I have been promising for quite a while now that I would be posting a review on photobook printers. FINALLY, I have all of my books in and am ready to tell you what I learned. This is a looooooong post and meant to be a resource. We think that it is easier for you to find what you are looking for, at a later date, if all of this information is in one big post instead of broken up over several days.
Before we get started, I would like to thank my “super secret super spy” that let me set up accounts all over photobook-land using her name and contact information, she went in and paid for the books after I added them to the cart, using her credit card or PayPal information (for which THE DAILY DIGI reimbursed her), received all of the books and got them to me, and also dealt with issues that came up in printing. I discovered when I did the layout printing reviews, that I couldn’t leave any trace at all as to my identity. I wanted to make sure that I got the SAME treatment that any of my readers would receive, nothing special because I own this site.
I would also like to say a big THANKS to our designers that contribute to THE DIGI FILES and the customers that support us by purchasing them. This kind of a review would not be possible without your support!!
DISCLAIMER: THE DAILY DIGI paid for each of these books. TDD does not have paid sponsors, we do not accept paid (or traded) forms of advertising on our site from other sites, services, or designers, nor do we have affiliates. No special coupons or discounts were used for any of these sites (I have been offered free books, but knowing I wanted to do an unbiased review, have not used any of the offers). The only discounts used were the ones that were in the cart upon checkout and would have been given to anyone else ordering during the same time. I have not ever printed photobooks anywhere prior to this review.
I created my photobook using these supplies:
I used several of Wendy’s toolkits for the covers (if there was one available for a printer, chances are I used it), there will be more about that in the specific printer sections.
Photos were all taken by Lisa Hystek before we moved last summer. If you live in the Puget Sound area, I highly recommend her! I love that she will give me a CD of my photos! 
You might also be interested in reading some tips about planning photobooks and printing photobooks.
At each site, I uploaded 12×12 layouts at 300dpi and ordered as close to an 8”x8” sized album as I could, in a hardcover format. That seems to be the most popular size with digiscrappers for photobooks. Each book contained 23 single page layouts (12 pages). I also turned off any auto-correcting features, if it was available.
Through the reviews below, you will see I note that some of the printed images appear to have noise, it doesn’t occur with all printers. I emailed my go-to-printing expert, Wendyzine and asked her about it. She said that she isn’t sure, but it seems that it sometimes happens with images shot in low light or a higher ISO and there is no explanation that she is aware of as to why one printer can print clearly and another doesn’t (here is a bit of info. though and here as well). I thought I would include my photographers camera settings here so you can see what the ISO was. Some of the noise issues were on matte paper and some on glossy.
Scoring
These printers’ results are in alphabetical order. I rated each site in the following ways:
Intimidation Factor: How intimidated I felt about the site in general, before even setting up an account or uploading.
None = not intimidating
Mild = mild intimidation
High = I was very intimidated and if it would not have been for doing a review for TDD, I would have quit.
Ease of upload: How easy was it to find the upload area and select the photos for uploading.
5= Awesome very easy, no problems
3= okay
1= Pretty bad,, lots of problems
Ease of creation: How easy it was to create the actual photobook.
5= Awesome very easy, no problems
3= okay
1= Pretty bad,, lots of problems
Adding to cart: How easy it was to get the photobook loaded into my cart to order it.
Inside pages color: How true the colors printed compared to my calibrated monitor.
5= perfect
3= somewhat different
1= very different
Cover color: How true the paper and element colors were compared to my calibrated monitor.
5= perfect
3= somewhat different
1= very different
Binding: Answers from printeres varied. I decided to take apart the books that I was unsure on and show you some picutres. You can decide for yourself what is most important. However, you might find this information about library bindings helpful as well as this information on methods of binding.
There will be some other anecdotal information included in each review that wasn’t part of the breakdown listed above, but things my readers would want to know. A couple of the books arrived with damage, I didn’t note that in my reviews, however you can see it in the photos.
For the purpose of this review, I did not worry about how much of the layouts were cut off in printing, I feel it is a given that some of the layout will be cut off or lost in the binding. That is something that is easily fixed with Wendy’s templates and actions.
Adoramapix
Size and Price: 8×8, regular price for a 26 page book is $36.95 (they had a sale going on and I paid $26.99). I paid $4.99 for shipping. This was the lay-flat binding.
Intimidation Factor: none
Ease of upload: 5 You can upload from your computer, or import from Flickr or Picasa. Here’s what the upload screen looks like (can click image for larger view):
Ease of creation: 5 Just drag images from the side to the empty page, then click on “fit to page”. Easy!
Adding to cart: 5, just click and order
Inside pages color: 4, images were slightly darker than on my screen, but was not noticeable until compared.
Cover color: 4, lost some detail in the textured paper that I used on the cover (almost no detail in the paper), images lighter. The cover looks almost like a metalic finish and feels more like a thin vinyl than paper. My cover turned out exactly as I had designed it, including the title on spine wrapping to the back. No templates or actions were used on the cover.
Binding: Lay flat (it truly does lay flat and there really is no gutter), “leporello” binding (not sure what that means, but from what I was able to gather from emails, each page is a full double-page spread and then they are glued). There is NO GUTTER.
Logo/barcode: none
Web Based/Software: Web based, nothing to install
Other information: You can only choose 14 pages, 26 pages, 38 pages, 50 pages, or 76 pages. The first page in the designer is the page on the left-inside that is glued to the back side of the cover, I wish I would have known that because I wouldn’t have printed there or would have put a dedication or something. I then would have put the inside cover opposite of that page. Most printers do not give you the option of designing this inside page, so it was different and unexpected, but I can think of some really fun things to go there!
When I got this book I was shocked at the weight, the inside pages are printed on very thick photopaper, but thicker than any photo paper I have seen before (almost like a thin board book). I was able to easily create the cover (without a template) and see in the building software, exactly how it would look. I had a tricky spine because I wanted part of the word family to wrap around the back and I was easily able to do that.
Artscow
Size and Price: 8×8 book with 20 pages is $9.99 and .50 for each additional page. With a sale they had going on, I paid $15.98 for two books and $5.00 shipping (that was the price I got upon checkout, I did not enter any codes). Based in Hong Kong. I printed one book without using Wendy’s template and one using it (see below), I also paid $2 extra to have the logo removed from one, to see the difference (see below).
Intimidation Factor: none
Ease of upload: 5
Ease of creation: 5, it was very easy to tell where the trim marks were and what would print. Drag and drop interface
Adding to cart: 5
Inside pages color: 3 colors were quite a bit darker in the printing and seemed to have a lot of noise.
Cover color: 2, colors were significantly darker, noisier, and had a greenish cast to them. Cover is glossy. The cover that I didn’t use a template on had a white strip on the bottom (see photo above).
Binding: stitched (much thinner thread than all of the other stitched books, but more glue):
Logo/barcode: barcode on the back cover and on inside back page. Logo on inside back page. The book that I paid $2 to have the logo removed, did not have the logo, but it did still have the barcode in both places.
