As several of you suggested, and which was my plan from the get go, I had my 365 Days project printed as a book via Blurb.
Decided on a super simple layout with a week per spread and just the number of the week printed. There’s no journaling as I knew that it wouldn’t get done if I were to add that. I speak of experience as I started on a New York City book after the first trip Wille and I took two and a half years ago and it’s still not done. With this one I kept it simple and ordered it on January 1st.
I’m not super happy with the quality of all the photos. The cover turned out great (although I’m a little annoyed that I wasn’t able to move the title more to the right) and the paper (I chose premium paper) is really nice but the darker shots turned out very dark in print, Bonus is barely visible in a couple of them. Don’t know whether it’s my screen showing the images in a better light than they actually are but the darker months look a bit dreary in parts. The summer shots turned out nice though. I guess that’s what you get from living in darkness more than half the year.
Any way, I’m happy I did it and I’ll pop it in the book case for the future.
You can check out the whole book here if you want to or simply look back at the 365 posts here.
57 Comments
I had the same problem when I made our wedding photos into a blurb book, half of the pictures were too talk even though they were fine on my screen. I keep meaning to go through the book, find all the dark pics, lighten them on photo shop and have the book remade but it was so time consuming in the first place that I’m not sure can be bothered! (Your book looks lovely by the way, and I love your white wall!)
SNYGGT!
Och jag vet vad du menar med text… har fortfarande inte fått i väg min fotobok till tryck pga det.
What a fabulous keepsake.. beats the hell out of scrapbooking.
Was it expensive Benita ??
Jo xx
wow, this is great! your photos are always so beautiful… what a great way to preserve them!
It was about $60 including Premium paper and shipping for 110 pages.
I wish I could be so dedicated! Excellent in idea and in execution!
I love the book, Benita, and on my screen the pictures look just perfect (I went to blurb to see it) and not too dark at all, what a shame if they’re not great in irl. But still, what a wonderful book full of memories to keep, lovely! And white-green covers too, so you 🙂
Happy January, and more light soon (we’re getting there!)!
Yours,
Mia
The book does look nice. I definitely like the simplicity of your weekly setup. The overlays give a nice consistency but not boring since the date sometimes is at the top, bottom or on the side.
I used the same company once and wasn’t thrilled with the quality either. I use a local company nowadays. Still… the darker photo’s are harder to work with there as well so it could well be that the light in a computerscreen makes them look a little different…
I have the same problem when getting my photos printed. Mine are always lighter than the prints. And often not that wonderful colours. Don’t know why that happens.
Too bad about the quality, but I still love the concept. I´d love to make one for myself! 🙂
Love it! The cover reminds me of a notebook I got for Christmas- http://www.kikki-k.com/site_media/images/365_diary_red_bband__jpg_408x395_q85.jpg
I love it!
Wow – what a great idea! I loved your daily picture entries last year but was never inspired to do that myself till now when I saw them laid out in the book. Hm…maybe a spring 2011 to spring 2012 first year in our new house…
I really like the book idea! I took photos at our summer house during one year and madea book for my fathers 61st birthday. I added text though.
Åh – så kult med bok! Jeg har satt igang med 365-prosjekt i år, etter å ha blitt inspirert av deg ifjor. Kommer nok til å lage enten et album eller fotobok av det, jeg også. Liker kjempegodt den enkle layout’en du har valgt! (og noterer meg dine tanker om teksting og om mørke bilder) Tusen takk for inspirasjonen!:o)
I can see your green theme coming through on that page last June.
Well you’d pay that for any old coffee table book.. and this is so much more personal.
Plus, for all that you have it on line and have probably stored the photos on your hard drive.. it is nice to have something tangible to hold. I really miss ‘actual’ photos.
xx
What a fabulous idea! It looks great, I especially love the typography on the cover.
Very, very nice!
It’s a wonderful yearbook! My husband made a book like this (of photos of our vacation together) for my sister and brother-in-law using the i-photo on his MAC. It came out just beautifully.
So lovely! I always enjoyed seeing your weekly updates, but gathering the photos in book form makes everything look even more amazing. Your home is such a source of beauty and inspiration.
love it… & your pics!
I’m in the process of documenting our 2010 London trip… will keep your comments about “dark” pictures in mind as I put together my book!
Benita, what a beautiful idea! And your lovely book speaks volumes, excuse the pun.
I have used Shutterfly to make books. Anyone have opinions on which is better, Blurb or Shutterfly? I’m sure there are other companies that offer this service too …
Is the cozy fur thing (under the book) a throw or a pillow?
I think it’s a great idea to preserve your 365 posts in book form; it’s so much nicer to flip through a solid book with nice paper than to click through so many images on the screen. I’m sure you’ll be happy you kept your project this way many years down the road! I noticed that all the images are vertical – were they shot that way, or did you just crop them so for the book for consistency? I like the layout so much and thought of doing a similar project, but I find most of my photos I shoot horizontally.
