“Response (Padraic) – 05/28/2009 01:27 PM
Hello Daniel,

Thank you for the images. This looks to fall within the standard variation of our printers, and does not constitute for a reprint. Each book you order from us is individually made by one of Blurb’s top-notch professional book-printing partners. There may be minor differences across different prints of the same books and/or across books printed by our different book-printing partners, including, but not limited to, slight variances in color fidelity and binding type. While we work very hard to keep our product as consistent as possible, this variation is a normal occurrence and is not considered a manufacturing defect or a defect in workmanship.”

When did this happen?

Back in March 2008 I printed a set of 8×10 wedding proof books along with a set of 7×7 books for a bride & groom to give to their wedding party. Upon receipt I immediately noticed that the 7×7 print quality was much lower than the 8×10 books. I contacted blurb, they asked for sample photos and after a few days agreed to reprint the 7×7s. But it didn’t do much good as the quality was about the same. In Sept. 2008 I received an email from blurb as follows:

“We’ve always had a thing for our square books – while their size may be a little out of the ordinary, that’s what makes them so fun! You’ve made one, so you know what we’re talking about. You also asked us to bump up the quality on these guys, so from now on we’ll be showing our 7×7 books the same love as their rectangular counterparts.

Starting today, we’ll be printing all our 7×7 books on the same HP Indigo printers as the rest of our books.”

I have yet to try them again for 7×7s, but hopefully this addresses that particular problem.

As for the overall issues discussed here… I agree that the most frustrating aspect has been inconsistency with their sub contracted printers. One just doesn’t know where the book will be coming from and if there will be problems… But to blurb’s credit, at least with me, every time I have contacted them with issues they’ve been quick to respond via email and have always reprinted books when there was a problem.

As others have stated… would I use them for real portfolio pieces? No. But I do use them to create gift books for friend or proof books for wedding clients. The cool factor of having a customized, printed book made specifically for someone still seems to outweigh relatively minor print quality issues. One has to remember that most people not in the business are used to seeing crummy point and shoot photos day in, day out. And I think this is where blurb is primarily focused despite their claims to the contrary.

To read that you received one, just shows me how random their support is and is another reason why I would never use them for professional quality products.

When I get into a disagreement like that, after making a reasonable attempt to solve the problem, I decline the charges on my credit card. then it is up to them to prove they gave you a quality product, which they won’t be able to do.

Burying your head in the sand seems a silly option.

I think one of the differences though is that with Blurb you can only use their own software, and with Paper Chase you can use whatever software you want, which means you have to have prepress work done too.
I always thought that was included in their advertised price….

I also had a rough time with Blurb and found the fact that you couldn’t ever just TALK to someone too infuriating to even give them another chance. After that I went to Paper Chase. At first it was a bit challenging, it took some hounding to get the customer service reps to give my job the attention it really needed. But once I got the book back it looked so spot-on I couldn’t imagine going anywhere else. I’ve noticed some changes over there, new customer service reps, new production manager, and it definitely seems to be working. Since ordering my first book, I’ve done two more jobs with them and they both came out perfect.
http://www.paperchase.net

I’ve created the same book with Asuka to see the quality difference (which hasn’t come in yet). But considering the price difference – $17.95 compared to $120.00- I’m not expecting anywhere near the same level of quality.

I had a terrible experience with Paper Chase, (both print quality and customer service). This cost me a fortune in shipping proofs back and forth from NY to LA, and they never got it even close to right, and they gave me the similar line Jonathan got, “well, you’re never gonna be happy…” But people here seem to like it just fine.

I think it’s like back in the days of color labs, everyone I knew would swear off one lab or another, myself included. People make mistakes, but it comes down to how that company handles the mistake. Hopefully, Blurb recognizes the importance of customer service…

but for 1/6 the price of a high-end printer, what do you really expect?

I have regularly used Blurb for portfolios for commercial projects and have been very pleased with their quality and consistency. In fact it has helped me land significant business from a Fortune 100 company. It is imperitive the photographer have a completely color matched and calibrated system. We calibrate all our monitors and printers on a regular basis and use Blurb’s professional version with ICC profiling. As long as we do that we get excellent results and have been very pleased with their service.

Wonder if the person you mentioned really understands color matching and ICC profiling?

Blurb books are not the way to showcase your work to creatives and art buyers. The printing is just not there, if the creative is influenced by printing in addition to subject matter (and if you want to book jobs, you should assume both are equally important).

Interestingly enough, I order postcards all the time with Paperchase and I always have to call them 3 times to get an estimate, they promise a proof, it doesn’t arrive, the colors don’t match. As long as you hold their hand along the way the printing is nice, but they could make it easier to work with them.

I order Blurb books all the time for family albums. Once I had trouble uploading a book and no one would call me. They simply will not call to work out a problem with you. The print quality has always matched darn good to my calibraed monitor when I use Adobe RGB 1998 and sRGB. I disagree with a previous poster that Blurb does not give you a color space recco- it says you should make jpgs in sRGB.

Both services are lacking in customer service.

All my books are made in Holland as part of the Europan Blurb operation. My feeling from reading about this company on various fora for a couple of years is that one of the US printers might not be up to standard. It’s rare indeed to see any complaints here in Europe.

Are they perfect? No. Are they damned good for the money? Yes.

My next wedding shoot will sell in Blurb books, not an album.

I would be more inclined to use them if there was more consistency. I am certainly willing to pay more to get the higher quality, but apparently this is not an option with the way their system is set up. Their customer service was very nice, but ultimately unhelpful.

If it works for you, it works for you.

He’s a solid photographer with strong work, but we live in the world of RGB. I am not implying that Jonathan doesn’t understand the process.

The voodoo that happens in conversion is something we should all understand if we submit for publication but I’m going to lob a potential bomb out there and say that most publication photographers may understand it in theory but not in practice.

For good or ill, all of the POD vendors allow folks like us to “run with sharp knives”. If the inconsistency issue is such a persistent problem, then why even do business with them?

But you know Banned by Blurb, how cool is that! Power to the Pixels!