Web based/software: web based, but requires Microsoft Silverlight to be installed on your machine. (this program does not work with PowerPC Macs)
Other information: I was unable to figure out how to lineup the spine for printing, so I decided to do another book using Wendy’s templates so I could get it right (and the books were so cheap). I was a little surprised when the books came back that the cover that I didn’t use Wendy’s template on had a white line across the bottom of the whole book cover. I thought I had it lined up correctly for printing. The cover that I used Wendy’s template on printed perfectly (except color).
I ordered the book on March 20th and still had not received my order on April 11th. My “super-secret-super-spy” emailed them for me to inquire about the order, to which Artscow said there was a “problem with the order and they were reprinting it and it would be ready to ship in 4-5 days”. It did take me over a month to get my photobooks.
Blurb
Size and Price: I paid $24.95 and $6.99 shipping for a 7×7 book. The book arrived in 6 days. Blurb offers flat rate shipping: U.S. ($6.99), UK (3.99), Europe (E 5.99), or Canada (CAD $7.99), regardless of the weight or size of your books
Intimidation Factor: none
Ease of upload: 5 it was very fast. Can upload from computer, Flickr, SmugMug, Photobucket, and Picasa.
Ease of creation: 4, you have to go in and select “blank” template for each page, or apply to all pages, before creating the book (see below). I could not figure out how to customize the spine, the spine was plain white.
Double click the photos in your bucket, then click “add to book” and the image will be added and automatically resized (see below):
Adding to cart: Since the work is done on your computer, uploading happens when you add the book to your cart, so that actual adding it to your cart takes longer, but it all comes out even in the end (because other sites, you upload the photos before creating)
Inside pages color: 4, images were darker and more noisy..
Cover color: 5, The color on the cover was pretty close to what I saw on my screen. There did seem to be some noise in the images on the cover. Cover is matte.
Binding: varies depending on size and cover (mine was stitched:
Logo/barcode: There is a Blurb logo inside on the back of the last page.
Web based/software: Must download the Blurb Booksmart Software OR upload PDFs
Other information: You can also create a book from your blog. You can also get books with jackets, which is kind of fun.
Creative Memories
I had full intention of reviewing Creative Memories’ books, however, I found out that you need to own their software to order a book (this is not the case for layouts). The software is $69.95 alone. I felt that most digital scrapbookers are not going to want to purchase the software just to print with Creative Memories, so I decided not to go to that expense and not include them in this review. I apologize for any disappointment this may cause.
Heritage Makers
Size and Price: 8×8 for $51.93 and shipping was $7.98 (this is for ONE book). I ordered two books from them because I decided I would review the board book as well (I have always wanted to do a board book, but was a bit put off by the cost). I was surprised when my order came and it was a regular hardbound book, no thick pages inside. I checked my account both orders say 8×8 story book. I checked my projects folder and the board book is still sitting in my account. How I got from clicking “publish” in the book builder to ordering the same book I had already received is a mystery to me.
Once a book has been published from within the builder, as far as I can tell, you cannot access it to make changes to it. So, if you decide you want to order another book, but want a minor change, you can’t do that, you have to build it from scratch. OR if you want to order the same book, just in a board book instead of storybook, you would need to put it all together again in the building software.
Intimidation Factor: mild
Ease of upload: 5
Ease of creation: 3, brought 8×8 pages onto book layout and had to increase them in size by dragging corners. Major pain! You can however, do basic digital scrapbooking with this software if you want to upload your supplies as well.
Adding to cart: 3
Inside pages color: 3, this is a really hard one for me to rate, because the first book, the colors were much darker than on my screen. The second book though, they were only slightly darker than what I see on my screen. I was surprised at the difference between the two books. Another item of interest is that both in both books, the images appeared to be pretty noisy. Also, there were some spots that showed up in images, that were not on the original (and this only happened in the first book) notice the black dot on my daughters nose below:
Cover color: 4, colors for the photo on the cover were almost perfect. There was a loss of detail in the textured paper that I used on the cover (almost no detail). Cover is glossy.
Binding: Stitched (with metal, the person on the phone that I spoke with from the company said it “looks like staples, but is metal stitching”) and glue. However, when I took the book apart, this is what I found:
Logo/barcode: barcode on back, logo and barcode on back of last printed page.
Web based/software: web based, requires flash
Other information: Heritage Makers has a multi-level marketing platform. I did not go through a consultant and was still able to order a book, but when you do it this way, you are automatically assigned a consultant based on geographic location. The consultant gets a kickback of some kind for your order.
Inkubook
Size and Price: 8.5×8.5 book and I paid $29.95 plus $9.99 shipping. You can read more about their shipping prices (including international) if you would like.
Intimidation Factor: none
Ease of upload: 5, Can import photos from your Inku account, your computer, or Flickr. Photos populate in the bucket while uploading and as soon as they appear in the bucket, you can drag/drop into the photobook (this is a unique feature as far as I experienced).
Ease of creation: 5, just click and drag images to the page, auto-sizes the image correctly for you. The book in the building software looks almost exactly as it did when printed (the gutters were more significant in the printed book than on screen – more was cut off the binding edge). I was unable to figure out how to customize the spine, the spine was plain white.
Adding to cart: 5
Inside pages color: 4, some of the photos had a lot of noise.
Cover color: 2, this cover was significantly darker than my original (noticeable without a comparison to the original). There was also quite a bit of noise.
Binding: glued (I could not find this information on their site and got this from their Live Chat rep.) However, when I took the book appart, this is what I found:
Logo/barcode: On the back of the book, but can have it removed by following these instructions (from their site):
To have the logo removed contact Customer Support via either Live Chat or by emailing support@inkubook.com with the requests prior to submitting your order. The requests should include the project title and your Inkubook email address.
Web based/software: Web-based (must have Microsoft Silverlight installed, this program does not work with PowerPC Macs)
Other information: They have live chat to help you as you go, if you need it. I think this was my favorite book builder utility, very easy to use. I loved that I could work with the photos as each one finished uploading (instead of waiting for the whole batch to finish). I was able to have the book assembled by the time the photos were done uploading!
I couldn’t figure out how to customize the spine at all, if you know how to do that, please share in the comments and I will add it here.
MyPicTales
Size and Price: 8×8, $27.98 and shipping was $5.77 for media mail.
Intimidation Factor: none
Ease of upload: 5, since this is done on software on your computer, upload is done when you place your order.
Ease of creation: 5, Must download and install their software, (same software that Scrapping Simply uses) but, the software is very easy to use. Just drag and drip and it will ask you if you want it to be a full page image or something else, select and it resizes it for you. There doesn’t seem to be a way to add a different image to the spine (the spine is wrapped with part of the image from the design of the back cover). The software prevented me from doing a screen capture, so I am unable to show you what it looks like.
Adding to cart: 5
Inside pages color: 4, seemed to be washed out and noisy.
Cover color: 4, was slightly lighter (but kept paper detail), but noisy. This cover was glossy.
Binding: site says: glued with archival quality glue, seems to be very sturdy. When I took the book apart, this is what I found:
Logo/barcode: none
Web based/software: My Photobook Software that you download and install on your machine (same software that Scrapping Simply uses).
Other information: I used Wendy’s template on this cover and was glad to have it.
