Online photo books

Just a personal review of some photo books I made using Toronto-based Pikto. The two books which were used as Christmas gifts turned out quite well, I thought. The hardcover books were 8-1/2″ x 11″ format with leatherette covers, debossed text on the cover, 170-gsm glossy paper and no vellum leafs, (more on these options later).

Many years ago, I used Shutterfly and was happy with the results. Over the past several years, Shutterfly has greatly expanded its options but I have no experience with these newer offerings. Shutterfly, like the many other USA-based online book printers, often have sales and it might be worthwhile to wait for a discount.

Pikto seems to be about 15%-20% more expensive than other online book printers, although there are a few book printers that are even more expensive. The overall quality of my Pikto books is much better than my early Shutterfly books.

The total cost for my books, with my options, worked out to about $1.46/page, not including tax or shipping (if applicable). (Note: 1 sheet of paper = 2 pages).

Compare this to the cost of getting photographic prints made (a cheap 8″x10″ at Walmart is about $4) or to the time and cost of making your own inkjet prints. But having photo prints means you end up with a stack of prints not a nicely bound book.

Many online printers use a browser-based application to assemble the book and upload the pictures. Pikto lets you create your book off-line using free templates or a free application. It also supplies colour profiles. I used the InDesign templates and it was quite simple.

Here are a few things I learned (and some of this is subjective):

1) Placing images right up to the template’s “safe line” near the page gutter meant that about 1/2″ of that picture was barely visible after binding, unless the viewer flattens out the book, (which probably isn’t a good thing to do). Next time, I’ll leave at least one inch of space from the gutter safe line.

It’s also a good idea to leave extra space from the safe lines on the outside right and outside left page edges. This gives readers a place to hold the pages without putting their fingers on the pictures. Of course, you wouldn’t leave a space if you’re doing full-page bleeds.

2) When each book was completed, I viewed the final PDF and it was blurry! So, I re-sharpened all the pictures. But the PDF was still blurry!?! Did everything again. Still soft!

After three wasted days of confusion, I figured out the problem. Apple Preview, the default PDF-viewer on a Mac, simply cannot render accurate PDFs. Once I switched to another PDF-viewer, Adobe Reader, everything was perfect.

3) Photos were edited on a calibrated monitor and converted to sRGB. Images were sharpened so that they looked sharp when viewed at 50% (not 100%). Some old pictures, shot many years ago on a film point-and-shoot and scanned with an old scanner, looked bad on-screen but turned out “okay” in print.

4) Each final book was about a 250-MB PDF which was uploaded to Pikto by FTP. File size depends on the size of the book, number of pictures, and the file size of each image, (my photos were jpeg’d at 10). If need be, finished PDFs can also be delivered on disk to Pikto.

5) Many photographers will produce books with pictures starting on the first page and ending on the last. If you do this, it might be wise to have vellum leafs added to the book. These are two thin, translucent sheets of paper added to protect the first and last pages from rubbing against the covers. It’s a nice effect but you could also just add some blank pages to the front and back of the book.

I chose to leave the first two pages blank. Personally, I think it looks odd if a book starts on the very first page. Next time, I’ll also leave the last one or two pages blank.

6) The default paper stock, a 170-gsm coated glossy, is much less glossy than the “F” surface of a photographic print. This is a good thing.

7) The book covers were debossed on the lower right corner. This means that some text was imprinted into the cover. Looked very nice. Next time, I would choose a larger font size than the default size and would probably put the text in the centre of the cover.

8) The red leatherette cover was almost smooth and the black leatherette cover was slightly textured. I thought the smooth finish was nicer but no big deal.

9) Instead of fabric, I went with the default inside cover liners. Looked good to me.

10) The two books I made averaged 98 pages (1 piece of paper = 2 pages). I wouldn’t go under, say, 60-ish pages. It’s necessary to have an adequate number of pages so that the book feels right. Smaller sized books can have fewer pages and larger sized books may require more pages. Softcover books can probably get away with fewer pages than a hardcover.

Producing online photo books is a no-brainer for photographers who do retail photography such as portraits and weddings. But it’s another story for corporate photographers, business photographers and other commercial photographers.

Some business clients might want a book to show off their products or services if they have a public reception area. I know a dentist who has, in his waiting room, a “smile book” with nice portraits of many of his smiling patients. But beyond that, I’m not sure if there’s a corporate market for these books.