mavie's reviews

I'll be occasionally comparing Blurb to My Publisher's classic book because it is similar in size and it's the only other photobook I have experience with. I will review Blurb in five areas: print and binding quality, features, software usability, shipping, and customer service.

Print and Binding: Blurb says its pages are 80# coated semi-matte paper. However, I beg to differ on the paper weight. I used cardstock of 80# weight for my wedding programs and Blurb's pages are no where near the thickness of 80#. In fact, Blurb's pages are slightly thinner than My Publisher's classic book pages.

I would have to say that page print quality in terms of ink and vibrancy, is comparable to My Publisher when MP prints without problems. The jacket cover print quality is really nice. The jacket cover is glossy and the picture really pops and comes alive. The jacket cover is really sturdy and good quality and so is the black linen hardcover. The hardcover feels a bit sturdier than My Publisher's.

The Blurb book binding is really tight, which is good because the pages won't tear off as easily. But because of the tight binding, the book does not open flat, especially when you have a lot of pages. This is true of My Publisher as well. Because of this, the left page has a really big arch when opened but this is true of any book binding. So having full page bleed on this side of the book would obstruct about an inch of the photo. You'll have to press down on the page to see the whole picture.

Blurb crops 1/8" to 1/4" from the top, bottom, and opposite side from the binding. I don't think Blurb crops the binding edge but since it's the binding edge, you will see less. Like My Publisher, you only really start to see something about 3/4" from the binding edge. Even if you use their templates, they will crop and what you see in preview is not what you get with any picture that bleeds to the edge. Allow for the cropping when placing your photos in edge bleed. The actual page size is really 9.5" wide by 8" height.

Features: Blurb offers a lot of template choices. They come in different sets. I chose the portfolio set of templates which offered a mix of photo and text layouts. Within each set, there are a lot of options for cover, title, chapter, photo, and text layouts. Each set offers different backgrounds and styling. The options are definitely abundant. Even if you are using the templates, you can still somewhat customize it. For example, in my Introduction spread (see pic below), the left page has a single picture centered. I used a template that has space for 3 pictures across the center and text below each picture. However, I only chose to put a center picture with no text. The templates offer the space for photos and text but you are not required to fill out all the spaces.

You can still design your own pages and put them in Blurb. Just use the full bleed page layout. See their Help section for more details on actual size.

Blurb just came out with a book about how to design a Blurb book. It was designed and printed by Blurb. It gives design tips and is an actual sample of their book quality. If you're still unsure about Blurb quality, I would suggest buying this 40 page book for $14.95. As of this writing (10/31/2006), they are offering a $10 coupon towards your next purchase if you buy their how to book. If you're just interested in the contents of the book, they offer a free PDF version of it. Go here. This how to book they created is a great example of what you can do with Blurb. It uses different font colors and sizes to show how that can be used effectively.

One of the best features of Blurb is that it allows you to use any font on your system. Blurb books come with a laminated dust cover jacket that you design. This feature makes your book look like a real published book. Also, their book sizes are geared more towards regular book sizes. They offer both portrait (8"x10") and landscape(10"x8"), which other sites don't. They do not have cutout covers.

Blurb's pricing cannot be beat. You get a lot of pages for half the price of other online photobooks. And you don't sacrifice quality for lower pricing either. Go to their website for pricing info. My 132 paged book cost me $42. I could even go up to 160 pages and still pay $42. I had a free shipping coupon when I ordered, so the price I paid reflects that.

Software Usability:Blurb Bookmaker software is a memory and CPU resource hog. If your system doesn't have the recommended specs, then using the software will be very sluggish. I had the minimum requirements and at times, dragging pictures over was very slow. Sometimes it would freeze and to resolve that, I would minimize the Bookmaker software and then maximize it. Entering text can be annoying because when you click in the text box, it turns your text to black. So when you have a black background with black text, you can't read it! Only when you start to type something does the text turn to a readable color. Also to remember to proofread, proofread, and proofread some more. I did proofread a lot but I still found spelling errors after the book was printed. Grrr...

The program is easy to use without having to go through a tutorial. You choose a template for each page you work on and then just drag and drop your picture into the photo space. After placing your photo, it offers options to enlarge or decrease the size, change to black and white, mirror flip, and a few others. However, any photo editing needs to be done with a separate photo editing software. It's best to use a widescreen monitor. It cuts down on the horizontal scrolling when you want to work with a larger canvas.

Uploading takes a long time. My book was 103MB but it took over an hour to process and upload and I have cable internet. I set it to upload and went off to cook dinner. After eating dinner, it was done.

Blurb Bookmaker is still in beta release so it's not perfect.

Shipping: It took 6 business days for me to receive my book and they ship from Seattle, WA and I live in California. They ship through UPS, which doesn't do weekend delivery. Compared to My Publisher, MP has faster delivery and uses the USPS, which delivers on Saturdays.

Customer Service: I had a problem with uploading my book. I kept getting out of memory error. I emailed customer service (seems to be the only means of contact) on a Saturday and I got a reply on Monday telling me to upgrade to the latest Bookmaker software. After upgrading, that resolved my problem. If I were to compare Blurb customer service with My Publisher customer service, MP is faster. MP is 24 hours/7 days a week email customer service. I suppose Blurb's customer service is only the weekdays.