Persnickety/Lifepics
7×7, $26.99, $5.00 shipping (domestic and international). They do have the lay-flat binding, but at the time, I wasn’t sure what it was and ordered a regular book.
Intimidation Factor: none
Ease of upload: 5
Ease of creation: 4, had to have 30 photos or layouts uploaded even though the book can be smaller. Also could not get the cover to look right no matter what I did, I tried 6 different covers and changed each one trying to get right (see other information below). There were no cover actions or templates available at the time I printed (I’m unsure if there are now or not). The program shows the inside gutters exactly as they showed up in my book:
Adding to cart: 4, somehow 2 albums were added to my cart and it wouldn’t let me delete it or change the qty. to 0 for one of them. I had to delete cart contents and then add to the cart again.
Inside pages color: 4, some of the pages were exact, but some looked like they had a grey, transparent layer over them.
Cover color: 4, almost perfect, slightly darker, cover is matte finish
Binding: site says stitched, but I think the stitching is similar to those of other companies and it is done with metal stitches that resemble staples (from what I can see when looking down the spine).
Logo/barcode: inside back of last page printed
Web based/software: web based
Other information: This order was plagued by a series of unfortunate events. I explained above how I had tried to get the cover right and couldn’t. I could tell in the preview that it wasn’t right, but was unsure of how to fix it. I decided to upload the book anyway and hope for the best. I ordered this book on March 20th. From what I have been able to gather, Persnickety outsources (which is common) to an uploading company, a different printer, and yet another binder. On April 11th when I hadn’t received the book, we (i.e. my super-secret-super-spy) emailed Persnickety. I (i.e. my super-secret-super-spy) heard back from Persnickety the next day saying that there had been a problem with my cover and the printing company had tried to contact me via phone, but the number was wrong (which, it was, I had made a typo when entering my super-secret-super-spy’s very real phone number). The printing company cancelled my order and did not contact Persnickety to let them know or email me (my super-secret-super-spy) before doing so. There were a couple of days of back/forth emails and when the printing company, Lifepics, sent a preview of how the cover was going to print, I could see that I needed to rearrange the cover similar to Wendy’s MyPicTales template that I had used before. I redid the cover using the MyPicTales template from Wendy, renamed it and uploaded to Persnickety. Unfortunately, though, when your order gets out of queue (because of the cover and cancelled order) with some of those companies, they put it back at the end of the line. I did finally receive my book on May 5th.
I have to give the printing company credit because they refused to print my order as it was (and we did ask them to print it anyway), there were other companies mentioned in this review, that just printed books with bad covers and didn’t try to contact me to let me know it was wrong. I wish that they would have tried to contact me via email when they were unsuccessful via phone.
Persnickety did an amazing job on printing layouts and I stand by that review. I hope that they will be able to share with us some things they are doing so these kinds of things don’t happen.
Photoworks
Size and Price: 8×8, $40.92 and $8.99 shipping
Intimidation Factor: none
Ease of upload: 5
Ease of creation: 3, It took me long time to even figure out which book I would be able to customize. Once I figured that out, I had a really hard time figuring out how to make the pages blank. I finally saw the “change page layout” linked text and was able to change it to a one large photo page, but had to do that on each page (on the bottom to the right of the layout).
There was a place to customize the spine (as you can see in the above photo) but I couldn’t get an image on there no matter how many times I dragged and dropped. I could edit the text box, but opted to go blank instead of not having the fonts on the spine match the fonts on the cover.
Adding to cart: 5
Inside pages color: 3, images were significantly lighter or washed out and noisy.
Cover color: 1, the front cover color was actually not bad at all, but the back cover, I didn’t even recognize. I wondered if had made a mistake and uploaded the wrong paper. The texture of the paper was the same, but it looked like it had been burned (as in color burned overlay mode in Photoshop). I went back into my account and checked the album to be sure I hadn’t uploaded a different paper and I hadn’t. Here is what it looked like in the preview (what they show you right before you click order):
Here’s what it looked like on my book (it should be the same as the paper on the front cover):
Binding: stitched
Logo/barcode: on back cover and on inside last page
Web based/software: web based
Other information: I don’t think Photoworks has digital scrapbookers in mind for their site. They are definitely geared more to the person that wants to assemble a photobook using their formats and supplies. This site was one of the more frustrating for me to find my way around.
Scrapping Simply/Paper Kiwi
8×8, $25.99 and shipping was $4.90
Intimidation Factor: none
Ease of upload: 5
Ease of creation: 5, Scrapping Simply uses the same software that MyPicTales uses. It’s fairly easy, just drag/drop and click to make auto size it the size of the page. there didn’t seem to be a way to customize the spine.
Adding to cart: 5
Inside pages color: 4, were slightly lighter than my images, there were also some funny lines on some of the images.
Cover color: 3, cover was quite a bit darker than my images with a more pinkish cast to them (even the paper was more pink), good detail was kept though. Matte finish.
Binding: Library, glued. This binding was one of the more sturdy ones of the books I received (even more sturdy than most of the “stitched” bindings):
Logo/barcode: none
Web based/software: downloaded software
Other information:
Shutterfly
8×8, $29.69 and $7.99 shipping.
Intimidation Factor: none
Ease of upload: 5, I wish there was an option to upload imaged right to a photobook.
Ease of creation: 4, have to select the full-page layout and then add the photos.
Adding to cart: 5
Inside pages color: 5
Cover color: 5, detail in paper was kept as well. Cover was glossy. (see notes below about cover printing). Was able to customize the spine (using the template by Wendyzine).
Binding: glued
Logo/barcode: barcode on back, logo and barcode on the back of last page of printing.
Web based/software: web
Other information: When I first started uploading layouts for printing, I thought I was going to do it without template and actions and just see how it worked out. Shutterfly was my first site and everything went well until I got to the cover. I took one look at the cover template and froze! It was very intimidating and I knew that I would not be able to create the look that I wanted without a template. I decided to do one book without a template and one with. I have to say that I am thrilled with the book that I used the template on and was able to achieve the exact look that I wanted. The book that I didn’t use the template on, had some of the printing cutoff. In the online builder, it looked good, but did not look good in the preview. I will be honest and as a newbie to photobooks, I didn’t know which to trust (now I know in most cases, rely on the preview and don’t do a cover without a template or action).
VioVio
8.5×8.5 $38.38, really slow shipping for $1.99, media mail for $5.00, and then various UPS, FedEx, and USPS, I ended up paying $10.00.
Intimidation Factor: mild, just so many choices and the privacy settings were a little intimidating.
Ease of upload: 5, can also upload from Flickr and Facebook. I was able to upload a zip file with all images at once. Really liked their interface.
Ease of creation: 5, Drag and drop interface, it only took me about 15 minutes to get album created once images were uploaded.
Adding to cart: 5
Inside pages color: 2, were really washed out.
Cover color: 4, almost perfect, just slightly more red.
Binding: PUR Binding (I’m not sure what that is, but I could see some stitching from the top of the spine). Here is what I found when I took the book apart:
Logo/barcode: back of book
Web based/software: web based
Other information: Be sure to set your privacy settings or anyone will be able to view (and/or buy) your book.
