple books has indeed been taken away but the replacement offered through Apple on my MacBook, Mimeo Photos, is a much better product (and I was happy with the previous option). There are more choices of layout, text, colors, fonts, etc. but the many themes are pretty much the same. The quality is just as nice (if not better) as before, the editing tools are better and more refined, making the photos sharper and the color more pure. I have made two books since the change and I am very pleased with the resulting products.

I am an avid scrapbooker and use Shutterfly and have been very happy with my books. Get the deluxe lay flat pages!
Here is our last book

https://photos.app.goo.gl/RhHm7QfVd5vZ5Vn6A

**edited to add that I don’t use Shutterfly to design my photobooks, just to print them.

@diveloonie-- That is MAGNIFICENT!! And I thought mine was good!! Question: how did you get the link to post here? I have tried countless times, to send someone the link to my book, with no success. I especially love how each page of yours is separate. HOW did you do that?

I take it, you did the 12X12 with deluxe lay flat? Mine is the 8X11 deluxe lay flat. It's the only way to go.

Love your book!!

I am assuming it is just for Canadians (judging by the name) but I have used Photobook Canada and they are amazing and have frequent sales. I have had one done by Costco and the quality of the pages and photos were not nearly as good as the ones from Photobook Canada

Hi Judy, thank you for the nice comments about my photobook. I love doing them!
To copy the link-there are three dots on the top right side of google photos, hit that and options pop up and hit share, then copy link. That’s it.
As far as each page being seperate-hmmm not quite sure what you mean, but that is the way they loaded in goggle. I don’t use shutterfly to make my albums, I have scrapbooking software I use.
And yes, I make my albums 12x12.

Walgreens, seriously. Some of the book sizes (and other products) can be printed in-store. I make photo books and calendars, and they always come out great. For photo books, the layout interface is easy to use and customize. Get on the email list for Walgreens Photo, and you can get great deals.

This is a bit off topic of thread, but what do people use to view their photos? I have photoshop, but hate the viewing part of it. i use to use picasa, but got a new computer last week and it’s time to move on from it as google no longer supports it.

I can view my photos that are organized by month on my PC. I also use facebook to share photos with family but also to have a smaller collection that I can view for myself.