iPhoto books

Given that prints come from Kodak/Ofoto, I've always assumed that
it's an Ofoto photo book.

http://www.ofoto.com/PhotoBookOverview.jsp?c=P_StoreOverview

[Possible now, but Ofoto didn't have those books when iPhoto 1.0 debuted. -Adam]

--
Andrew Laurence
atlaurenuci.edu

I too would be interested in any ideas and/or recommendations.

I recently volunteered to create an album book of a family trip, and
have decided iPhoto's book making capabilities are too limited and/or
not flexible enough. For example, The "Classic" allows for captions,
but captions only (no text). The "Portfolio" option is very restricted
in the amount of text it allows, as well as layout of text and photos.
The "Picture Book" doesn't allow text at all. The "Story Book" is
cute, and allows for text, but it places photos in "cute" angles and
overlaps them, but doesn't give you any control over either the angle
or placement of photos. Moreover, you can't mix and match page layouts
from different styles. Bottomline, there is almost zero creative
leeway in producing books with iPhoto. These limitations could be
significantly alleviated either by Apple offering many more page layout
templates than currently available in iPhoto, or allowing customization
of included templates.

Moreover, while the finshed book is pretty nice (I've ordered a few),
they are very limited in a number of ways. There is no option to make
a book in portrait orientation. There is only one size. There is no
option (at least the last time I tried) to print on both sides of a
page. Aside from selecting color, the cover options are fairly limited
as well.

Ofoto, Imagestation (Sony's image printing site), mypublisher.com all
allow you to produce books, and all seem to offer much greater
flexibility in these areas. But the first two require you to do
everything on a webpage (no client software to do the design on) which
is inconvenient and slow, and mypublisher is PC only.

So anyone with thoughts on an iPhoto like program/service combination
that allows you to design photo books with much greater flexibility
than iPhoto? (Or do I just have to run mypublisher.com's Bookmaker in
VPC? A shame really when the Mac's "digital lifestyle" capabilities is
what is supposed to set them apart from the PC.)

Tn

I've never used them, but the Gallery software I've used on several
websites has links to print photos in the gallery from Shutterfly. Not sure
if this is because of the Shutterfly quality, or because, if you enable it
in the preferences, the Gallery software writer gets an affiliate link and
money for each photo printed from the Gallery.

<http://www.shutterfly.com/>

I did find this tip on using Shutterfly with iPhoto
<http://www.michaelbraly.com/archives/000087.html>

Oh, the gallery software is:
<http://gallery.menalto.com/>

Kevin

        Last year, we bought 3 albums from Apple, and were very
happy. This year, we wanted 6 albums, with more pictures. At 50
pages, 6 albums looks like $900+ shipping from Apple, although they
don't disclose pricing (apparently $30 for 10 pages + $3/page)
without building the album, registering, and starting the ordering
process.

[Pricing is simple: $3 per page, with a 10-page minimum. -Adam]

        Checking this list, I quickly found MyPublisher (much
cheaper, but Windows only) and Ofoto. Kodak offers double-side
printing at the same cost, so their albums cost about a third Apple's
pricing, and you can find current 20% & 30% coupons in Google, which
nicely off-set the shipping charges.

        I thought Ofoto was doing Apple's printing, so we were quite
surprised that the Ofoto pictures don't look as good as the Apple
pictures. Partially this is because last year's Apple book used no
captions -- each page was either 4-up landscape or 2-up portrait,
which nicely filled the page with large images. In contrast, Kodak
doesn't offer options which fill the page this way, and every
template seems to include a caption, so all the pictures were
physically smaller than in the Apple album. I think there's more to
the discrepancy -- which is quite possible, considering that the
Kodak books are so much cheaper, but makes one wonder why they don't
offer "premium" books more with higher quality.

        Anyway, it's important to know there are options, even if
they're inferior.

        I was also impressed by the Flash program which actually does
the layout. It was surprisingly good, although not as good as iPhoto,
and it dropped a few pictures. The Ofoto Express application allows
uploading batches of photos, and is intended to work from an iPhoto
export. Alas, it doesn't handle ordering or filenames properly, and
the customer service response was useless.

--
Chris Pepper: <http://www.reppep.com/~pepper/>
Rockefeller University: <http://www.rockefeller.edu/>

> Last year, we bought 3 albums from Apple, and were very happy. This
> year, we wanted 6 albums, with more pictures. At 50 pages, 6 albums
> looks like $900+ shipping from Apple, although they don't disclose
> pricing (apparently $30 for 10 pages + $3/page) without building the
> album, registering, and starting the ordering process.

Apple does disclose pricing on their iPhoto page (if you follow the
book link):

http://www.apple.com/ilife/iphoto/books.html

But your calculations are correct. $29.99 for the first 10 pages and
$3 for each additional page.

Compared to the Ofoto pricing which is $29.99 for the first 20 double
sided or 10 single sided pages, and $1.99 for each additional page.
Assumng you do double sided printing, Apple is more than twice as
expensive as Ofoto for the same material.

MyPublisher.com is even less expensive at $19.80 for the first 20
pages, and 99 cents per additional page.

I know MyPublisher.com is PC only, but anyone have experience with
their books to be able to comment on quality?

The other question I had is that Ofoto imposes a 40 sheet (40 single or
80 double sided) limit on their books. Does Apple, or any of the other
competing services?

[Unless something has changed, Apple's limit is 50 pages. -Adam]

I generally liked the Ofoto books a little bit better than iPhoto books
although I wish the pages were slick like the iPhoto books.