Winkflash
8×8, $25.70 shipping was $6.99
Intimidation Factor: none
Ease of upload: 3, I really had a hard time figuring out where to add the uploaded photos to the book building area. If it wouldn’t have been for this review, and a specific request from a reader, I would have quit!
Ease of creation: 3, this was frustrating as well to figure out how to get the full image template and add my images to it. No matter what I did, I could NOT get the cover image OR the title page to be a full page, the program would not let me change the layout to a full page! I really tried everything, including starting a new book, twice.
Adding to cart: 5
Inside pages color: 5
Cover color: 4, only slightly darker, but remember, I couldn’t get the image on the front to fill the whole page (it is on the back). There doesn’t appear to be a way to customize the spine. Glossy cover.
Binding: We emailed them and called them (waited on hold for 15 minutes and then were disconnected) with no response. Sadly, this binding is already falling apart (and has had NO handling from my kids or husband yet). I can see that there is adhesive inside that looks like double-stick scrapbooking tape (that I use for ribbons and stuff) and I can see staples (which I am finding many companies call stitching).
Logo/barcode: barcode and logo on the back of the last inside page.
Web based/software: web based
Other information: The color and quality of printing is good, but the binding and book creating software are less than desired.
Conclusion
I was pretty niave in my thinking that the photobooks would be as clear-cut as the layout printing. It was not. I think each company has it’s strength and each has a weakness or two. I know that for me; print quality is a huge factor (the biggest actually) in determining where I will print, but I also want my creation of the book to go smoothly, and a good binding (although I am not as concerned about it being stitched or glued), lastly, I also want it to be affordable.
There are only a couple of companies on this list that I will be unlikely to try again. I gasped, in a good way, when I saw my Adorama book. It was the only book that had that effect on me, and I am excited to print an album of 2-page spread with the lay-flat binding! Their interface is also really easy to use. I will probably be waiting for sales though.
There is a good chance that I will use Blurb to ‘slurp’ my blog and have a book made. I really LOVED Inku’s program for book building so well AND the fact that I can upload from Flickr will probably have my trying them again. I am likely to print again with MyPicTales their product was quality and the prices good. I will most likely print with Scrapping Simply again. I would really like to try Persnickety’s lay-flat binding and now that I have the MyPicTales template from Wendy for the cover, I should be good! Lastly, I will definitely be printing with Shutterfly again, the color really was excellent!
Will I do this again? Maybe….lol. It is unbelievable the amount of time it takes to upload, follow-up, keep track, and then, write and photograph! Not to mention that I am running out of ideas to hide my identity (and running out of super-secret-super-spies). I’m sure I will do it again, it will be awhile though…it will probably be a while before I do a book at all again…not to mention 12 of the same books with different companies! I hope this information is helpful to you in your quest for printing your memories!
P.S. A reader (thanks RK) sent me a link to a photobook review posted by another site. He covers several printers that I don’t, so between the two reviews, you should have more information than you ever wanted on photobook printers! 
P.S.S. The winner from yesterday’s feature on Kelley was Cheri, who said: “LOVE, love, love the “Chance of Rain” kit – the greens and blues are my happy colors!” You won $10 in supplies from Kelley! Check your inbox!
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I have printed several books in the past and am a person who likes to go with what I know. I always print a yearly book with Winkflash because of the flat rate sale. You just can’t beat getting up to 100 pages in a 8X8 book for $20. That being said…I had a lot of trouble this year trying to figure out the page sizing configuration out. I thought I had it figured out and spent a ton of time getting all of my pages resized and the site said there would be nmo cutoff and there was cutoff on every single page. I was very bummed that I spent all that time for nothing.
I have also printed through Artscow and love their prices and coupons that come out regularly but think I have been very lucky with the products I have received. There seem to be a lot of complaints about printing quality.
Lastly I have printed through Shutterfly and was VERY happy with the books I bought. I was, however, not happy with the price and only purchased with them that time because they were having a sale. The book was gorgeous though.
So, I am reading this post tonight specifically because I have a book to print for a wedding gift. I have created a guest book for the bride and groom and I want it to be perfect. After reading all of your reviews and the comments I think I need to try Adorama and am very excited to see how they come out.
I have seen a lot of advertising for Persnickety lately and was hoping to hear an awesome review for them. If you do this again I hope that you would try them again and see how it works out. I love the idea of a printer that seems to cater specifically to digiscrappers. It is always unfortunate when a comedy of errors plagues the whole event.
I am new to The Daily Digi. I don’t know how. I am not new to digi but I am so thankful that I have been on the CT of designers who have been featured here and have found out about this site. It is awesome and I love that you do things like make photobooks to let us know about printing quality and ease. I think I will definitely become a regular to this site for this reason alone. Thank you for all that you do for the digiscrap community.
Great review…I shared it on the digital scrapbooking fan page on facebook.
I’d love to get a summary in a chart format of the ratings each company received you know like consumer reports?
Thanks for such in depth coverage on this topic.
Thanks for the review. I need to have some books printed and this helped so much!
wow a*m*a*z*i*n*g post!
Regarding color being off on books and pages printed:
I have seen monitor calibrators recommended, but also what helps is making sure that the correct color profile is saved and embedded in your picture file.
When reading through blurb.com’s help forum, they had a list for color profile for the printers that are used. But, for the most part if you have the sRGB color profile in your page the color printed should match pretty well to that of the screen.
http://blog.blurb.com/index.php/2007/03/16/tips-on-how-to-synchronize-your-color/
http://forums.blurb.com/forums/5/topics/2208
Just to expand a bit on the comments by Sharon and Larry above, CM’s 2.0 is still usable if you have it, but will not be supported by CM after this year because they have upgraded to Storybook 3.0 (the free download that has many free template themes for drag and drop) and Storybook Plus 3.0 ( the $64.95 software that has all the features of Photoshop Elements but none of the long learning curve). I made my first Storybook with the free program and had no difficulty with it, and I am a self-taught computer user! The Plus version comes loaded with about $ 80.00 worth of free digital artwork that can be used over and over and changed in every way you could possibly dream of. With the Plus version you can use their templates or create your own just like in Photoshop, and with all versions, go directly to the digital center to upload your book. As it is NOT webased there is none of the wait times for downloads. I have found other sites a pain in the neck to work off the web program. The free version has so many choices it is easy to find one you like and the Plus version is the best I have ever seen. CM also has a digital endorsement program for its consultants in which those consultants who have received extra training in using the digital programs, will have a digital endorsement seal on their websites, which may help those wishing to choose a consultant who can give them that extra service. Thank you for your very detailed work and providing such useful information. I do hope you will take a second look at the Storybook programs with Creative Memories. I realize you were using the same pictures with all the books, but as Larry said, you can upload your page created in Photoshop as a jpg and make it the background to get a full page print. If people have to purchase Photoshop to make their page templates, why wouldn’t they pay for a program that is less expensive, easier to use, just as robust, and from which you can directly order the books of really good quality? Thanks for all your work.