Also, I remembered reading something from a professional photographer on his blog awhile back about using Blurb and having problems with loss of shadow detail. If you want to read up a bit, here are the posts:
http://www.ontakingpictures.com/2009/09/the_good_the_bad_and_blurbcom/
http://www.ontakingpictures.com/2009/10/the_good_the_bad_and_blurbcom_1/
I love your design and how it looks as a book. Great! Maybe I should do the same with my cats photos 🙂
It’s a sheep skin. I got it at the local Christmas market. The cats love it.
Tey were all shot like that. I very rarely shoot horisontally. Sometimes I have to remind myself that I don’t have to tilt the camera to take a photo :).
Thanks! That was really interesting. I didn’t print from a PDF though, I used their Booksmart. I can’t be bothered to complain though so I’ll just remember this if I end up finishing the NYC book and remove any darkish shots before printing.
Yeah, he seems to think that using their software is usually okay, and I thought your book looked great!
Funny that you always shoot vertically – I find it harder, like my hands aren’t as steady. Maybe I should challenge myself to switch it up more!
I was recommended Blurb by a friend awhile back but haven’t done any orders yet. Made a photo book with iPhoto about 1 year ago (it was printed by Apple)… it looks great!
I apologize if you’ve answered this before, how did you put the black square with the date on the photos? I’m doing this project in 2011 and would like to do something similar. Thanks!
I intend on doing the same at the end of the year. Your project has been a huge inspiration for me!
I use Ali Edwards’ overlays and Photoshop. You can find the overlays here: http://www.designerdigitals.com/digital-scrapbooking/supplies/product_info.php/products_id/8895
I LOVE your 365 book! You should be a stylist or professional photographer! The images where beautiful! What a keepsake for you and your son to look back on 2010! Way to go!
~ Ali
Thank you! I really appreciate the answer. 🙂
Hi Benita! I love your blog…do you have any plans to sell copies of your 365 book ?? (I hope so!) Thanks!
This is awesome. Beautiful cover design. With you and some others as inspiration, I started project 365 this year and may put it all in a book, too! Something about it resting on the bookshelf that really appeals to me. nice job!
Fantastic idea, it really looks great and the photos turned out really well!! I’m inspired to make a book of my own now, but first I should settle on a topic because I don’t think “Mish-Mash of Stuff” would be appropriate!
What a brilliant idea! Beautiful pictures!
For what it’s worth, I’m a professional photographer and send books to press all the time. I always go a little bit lighter than I need to because things always tend to print just slightly darker than what you see on screen. But to really get a good quality product, screen calibration and an understanding of color profiling is a must. Sitting here on my calibrated monitor, I can tell you that your blog images look a little dark (whites aren’t white, they are light grey.) I’m thinking your brightness is turned up too high on your monitor. If you are using a mac, it’s almost a given. On one of our macs, we have to put the brightness all the way down, and on the other one, it can’t be any higher than 4 clicks….you determine the proper brightness setting through your calibration software.
If things are good on your end, then the rest is up to the printer. Blurb is an OK publisher, but they are better ones out there who care more about quality control.
I applaud you for finishing and printing a 365 project! That’s a lot of self-discipline and commitment. I don’t think I could do, and I’m kinda jealous of people who can.
Which ones are better?
=O I love it, wonderful!
So fabulous!
I’ve had a look at the book on Blurb and it really looks amazing. You must be so chuffed with yourself for finishing it and then getting it all done in a book straight away. I know I would.
I might give this project a go, not necessarily to blog but to see how my pictures have improved over a year since I’m a novice at fancy camera work.
Thank you! I’m going to look into the calibration of my screen right away!
You can actually buy it, there’s a little “Buy” botton at the bottom of the preview page but I have to warn you that there are some rather dark and not very pretty spreads throughout that I’m not happy about and I’m thinking you won’t be either. The preview is much lighter than the book itself.
So beautiful, Benita!!!
This is sooooooooooooooo great! I m writing a post a bout it – so excited! Thank you for the tip! Thanks thanks thanks!
Such a nice nice idea!
I’m not a professional at all but when I read your post I thought that maybe it’s because your photos are RGB and the printers will use CMYK. When you change that on photoshop, for example, the photos become darker. Not sure if that helps, but I just wanted to let you know as a tip 🙂
ow, loved the idea of the book btw! Forgot to mention that on my previous comment. And congrats on finishing the project. I’m sure it wasn’t easy.
Ah, see that’s why I could never get into photography professionally, all that technical stuff…
Lovely!
Could you share what font you used for each day? It’s lovely and simple.
I used Ali Edwards’ digital overlays: http://www.designerdigitals.com/digital-scrapbooking/supplies/product_info.php/products_id/8895