iPhoto Book question

[prechrchet]

A friend of mine ordered a book via iPhoto and was disatisfied to the point where they are sending it back (mind you, these are not the kind of people to do this unless there is a MAJOR problem).

Their complaints centered around the quality of the photos in the book: they were much darker and much grainier than the prints (of the same pictures) that they had gotten at Walmart.

Does anyone know if this is a common problem? Has anyone else experienced this?

Thanks,
prechrchet

 

[aricher]

There is noticeable dot gain when these books are printed so your photos need to be optimized (lightened) for printing. I haven't had any problems with graininess but I have heard of this problem before. There was a great article a few months back in either MacWorld or MacAddict that discussed exactly how to optimize your photos for book printing. I'll see if I can dig up the article and post a link here later.

 

[MrSmith]

Picture for picture, has this not been improved in '06?

 

[prechrchet]

iLife 06

For what it's worth, they were using iLife 06.

 

[MrSmith]

Actually, I thought the quality would have been better than it was. But then again it's difficult to know just what quality we should expect. I don't think it would be fair to expect the same as a professionally-produced, mass circulation book.

I read that Aperture gives better definition, but I wonder why. The information sent down the line would be the same, I would have thought.

 

[Chip NoVaMac]

Color management is needed with the likes or Manaco or the such in order to really have a comment on issues regarding lightness and darkness of images.

Hopefully Kodak and Apple will step up to the plate on this.

 

[Gee]

For my two-cents worth, I ordered a book recently and was more than happy with the results. I thought the overall quality was great - very professional and my photos looked great. It certainly wowed all of the friends and colleagues I showed it to. On the question of quality of the pics themselves, I didn't notice any particular grainyness and they seemed reasonably bright - not as bright as on screen, but on screen they're backlit. This was one of the large hardback books.

However, I have to also say that I order one of the really tiny books (pack of three actually) over a year ago, and the quality of the photos in it weren't so good. Nothing to complain about, and for it's size, the book as really cool, but they were a little on the fuzzy size.

I suppose this could mean two things - quality has improved, or it depends on the spec of the book you buy.