The free version of Storybook 2.0 is still available. CM continues to provide this free service. Storybook 3.0 is excellent and WAY more user friendly than Photoshop & extremely creative pages can be made as well. There is no need for Photoshop if you use Storybook (3.0), really! However, yes, you can import your photoshop pages IF you really need to do this, as described in the comment from “Larry” above. In addition, any non-CM digital products can also be imported into the program and used. It is very easy. Some people are under the mistaken impression that you can only use CM digital products w/ Storybook and that is totally false. I have seen the templates for Shutterfly and Kodak and many other companies and they don’t even come close to Storybook. Storybook is the perfect blend for busy people who don’t have all the free time in the world to learn and use Photoshop and yet want artistic and creative pages. After using Storybook I would never use any other service, period. I once desired to learn Photoshop and now have no need.
Thanks for all the work in reviewing, and publishing the results, of so many digital book publishing companies.
Regarding Creative Memories, I think you received incorrect information from their tech. support. After reading your review, I opened StoryBook Creator 2.0 (the free version), started a new project, imported a jpg image file, right clicked it, selected “make image background,” and the image completly filled the page. This particular file was simply a photo, but I would have acheived the same result if I had created a “page” using Photoshop.
As far as the subjective comments regarding the quality of photos as printed by the various companies, I think it is important to consider that we are talking about consumer level products, not professional. For example, you downgraded Blurb in this regard, and most of the Blurb books I have seen have been very good — but not all:)
Again, many thanks for the information.
Larry Rood
I have Storybook 3.0, I’m not sure if you can get 2.0 anymore. I would love to include Creative Memories in a future review and hopefully by the time I am ready to do another review like this, CM will have better information available to customers as well as their customer support team members so I can put a book together easily without so much hassle.
One thing I have learned from doing the reviews myself AND reading customers comments is that results really can vary, sometimes even book to book. It will be interesting to see what happens when I get a second book printed (very soon, I hope) by some of these companies.
By comparing the prints to my calobrated monitor, I was hoping to give the most objective results possible.
I have used Winkflash for over a dozen books so far and find it super easy to use. I create my layouts and then put a number in front of them (01-weddingday, 02-honeymoon etc.) then I upload them, select the full page template, and autofill. The book is done in minutes. If you read their instructions, the pages for an 8×8 book need to be 8.5×8.5 to allow for trim. My books are handled almost daily and I have had no binding breakup at all. And, when they have a flat-rate special (18.95 for an 11×8 book with 100 pages), you can’t beat the price. I am happy with Winkflash. Thanks so much for the time and effort to provide this review.
Thank you so much for putting all your time into this review! I’ve shared it on a photography site!
What a fabulous resource! I really love the look of the lay flat binding by Adoramapix… just looks so very cool. I have only used Shutterfly in the past and have been satisfied, but not wowed by my books. I am thinking that I will be giving Adoramapix a try next time around. Big thanks to you (and your super secret spy) for all of your hard work.
What a great resource for photobook makers! There are a lot of choices out there and people will need to decide if price or quality is most important to them. Shutterfly gets all the press but their glued binding doesn’t impress me for long-term usage.
PhotoBooks{etc} works with Rocket Life – who consistently wins high marks in the Photobook Shoot-out at PMA. Their award-winning drag-and-drop software is super simple to use and the books are really high quality. We have seven sizes of square photobooks so it works well for digi-scrapping.
http://www.photobooksetc.blogspot.com for more info.
I found you guys shortly before I was going to be posting my review and was sad that I hadn’t found you earlier!
WOW, Steph! This is so, so awesome!! I’ve printed a couple of books from a couple of different sources, but never really knew if I was getting the best bang for my buck. Next time, I’m just coming over here! So much work, and such great descriptions– thank you, thank you!! This site is truly an asset to the digi world!
Wow what a treasure trove of info! Thank you so much for this review, I have bookmarked it for future reference. I had not realized that I could make bound books with designed scrapbook pages. When I’ve heard about photo books I thought they were just photos dumped into a non-customizable template. This opens up a whole new realm of possibilities! I’m a brand new digi-scrapper & haven’t printed any of my pages yet, so I’m also pouring over the review about printing layouts.
Thanks!!!
Wonderful review – thank you.
I have sent to MyPictales, Shutterfly, and Artscow. I am mostly happy with the Shutterfly books – I have used my own layouts and the downloadable software they had offered. I am most happy with MyPicTales. I like their “Wire-O” bound books (also, single layout pages I have sent there for my post bound albums are fantastic (great precision and color).
Wow Steph! Thanks for all of your work!
There were two other things I wondered about… how do they hold up to lots of use and what is the maximum number of pages in each book.
I have more than 30 printed books, but I’ve only tried a couple of printers.
I would be leery of glued bindings. I have printed books through CherishBound for over 5 years now. In the beginning they did stitched bindings. But (supposedly) there were complaints about how they didn’t “lay flat” so they switched to glued bindings. I had 2 or 3 books where the pages came out of the middle of the book–my kids like to look at them…they get a lot of use. They replaced them for free (that’s what I liked most about CherishBound…the lifetime guarantee). Shortly thereafter they switched back to a stitched binding. I wonder how the bindings hold up with lots of use.
Also the maximum number of pages. With CherishBound it’s 139. (as in 70 papers in the book making 140 sides (LOs) but the back one is reserved for their “information”. I make a yearbook every year and want the entire thing in one book. I hate being limited to 100 or less pages…I have to leave too much out. LOL! I haven’t found any publishers that come close to 139 pages.
( I print 8.5 x 11…I want books that fit on standard shelves, although I’m tempted to give 8×8 a try)
And some advice…I’d heard that when you are considering a publisher/book printer, to register for their site…even start a book. Then you end up on their mailing list and get coupons/sale notices. That way you don’t end up paying full price for your books.
Thanks again for all your work!
Oh my goodness, the work you put into this….thank you SO much for this valuable resource.
AWESOME review. I haven’t attempted a photobook because of all the choices and the intimidation factor. (Maybe now I will.)
Holy Schmoly! That was a lot of work, time, patience, and money which we all appreciate! I’ve only had one book printed which I did as a 12×12 out of habit from my pre-digi days. I had no idea how much bigger digi pages look printed that size! I’m doing future albums 8×8. I really appreciate the hard work involved.
I’ll volunteer to be your super secret spy if you ever decide to try it again.
I might need to take you up on that…lol
HOly cow Steph!!! Wow wow wow!!! I REALLY appreciate this post!!! Great job! THANK YOU for all the hard work!
Fantastic review – all that time and effort put in for our benefit, thank you.
The one thing I gained the most from this review is that if you are expecting your books to look EXACTLY like your layouts on screen, you will be disappointed. The different printing processes and papers used by the various companies determine the result. I think we need to keep in mind that photobooks are not calibrated monitors or photo prints (which is a totally different print process again).
I have just ordered my first book through one of the major store chains here in Australia. Using Wendy’s Shutterfly action for 8×8 pages, a bit excited to see what comes out…lol!
Let us know what you think of your book after you get it!
I think it is reasonable to expect that our printed books will look similar to our calibrated monitors. If I am spending $20-$50 of my very hard earned money on a book, I want it to look as close as possible and be the best quality for my money. There were more than a couple books from printers here, that if I had only ordered that ONE book, I might have cried that I waisted my money.
Great review! Thanks so much for all that work!
