Question: Deluxe or Classic Hardcover?

[MI_Hiker]

I'm trying to decide between the Deluxe and the Classic Hardcover books. Regardless of what book I get I will mainly be doing 1-2 photos per page. So it's not a question of needing the larger book to cram more images into.

I have a Nikon D50 6 Mega pixel digital slr camera. The photos I'll be making into the book were taken at the highest resolution JPG setting on the camera (not in RAW though). File size ranges from 2 - 3 MB with an image size of 3008 x 2000.

My question is, if I use a single image full bleed in the Deluxe book, how will it look? I want the photos to come out sharp and not grainy.

I believe the size of the Deluxe will be more impressive, but will gladly get the Classic if the Deluxe images won't look as good.

Thank you in advance for your help and suggestions!

[mypublisher]

Either Classic or Deluxe will be equally great! You have a good camera.

Sincerely,
MyPublisher

[Ellebelle1]

My pictures were taken with an amazing camera and they all came out grainy. My pics were 10 megapixels and a little bigger in size.

[mypublisher]

Hi Ellebelle1 -

I think what happened there was that the images were too large for the spaces they were being printed in. There was too much data in the image files to compress properly. I've contacted you offline. Typically, the file size should be about 5mb or lower.

Sincerely,
MyPublisher

[asmit4]

Mine were all 2-3 and our classic and deluxe turned out great!

I think it depends on what you want the book for. If you want a larger book that wow's people at the size of the photos then go with the deluxe.

If it's book on 1 vacation of many that you have gone on and you plan on taking more vacations and creating more books then go with a classic. Of course, if it's a honeymoon or vacation in Hawaii with lots of flowers and gorgeous backgrounds then the larger book will be great!

I thought our classic created great photos in a sorta 10x8 size- so think of the size of your photos in a large frame. The deluxe creates HUGE photos.

If this is your first book, sometimes I think it's best to go with the classic. That way you can see what a finished product looks like to make sure that they come out to your liking. Just keep in mind that the deluxe are larger, the pages are thicker and for lack of a better word- they look more "deluxe".

[Attagirl]

MI_Hiker,
I'm curious if you made a decision and completed your book. My digital pics are the same size as yours so I was wondering how everything turned out.

Did you reduce your file sizes or stayed with 3008x2000?
Did you change the color space from what the camera used?
Did you change the dpi?

Thanks.

[MI_Hiker]

First of all, thank you everyone for your help and suggestions, they were greatly appreciated.

I ended up going with the Classic Hardcover.

I did not reduce the files, I used the images directly from the camera with a resolution of 3008 x 2000, an average file size of 2-3 MB, and dpi of 300.

I left the color space as RGB Color (camera default).

The photo book turned out BEAUTIFUL!! I absolutely could not be happier with the finished product. The colors are great, images are crisp and the pages are thick and very professional. The only thing I would do differently in the future is to order the book with the cut-out and then order a dust jacket separately. I have a feeling the jacket will wear out with time and the cover you get with the dust jacket option is just a plain black with no cut out window. Definitely not a major issue though, just a lesson learned.

I had ordered 2 photo books in the past and used I believe the basic all photos template with white background pages. For this book I used the Travel template and it made a world of difference. Instead of having a boring white background with the photos the template created more of a scrapbook look and I was able to layer photos on top of each other. Everyone I've showed the book to has been quite impressed.

Here is a link to the preview which in my opinion doesn't do the finished product justice at all!

http://www.mypublisher.com/bookstore/book_viewer.py?book_id=921686&sp=x

If anyone has any additional questions, please don't hesitate to ask.

[Attagirl]

Thank you for sharing your photo book. You did a great job! And your trip looked like a wonderful adventure, although my back is twitching just looking at your packs!

So you did not reduce the file sizes on the smaller pictures and they didn't turn out grainy? Hmmm, then I don't know what to do about mine...I thought I finally figured out why mine were grainy per the above message. My file sizes and dpi were set the same as yours but my book turned out on the dark side and somewhat grainy, which is very noticeable on people shots.

Well, back to the drawing board!

[eco7mckc]

Hi

You have a great book. I tried downloading the "travel" bookstyle but without success. Any advice or tips?

[MI_Hiker]

eco7mckc,

Thank you for the nice comments on the book.

What do you mean by you tried downloading the travel bookstyle? When you install the latest version of Bookmaker software the travel template should be one of the options? Do you have the latest version of Bookmaker installed?

[x0x098]

MI_Hiker,
Great Book! I especially liked the pages with photos layered on top of photos, that's really a nice effect. Can this be done with mp? Or did you use another program and then uploaded to mp?

x0x098

[msharptn]

Attagirl - or whomever wishes to respond,

DId you ever solve your issue with the photo book printing a bit too dark, color saturated or grainy?

My file sizes and dpi is also similar to yours ( with a canon digital rebel 7.8 )

I have printed 4 books (3 out of 4 were great) and my last one - which was laid out on the black background instead of white - had the same problem as you, being a bit on the dark side and somwhat grainy.

Any advise is welcome!

[msharptn]

Your photo book was terrific!

[MI_Hiker]

Thank you for the compliments on the book!

Yes, all of the effects except for the inside cover page (the map showing our route) was done using the Bookmaker software supplied by My Publisher. For the map page I used PhotoShop and then just used the full page photo template in Bookmaker.

On the travel template there are page templates that allow you to use one of your photos as the background and then layer other photos on top. I found this a good way to use up photos that weren't that great but maybe had a nice area in the sky or the rocks.

[MI_Hiker]

msharptn and Attagirl,

The photos that you had that were grainy, were they smaller photos only or were even your large (full or half page) photos grainy?

I took a look at one of the few small pictures I used and noticed that if I looked closely it is more grainy than the others (actually the others aren't grainy in the least!). I assumed that I just over cropped the photo but now that I look again I see that the photo was not over cropped. I'm wondering if because I used the large full sized image to fill that tiny little space, if it was too much information and the software didn't downsize it very well? Next time I print a book and use a small photo, I'll try sizing myself before adding to the template. Just curious if this is the same issues you were having since we all seem to be using pretty high res cameras.