Here's a link to the sample pricing.
So if I make a hardcover with 40 images and some text pages, cover, dust jacket etc. and it costs me $125 to make. What in the world am I going to do with it? Pass it around at parties?
Just as a note - in going through all the reviews - the most horror stories were about MyPublisher.com
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Snapfish:File this under the category of "I'll give it a try."
Eugene sent me an email with some new stuff that Snapfish was doing bookwise. I logged in and I put together a book called, Central Park - in about an hour. I gave them 300 dpi rgb jpgs saved at max. res., and hope for the best.
It costs about $20 for hardcover book with 20 pages. 9 x 11 landscape. The program for uploading, and placing the images was straight-forward.
I have absolutely no idea whether this book will be as crappy as the Lulu b&w book I did, but even if it is - it will be crappy in hardcover (smiley face).
They charged me NY Sales Tax. And shipping was - well put it this way, it began as $20 and ended up as $29 for the book. I need to see if there's a way for someone else to buy it from their site at a markup - but I don't think there is.
There is a 25% discount if you order more than one.
Oh, one more thing. They say they will ship within 2-3 business days. If true, that is amazing.
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That is amazing. Book has been shipped. (2 days to produce).
That is amazing. Book has been shipped. (2 days to produce).
10 comments:
snapfish is mothered by HP - hope for the best...
I meant $29 with shipping and tax.
We'll just have to see what happens. Some of the files I uploaded are larger than 9 mb. I'm also not sure whether I should sharpen them, or let them sharpen them.
I'm very curious to see at least the quality of the b&w and the paper etc.
FWIW, I've seen these books created by friends using both P&S and DSLR's and have been very impressed with the quality - both the book and the image quality. Here's hoping it does your work justice but I'd be cautiously optimistic, plus it looks like a solid price point for your purposes...
Snapfish tells you how many pixels by how many pixels (I think) but at any rate I gave them 300 dpi (and also sharpened for my inkjet - and that might be a mistake);
One other point: PC only (or the new dual boot Macs) and Explorer only; and you're working online. When you drag the image from your Snapfish album into the book, it will complain if there isn't enough resolution.
Will they be downsampling my file if the resolution is too high? Should I have sharpened or not?
I'm just going to have to wait and see if by any miracle the image quality is any good.
If the Fastback print quality is real good, then the prices seem reasonable to me, even if it turns out to be an expensive party favor...
Did anybody try winkflash yet? I use their service for large prints and I'm happy with it. They also print books for not too much money:
http://winkflash.com/books/
I just had a look at Snapfish. I think the Winkflash books look much more elegant. Besides that, you can choose between three different sizes.
"I think the Winkflash books look much more elegant."
Thanks. I'm doing one now in Winkflash.
a) Their upload tools are clunky and slow (compared with Snapfish) and I can live with that. (I'm using their drag/drop Active X tool)
b) Their template for creating a book is sort of limited. For example, with the 6 x 8 inch book, the photo is 3 x 4 OR you can put two on a page (ugh); or you can do FULL BLEED. But there is no just give me an inch margin or whatever in their templates.
c) Their books do look like the best bang for the buck; but there is not a lot (not any) info on their specs for books other than that they are offset print; use sRGB; and some dimensions in pixels - but these are under the photo section in help.
I suspect that just as one day all sorts of inkjet papers started to appear to emulate the darkroom papers; one day there will be POD that specializes in Fine Art Books and that will relatively cheap.
Interesting.
One thing I observed is that no matter if I send a file in 72ppi or 300ppi, the results on posters are identical. Seems like they are doing some optimization.
Dave- Try Shutterfly and Sharedink.com as well.
Shutterfly is amazingly fast as well. Total time = 2 days. And the book I ordered a few days ago looks great! I didn't find any mention that they actually use my color profiles but it looks like they do based on the results.
I've heard great things about Sharedink.com on a nature photography web site so I gave them a try. They do in fact use color management which means they will convert your profile. They are a bit more expensive but I'm told the cost is worth it. I haven't received my book yet (it takes some time) but I'm looking forward to seeing the finished product. And I think they claim "true-ink 4-color digital offset press with excellent color reproduction capabilities" and "printed at 800 x 800 dpi resolution with with an effective line screen of 150-180 lines per inch". Seems promising so I tried it
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