I’ve printed a number of books from different printers, and like others have mentioned above have found that sometimes the quality can vary from one project to another. For my last few books I have been using Inkubook and have been very happy with them. I’ve printed a couple of books with Winkflash during their flat-rate sales, but I didn’t have as good of an experience with the color, and my prints were especially noisy. The book I printed with Viovio was also pretty washed out too. With my first couple of Inkubook books, I had them printed with a matte cover and had the same issue with the cover coming out darker and nosier than the original that you noted in the review, but for my last book I used their glossy cover and it turned out so much better! As for the inside pages, they have always been pretty consistent for me so far.
I think I’ll be trying out AdoramaPix too – I love the lay flat binding. I wish they could add more pages (I’m always maxing out the 120 pages at Inkubook), although if the paper is as heavy as you noted, maybe that wouldn’t be a good thing!
Thanks for sharing the information with us!
I personally like Artscow. I print out way too many books and would surely be broke if I used another company. I am willing to wait a little longer for them, just have to plan ahead a bit. I have also tried Shutterfly, and was not impressed with their quality at all. I feel that it should have been better considering the price.
Thank you so much for the in depth reviews! Very informative.
Hi, I live in the Netherlands, and I almost always use Artscow for my photobooks. For me the prize is the most important. I was wondering, you don’t mention them in your conclusion, but your review about Artscow is good (I think), wouldn’t you want to order from them again? I love their other photogifts, received a new handbag yesterday for only a few $$’s. I have one book from Shutterfly (from about 3 years ago) and I don’t like the cover of it.
If price is the very most important thing, then Artscow would be your choice.
I do not think I would use them again because the quality was so poor on the printing.
Great review! I’ve starred it in google reader for future reference.
It’s a shame the printer for Persnickety let down the communication chain as Persnickety themselves (I’ve found when printing 12×12 layouts and my mum got a large panorama printed) are excellent with communication.
It’s a shame Adoramapix don’t appear to ship internationally?
I emailed them on Friday to find out for sure for you and will post here when I hear something back.
You are AMAZING!! So much time, effort, energy and organization went into this job! Thank you for all that you do!
TY so much for this! Ive only used shutterfly, and I have a special needs daughter that LOVES looking at them so much, the pages are suffering!
Tho I am 100% happy with them, I will now try the adoramaPix purely for the thicker paper (here’s hoping she cant ruin them LOL)
Wow… that was quite a project! I have printed 12×12 digital scrapbooks with both Shutterfly and Viovio. I loved the quality of the Shutterfly paper and the colours were excellent. Last year I used Viovio to print an 80 page digital scrapbook and ordered 2 copies. I was very disappointed with the quality of the paper… very thin… and the colours were washed out. I contacted the company and they agreed to reprint one copy of the book using their new premium quality process. The quality of the paper in the reprinted book was very thick… excellent quality. The colours were more vibrant…not washed out at all. I was SO happy with the reprinted book. If I order from them again I will be sure to order the PREMIUM quality as it really is beautiful. Thanks so much for sharing your photobook printing experiences here.
Wow! Thank you for such an extensive review! I have been using Photoworks for my digital scrapbooking (I use the 8.5 x 11 size- I started those books and just stuck with it). I usually scrapbook the entire year of events into two books that are around 80 pages each. I have been satisfied with them. Now you are having me question that something is better. I am going to have to think on that one!
THank you very much!
THANK YOU for taking the time and expense to do this! I have always been happy with my Shutterfly books, but will give Adorama a try
That binding is intriguing! And, I have to say, I NEVER do a book without using Wendy’s actions/templates. They make adjusting my layouts for printing so quick and easy. I really love this article!
Thank you so much for the time and effort you’ve put into reviewing these. This is such valuable resource, and I’ve bookmarked it now for when I print my next photobook!
There isn’t mention of archival paper quality, paper weight/types, and a correct review of binding. At PERSNICKETY PRINTS, our photo books are stitched and glued. Your pages won’t stay put very long if the binding isn’t permanent.
“Adding to cart: 4, somehow 2 albums were added to my cart and it wouldn’t let me delete it or change the qty. to 0 for one of them. I had to delete cart contents and then add to the cart again.”
-Here in the cart, you can just change the quantity to 1.
Most issues could have been avoided with a correct phone number.
Wendy is almost finished with the Persnickety Book Actions.
We 100% guarantee our work.
Wow Steph, what an amazing and super useful post! It is such a great resource for all of us! You know I’ve only printed so far with Shutterfly and loved their color quality (see this post http://simplyyin.blogspot.com/2009/02/printing-double-pages-on-shutterfly.html and this one too http://simplyyin.blogspot.com/search?updated-max=2010-02-25T03%3A18%3A00-08%3A00&max-results=10) they always look exactly like I see them on screen. But my latest travel book exceeds their maximum 100 pages and I’m nervous looking around at who else I can try. THANK YOU for your hard work and the fantastic GUIDE!
I wanted to clarify something with Heritage Makers. Heritage Makers archives all projects that you publish. It’s actually really easy to publish more copies, or to copy a completed project and tweak it/change it and publish it again. (click on “projects and templates and just choose “completed projects”).
Also, Heritage Makers has an heirloom guarantee… if something happens to your project you can replace it for half price. And the price that most people pay for books with Heritage Makers is lower than the the price you paid- in fact this month we have a sale going on with 8×8 books- which means you can buy 2 books for $80. But you are correct about the boardbooks- our book sizes have to be created separately- which is why you choose a specific project and then add your photos/pages. I guess you just got a little confused with “storybook” and “boardbook” and assumed you were getting different books even though you ordered the same book.
However- in the next year our system is changing a little so that you can change projects easier from one size to another. We’ll also have an “auto fill” and other changes that make it quicker to complete a book.
Of course the biggest thing which you did mention is that Heritage Makers is really a “creation” studio– basically it replaces photoshop (it’s not a photo editing- but a layout creating software) that is online. Most of our users don’t use photoshop at all. They create their projects right on the online studio.
I do appreciate your review though! I really wanted to know how we stacked up in quality to other printers- and I’ll pass your review onto our home office staff so that we make improvements . Thanks for all your efforts.
Steph and Super Secret Spy, THANK YOU! THANK YOU! THANK YOU! I can’t tell you how much I appreciate you for doing this! I have only ordered one photo book, and it was from Snapfish back when Oprah featured them on her show and then offered a free photo book to all viewers. I used their studio template (all black or white solid pages). I found their software/interface to be somewhat frustrating, and it was hard to find my photobook file in my account when I was ready to order. The book turned out nice, but I wasn’t as pleased with the cover. It looks pretty good, but it’s obviously a printed heavyweight glossy paper that’s been wrapped around and glued to the plain cover. I realize most photo books have wrapped covers, but some are more obvious than others.
Anyway, thanks again! I love this site! I will keep buying The Digi Files so you can keep doing what you do! 
You are amazing!! Thank you so much for doing this. I have only printed one photobook, and I was SO intimidated by the whole thing that I haven’t bothered to do it again. Perhaps I’ll get up the courage to try!!
I can totally understand why…lol!
can you further explain about the ordering of pages from Adorama?