Samples: you can view my Knot bio for samples.

I feel they are not consistent in their print quality for their classic book. I had ordered two of the same book at different times from them. The first time, the black and white pictures had a lot of blue tint to them. The second time, the black and white photos didn't. Their page cutting is the luck of the draw. Sometimes they would cut the paper that fits your photo and other times, they would leave a big white margin. This is very noticeable when your page background is not white. In the preview mode, I don't see this so I know it's not my fault. I also know it's not my fault because the second time I ordered from them, there would be white margins on a page that wasn't on the first book I ordered.

When My Publisher prints correctly, the print quality is not bad. It isn't the best but that would mean you would have to pay more. If you look very closely, you can see print lines but at a reading distance, you won't notice. At first I thought the pages were thin. I guess I expected them to be thicker, but now I think they are decent. I think they are like the 65lb paper weight.

I ordered a sample to test out the quality and to get a real feel of their margins. They messed up on the printing. They skipped printing on the back of page 1 so all my facing pages were off by a page. I contacted customer service and after a few emails, they gave me full credit towards the next book purchase. They ended up giving me more credit than I paid. Their customer service is fast and so far a good experience.

My Publisher always has discount codes so it's a good alternative to buying an album from the photographer. It's also something fun to do if you enjoy it, but it can be very time consuming if you decide to design the page layouts yourself. I used Paint Shop Pro to design these layouts. It took me over a month to do these layouts.

Samples: you can view my Knot bio for samples.

This place was recommended online for cleaning your wedding dress. It's not local but it works great and I had no problems with the process. They first send you a box and bag to put your dress into with paid shipping. Then you package your dress and send it to them. They clean it and preserve it for you. Finally they send it back to you in a box with your dress neatly packaged. It's small enough for me to put it under my bed. The whole process took about a month but most of the time was spent in delivery since they are based in the East coast.

I did feel a little worried about sending my dress away but since I heard nothing but good reviews, I decided to try and was happy with my experience.

This place only does wedding dress cleaning so they are very efficient and therefore can offer lower prices. Prices start at $99 and you can buy insurance. I didn't.

Paid $130

I basically bought the wedding dress the first place I looked, 10 months before the wedding. Finding "the dress" was not a big deal to me. I bought a no name brand dress that I felt looked good on me and I got that out of the way early. This dress was probably the most traditional thing in my wedding. The Wedding Gown Superstore is a discount shop that supposedly doesn't carry mass produced dresses. They let you try on 6 dresses but you're not allowed to take pictures. The sales lady that helped me didn't pressure me and gave me her honest opinion about the dresses I tried on.

We went to the original Derco in the SF Gift Center and got the e-ring, wedding bands, and my wedding saphire diamond necklace from there. Our sales person was very helpful and not pushy. We were recommended this place by my cousin who heard it from her friends. It's definitely word of mouth that has gotten people to this jeweler. Because of that, we were confident in buying from a reputable jeweler.

I've never been to the Santana Row store but heard that the prices are equivalent to the SF Gift Center one, which is surprising to me since SF Gift Center is for wholesalers and the one in Santana Row is in an upscale shopping mall.

Once you buy a ring from them, you can exchange in the future for the full value of the ring if you should decide to upgrade. They offer lifetime complimentary cleaning and ring checking at any Derco stores.

We had my husband's step father be our officiant. He got a one day deputized commissioner license to perform our wedding. We wrote the entire ceremony words and our vows ourselves. The San Mateo County issues this type of license for free while other counties charge. The person being deputized does not have to be a California or County resident. Some other counties have that restriction.

At the time we got the deputizing, they told us they can perform the wedding anywhere in California. However, their website indicates it's only good in San Mateo County. You might want to verify that.

If you sign up for their mailing list, they will send a lot of 40% and 50% coupons off a single regularly priced item. This is good if you know in advance what you need and you can buy a little each time with each coupon or make copies of the coupon and keep going back. They send coupons to you through the mail and email. With the email coupons you can print several times.

Although I got a lot of coupons from them, I never found what I needed at JoAnn's because the Mountain View and Sunnyvale stores were a complete mess and they were always out of stock. I wasn't looking for fabrics but for materials to make my programs, etc. I suppose if you're looking for fabrics then the coupons would be very useful.

I bought white paper parasols and paper fans here and they seemed to have the lowest price for them. Fast service and had no problems with my order. They have a ton of stuff you can use for favors and decor. They are not made with the highest material quality but for the price and for using it once, it's a bargain. Once you buy something from them, they keep sending you a lot of catalogs. You'll have to request to get off their mailing list.

This seems to be the site to go to for wedding liability insurance when your own insurance company won't cover you. It was fast and easy to sign up. Once you sign up, they will send you a copy and a copy directly to your venue. My facility required liability coverage of a million. I paid $195 in early 2006 for this coverage.

They have the lowest prices for almost everything they have on their website. I bought 1/2 pint chinese take-out boxes and ribbons from them. They have quick shipping too and I had no problems with my order.