I didn't find the Ofoto book creation interface all that slow and
really liked being able to pick the page template on the fly as I built
the book. Uploading the 100 or so high res JPEGs we used went really
smoothly using the new Ofoto Express software and didn't take nearly as
long as I expected. We do have a broadband connection. I can see where
trying to do the book we did on a dial-up connection would be suicide.

Alan Youngblood

There is a way to create custom templates for iPhoto. This is detailed
in the "iPhoto Missing Manual" by David Pogue et al. (O'Reilly). And
it's Christmas time : the chapter in which it is explained is available
as a sample download ! Good luck, and let us know how it goes…

[Yes, I wrote about this in iPhoto 4: Visual QuickStart Guide too. However, be warned that neither of the two techniques - creating a new template or editing/replacing the temporary PDF that is sent to Apple - are for the faint of heart, so you'd want to test this on a 10-page book first, before committing a lot of money to something that may not print well. -Adam]

philippe

www.oreilly.com/catalog/iphototmm/chapter/ch10.pdf
(see last 2 pages)

I have created quite a few photo albums through
iPhoto. Although the formats are restricted,
sometimes that make you to think and re-edit your
choices. It is a modest art, but like any art,
the restraints require you to rethink the project.

After the holiday I will be putting together
albums of a recent trip to Australia and New
Zealand. I intend to treat my albums a bit
differently this time. I am going to do a test
assembly and note the pages that don't compose
the way well. I'll then compose the page the way
I want in PhotoShop and replace the individual
pictures with it .

I had one instance of problems with the iPhoto
albums, The finished product contained pixelated
images, although I had supplied files with plenty
of resolution. When I called and complained, they
simply reran the previously uploaded file, issued
a credit for the earlier album, and charged me
for the new one. The images in the new album were
produced correctly.

Regards,
Don O'Shea
--
Dr. Donald C. O'Shea, Emerit. Prof. Editor, Optical Engineering
School of Physics (N120) Tel: 404-373-0035
Georgia Institute of Technology Fax: 404-894-9958
Atlanta, GA 30332-0430 E-mail: dosheaprism.gatech.edu
_______________________________________________________________

Thanks to Andrew and Kevin for the feedback. I think my wife is
going to give Ofoto a try. She is a photographer and has been
offering the iPhoto books as a low-end option for a photo book for
her wedding/children's photo customers.

As a side note, she has been using a company called White Glove First
Edition Books for her high-end offering <http://www.wgbooks.com/>.
These aren't anywhere close to cheap, but man are they nice, and
their customer service is first rate!

Standard disclaimer applies - Just a satisfied customer of White Glove.

--
Jay Morgan Work E-Mail: jay.morgansun.com
Technical Consultant Personal E-Mail: jhmorganmindspring.com
Sun Microsystems, Inc Office: 678-233-6013

Another option I'd throw in there, especially if you are confident
with preparing a PDF file and need something done quickly is your
local FedEx Kinko's. Most have the ability for high quality digital
printing and multiple binding options (including perfect binding -
which looks like a paperback book). They don't have an off the shelf
photobook offering, but if you find them in the slower hours you'll
get a coworker to work with you.

Disclaimer: I'm a former FedEx Kinko's employee, although not for
that long. (Utilize both meanings.)

On another note most of them have G5s for customer rental.

In case anyone is interested in a recent first-hand experience:

I created a photo book as a gift for this Christmas using Shutterfly. The
experience and results were excellent. Though you are (apparently) limited
to the page layout choices and typefaces offered by their browser-based
layout engine (which seems to use Flash for much of the image manipulation
such as cropping and effects), the choices they have are well conceived and
produce professional results. Using the web layout tool may be painful on a
dial-up connection; on cable modem it is quite fast and easy to use.

My only real gripe is the (again apparent) inability to alter typefaces
(italicize, bold, etc.) for words within a particular text area; it all has
to be the same face.

Anyway, the book was delivered extremely quickly (less than a week), the
paper and image quality was superb, and the book was a big hit for the
recipient and the rest of the family as well. I'm a thoroughly satisfied
customer.
--
Todd Ruston
toddhackneyponies.com

(Currently listening to "The Fields Of Athenry" by "Celtic Orchestra" from "Celtic Moods")

There is a thread on Macintouch.com discussing iPhoto book publishers:

http://www.macintouch.com/iphoto10.html#dec23

In addition to the ones mentioned above, they also mention lulu.com

        Apple seems to have dropped book prices. Hardcover books were
$30 (10 pages) + $3/page single-sided; the same books are now $30 +
$1.49/page; double-sided hardcovers, large softcovers, medium soft,
and small softcovers (3-packs only) are all cheaper.

        If they'd done this a month ago, I wouldn't have used Ofoto.
Next year, I guess...

http://www.apple.com/ilife/iphoto/books/
Small Softcover (3-pack) $11.99; each additional page $0.29
Med. Softcover $9.99; each additional page $0.49
Lg. Softcover $19.99; each additional page $0.69
Lg. Hardcover (Double-sided) $29.99; each additional page $0.99
Lg. Hardcover (Single-sided) $29.99; each additional page $1.49
See complete specs on our pricing page.

http://www.apple.com/ilife/iphoto/books/prices.html

                                                Chris
--
Chris Pepper: <http://www.reppep.com/~pepper/>
Rockefeller University: <http://www.rockefeller.edu/>

Check out http://www.lulu.com

They publish books from a PDF file. $4.53 base price + 15 cents per page for full color. They also do calendars.

They are set up for people to publisher their own books, but you can easily (and they encourage it) only publish your book for yourself. They also do calendars for < $12!