Sure, let me know what you are wondering though, thanks!
Thanks for such a comprehensive review – must have been exhausting but at the same time rewarding!
I noticed your comments on not being able to title the spine of a couple of the books. I did one of my wedding photo books on Blurb recently. You can add a title to the spine and change the background color with the fonts and colors provided by Blurb, but you can’t add an image to the spine. So you wouldn’t be able to title your Blurb book like you did with the other books, but you could do something more generic.
I’m currently trying out Inkubook myself, and I wondered the same thing about personalizing the spine. I didn’t see an option or anything about it in the FAQ, so I also used the live chat which is a nice feature to have. Per the Inkubook rep you can’t title or personalize the spine at all – meaning no text or anything and the color is the background color of the book. She said there were other customers asking about the feature and they may add it, but no timeline on when. There was one company which I can’t recall right now that allows you to drag and drop a single image that wraps across the front, back and spine which I thought was a unique feature. That would be a nice option to have as a more common feature on these book making sites.
Was wondering, what kind of computer do you use – PC or Mac and how did you choose the 12 companies you ended up reviewing?
Thanks!
I am on a PC and my Secret-Super-Spy is on a Mac. I chose the 12 companies based on the ones that scrappers seem to use and be interested in. There was one other brand new site that I really wanted to include, but was unable to access their site for several days in a row and gave up.
This is one heck of an amazing review. I personally thank you for doing this … I appreciate the time, cost, follow up, and write-up! Wow!!
Thank you so much for this all-encompassing review. I know I found it extremely useful and will definitely bookmark it for future reference.
And another thank for the actions by wendy tip…I will definitely check it out, too.
Awesome review, Steph! It’s so crazy how different everyone’s experiences are…. I’ve printed with Shutterfly and I thought the book was terrible. It did not match my monitor (I am calibrated). I actually thought my Viovio book was way better. haha
Re: noise. Yes, high ISOs or underexposed images can have a lot of noise, but my experience has been that photos in my press printed books look noisy and not as crisp and clear as a photo processed print. I was blamed by a certain company (who shall remain nameless) that it was my fault even though I had some pages printed elsewhere and had no problems with noise.
I absolutely LOVE my Adoramapix book. I oooooh’ed and ahhhh’ed over it and it just seems to such a high quality book. The color, clarity, and brightness is EXACTLY matched to my calibrated monitor.
THANKS for the info Megan! The Adorama book was the only book that I gasped at! It really is a beautiful book and I noticed a difference before even opening the box…it was sooo heavy compared to otheres. I actually wondered if I accidentally ordered 2-3 books without noticing…lol!
Oops, forgot to mention that I have had books printed at Snapfish and was very pleased with the quality. One was with my own digi layouts, and one with their format. My problem came for the cover choice of the 12×12. It wasn’t at all clear on the order form that the tan color was VELOUR until the order confirmation came. Yikes. Had to beg and plead to get that order canceled and replacing it was a headache. But, the book was beautiful, with its proper black leather cover…
Awesome, awesome, awesome! Thank you for all the hard work; I can’t imagine the headaches you must have gotten!
(Incidentally, I am almost tempted to use Winkflash because they scored a 5 on inside pages color and that’s THE most important part for me!
…but that problem binding… hmmm)
Thank you!!
I’ve printed with Shutterfly a couple of times and have been pretty happy with them. It’s great to see a comparison without having to order my own books.
One thing I found with Shutterfly – I maxed out the number of pages on one book and because the binding is glued, some pages in the middle have come out of the book!
Anyway, great site & great posts!
Thank you! LOVED this post.
In response to Tracy K above I have printed a book from Creative Memories and their cover was dark but crisp and clear without noise, the inside was another story, it was very noisy and the photos were a much lower quality than what I started with, I have never ordered from them again. I have been doing shutterfly and have been happy, recently printed Adorama and LOVED my book, loved my 20×30 print will order their from now on.
Did you build the book in the CM software or did you use Photoshop (or something else) and import your images and have them fill the page? I would be interested to know since it is something that I received conflicting information from the CM customer service reps.
THANK YOU for your diligence, persistence, and just plain stubborn-on-behalf-of-your-readers determination on getting this feat accomplished. What a huge undertaking.
Your take home lesson for me? Convince Wendy or somebody to create actions for Paint Shop Pro because otherwise I’m just not going to bother! LOL
I am particularly glad for the Winkflash review as I’ve used them several times for printing postcards (and they came out really, really well) and I would have been tempted to try them for printing photobooks.
I’m thinking about trying Mpix. I’ll let you know how it comes out if I do.
I feel your pain!
I used PSP for several years… until this year. I finally decided to get PSE when version 8 came out. I have found that I like it better than PSP (I have version X). There are a couple of things I can’t do with PSE that I could with PSP (like adjust the kerning for text or put a shadow on it’s own layer – there may be a way to do this, but I haven’t figured it out yet), but overall I’m really happy with it. It is much, much easier to use layered templates in PSE and there is just so much more “stuff” available online. Anyway, just something to think about. 
Please let me know if you try Mpix!
I would suggest trying out Adorama because I was able to easily build my whole album in there without any actions or templates and it printed exactly as it looked on the site!
Unbelievable undertaking — thank you so much for all the time and effort you put into it. This is very valuable info to have!
Thanks for taking the time to do this! I have used a couple of sites for printing photo books, and even with the same company (with different books) I have had varying quality.
Thanks for taking the time to do all this work.
And this – I am always interested in what other sites have to offer so I am looking forward to reading through all of the reviews. I stopped when I saw that you were not able to review Creative Memories. They do offer a FREE version of the software that has fixed templates for drag and drop photobook creation. I hope your next reviews of photobook printing will include CM as well.
The link to get the free software can be found here:
http://creativememories.com/MainMenu/Our-products-and-services/Digital-Scrapbooking/Digital-Scrapbooking-Software
I would appreciate it if you corrected your review as well because you DON’T have to buy a $70 software package to get a photobook.
Thanks, Tracy
Please see my above comment to Kristine , but in a nutshell, the CM customer service rep. that I spoke with tonight said that there are no fixed templates that would allow me to make my jpegs (that I created in Photoshop) fill a whole page.
I will also update the post with some screenshots.
Thank you so much for your careful and detailed reviews! I’ve always used Shutterfly (and boy, did it take me a long time to figure out how to do everything!) and have always be super-pleased with their books. The Adorama looks like it’s worthy of a try too, though! I’m intrigued by the flat binding, and not having to resize everything so it will fit… (For Shutterfly, I always leave the background at 100%, but re-size the contents of the layout to 95 or 96%. That seems to solve the cutting off problems that occur even when using their templates.)
Fabulous review and information. It’s something I have wondered about and was thrilled to see your post today. Thank you.
I knew there was a reason I only printed with Shutterfly! They are excellent and quick. Always been happy with everything I’ve printed there. I made a 60th wedding anniversary using their templates several years ago for my grandparents and they still talk about that book! Thanks for taking the time to give a full review and comparison. Definitely saving this to my favorites!
I am always interested in what other sites have to offer so I am looking forward to reading through all of the reviews. I stopped when I saw that you were not able to review Creative Memories. They do offer a FREE version of the software that has fixed templates for drag and drop photobook creation. I hope your next reviews of photobook printing will include CM as well.
I called Creative Memories earlier today, after seeing your comment to verify with them and the rep on the phone assured me that in Storybook 3.0, you can create a book.
I just tried once again to create a book and was unable to figure out how to do it. I called CM customer support again and spoke with Melissa and she said that there is no way to create a photobook with the images that I created in Photoshop. She had me hold while she opened her software, which I did. She came back and said that she could not find a way to create a photobook in the free software with jpegs (and have them fill a whole page). She said there were no templates that allowed this.
I could have possibly created a book using Creative Memories supplies (although I do not see a way to do that either), but then the review would have been void because the purpose was to compare each printer by printing the SAME images in the book.
Just wanted to thank you for considering our company when doing the review. This is awesome.
Thank you so much for this, Steph! I’ve been anxiously waiting for your review, and it has turned out to be incredible! (Glad that you have also posted that link I sent you with the other photobook reviews…) Everything you do here at the Daily Digi is just fantastic. This is truly my favorite website on the web!
I have a laptop and made a weak effort once to calibrate it with free utilities mentioned in the previous daily digi article, but I couldn’t get anywhere because I can’t change the contrast on my laptop (this appears to be set, and I can’t change it). I’m wary of paying for software because of my limited ability to change settings on my laptop. Does this mean that I can never get the printed result to look like my screen? Costco prints look great, but the colors are so different from my screen. I’m planning on ordering a book from Adorama.
There are a couple things you can do:
1) When you use software along with the special device to calibrate your monitor, it changes all of the settings for you. I also tried to calibrate my monitor on my own and was frustrated. The $70 I spent for the software and device was well worth it.
2) If you are going to try Adorama, Ingrid posted a comment above with a link to their profiles, you can download those and install them and then it will print exactly like your monitor looks (in theory).
Let me know how it goes and thanks for all of the information pre-review
Thanks Steph! I went ahead and ordered Spyder 3 Express based on your positive feedback of Spyder. Thank you again for everything you’ve done!
Hey Steph and everyone, if you have a calibrated monitor, you should also use our ICC profiles to manage your color, that way what you see on your calibrated monitor will match exactly what you get from us. Instructions on using profiles to soft-proof your images are here: http://www.adoramapix.com/BlogEntry.aspx?EntryID=172.
Cheers and have fun with your photobooks!
Ingrid
AdoramaPix
Thank you for doing all this (and your super spy!). It can be very expensive and especially when you add on shipping (sometimes hard to calculate for internationals). At least now I have more of an idea what to expect. Fabulous resource!
wow! this is such an awesome resource.
thank you for taking the time to do it. i use shutterfly for books and scrapping simply +costco and have been pleased with the results.
This is so awesome.. Thank you and your secret spy for all your hard work..
Thank you so much for doing this. I have been anxiously awaiting this post ever since you posted the single page reviews. I have been trying to figure out who to use for my first big photo book purchase and you certainly helped me decide on it.
Thank you so much for doing this! I have printed three photobooks and I feel like it is REALLY important to get that done. The books are so friendly for your family to actually enjoy those memories and stories. My books were all printed at Shutterfly and I only learned later from your first printing post about turning off Vividpix. I wish you could just turn it off period instead of having to go into each LO and edit, turn off Vividpix. Anyway, having read this post, I think I will definitely try AdoramaPix and see what I think.
Really, thanks for your work. It must have taken so much time. This is why I support your site and buy the DigiFiles EVERY month. Oh, and I meet great designers. And, get great coupons! And, get chances to win product! And, learn new things everyday….You’re the Best!
How SWEET!!! THANKS for all the kind words and support! That’s why I do what I do!
Wow, thank you SO much for doing this! I have only used blurb and shutterfly in the past, I had difficulties with shutterfly but I may have to give them another chance.
In Blurb, I did a jacket book and the jacket is glossy and pretty spot-on with the colors (I didn’t hold it up to my computer though). The spine was customizable with text, I didn’t experiment with adding color to it though since the majority of my front/back covers were white anyway.
Wow! Thanks so much for the reviews. After the planning photobooks articles, I remembered I had a December (almost) daily book made up and waiting to be printed. Cost was most important then and I went to a couple sites and couldn’t even figure out how to register and start. Thanks so much for all of this information and all of your effort!
I must admit that sometimes I have wondered if sites really want to sell their books. It really can be frustrating…and I consider myself a technical person…lol…and it can still be frustrating!
Thank you SO MUCH for doing this. I know (having printed plenty of photobooks myself) how frustrating and time-consuming it can sometimes be. Having only purchased from a few of the places you reviewed above, I am really glad to have an unbiased look at so many choices. This is an incredibly helpful resource! I’ve printed with Shutterfly, Inkubook, and Viovio. Inkubook has by far the best interface, but Shutterfly’s quality I thought was a tad better. I wasn’t really crazy about the books I ordered from Viovio, the colors were off from what was shown on my calibrated monitor. From the looks of your review, I’m definitely considering Adorama for my next book purchase. Thanks again!
THANKS for sharing!! Let me know how your next order goes!
Wow, this is a fabulous review. I will definitly share it with other.
Thank you so much for doing this! I have ordered from both Artscow and Shutterfly only to end up disappointed both times.
This was very helpful!
Wow, what a major undertaking! Thank you so much for all the excellent information.
I want to thank you so much for taking the time to do this project. Your input will be so helpful to me and others. I will diligently read over all your notes and should then be able to make a decision as to where to print my albums.
Again, thank you for these comparisons.
I wonder what I am doing wrong with shutterfly then! I have had two books printed there and both I’ve been happy(ish) with but not wowed. I compare the prints I get off of my Epson 2200 and the colors/quality is not the same and I wonder why I spent so much money. I do turn off vivid pics and all that. Very interesting…maybe I just got a bad couple…guess I will try them again since quality is my #1 priority in photobooks!
Thanks for going through all this work Steph (and super secret spy guy)!!!
You should try calobrating your monitor. I posted a link above in the scoring section on how I do this.
You could also give AdoramaPix a try
Monitor is calibrated. I’ll try AdoramaPix next time.
oh wow… thank you so much for this, I have been waiting for your results and look forward to watching the comments here and any other feedback.
Ok so I’m off to read this post now.. but just wanted to thank you first. xxox
Steph, thank you so much for this. This info is invaluable to me and I appreciate you doing this. I am the one that posted at DST about being fed up with Shutterfly – and I find it kind of ironic that it pretty much got your best review. I’ve had both good experiences and bad ones with them. Which is why I was looking elsewhere. But I guess that could be the case with any company… inconsistency at times. In any case, I’ve got three books to print at the moment, so guess I’ll be sticking with what I know best. Thank you again.
You might want to give AdoramaPix a try. I really did like them as well. The color difference was not noticeable until comparing to my calobrated monitor.
Thank you so much for doing this!
On the first couple reviews, you use numbers for the intimidation factor, but the rest you use a worded scale. It’s a bit confusing. Is 5 good or bad?
I fixed it. Sorry about that!