Photo Book Comparisons

I ordered another little Shutterfly book. I used a coupon for a free book from my Ikea Family membership. The content of the book is the same as one of the little 6x6 inch ArtsCow books I recently shared. I wanted another copy to give to my niece.

I thought it would be fun to compare some of the different books I have - sizes, print quality, and format options.

First, here is the new book I got - 8x8 inch book from Shutterfly book on the left, next to the similar 6x6 inch book from ArtsCow on the right.

The ArtsCow cover printed a bit darker than the Shutterfly cover. Here is another look at that.

The back covers show a huge difference. In the Shutterfly book, the dark paper has been lightened substantially. I've seen this before in another Shutterfly book with a dark cover. I think their software is applying some kind of correction to the back cover.

Here is a comparison of different sized books: 12x12 vs. 8x8 vs. 6x6.

After seeing them all together, I've decided that 6x6 is just too small. I know some people think 12x12 is too large, but it is still my favorite. But for smaller gift books, I think I will stick to 8x8 in the future.

Here are some more size comparisons. It is interesting to compare the 12x12 and the 6x6. Although the length and width of a 6x6 are half that of a 12x12, the area is one quarter the size.

 

And here is the same size comparison for the 8x8.

 

In my post about my little ArtsCow books, I mentioned that the printing was a bit red. It was most noticeable in the skin tone in photographs and in this page with a gray background. Here are some comparisons to show that. Shutterfly vs. ArtsCow:

 Shutterfly vs. Blurb: (this photograph was taken on a different day with different lighting conditions)

But here are all three together. Blurb vs. Shutterfly vs. ArtsCow:

To my eye, the overall color quality of the Blurb book and the Shutterfly book are very similar. The Shutterfly printing is a tad bit darker (very slight). And you can see the red tone to the ArtsCow printing - the gray background looks pink, my son's skin tone is redder than it should be, and my niece's dress looks pink instead of purple.

Finally, I wanted to compare the spine. Both the Shutterfly and the ArtsCow books have spine areas with a very large overlap onto the front and back covers.

In the ArtsCow software I could simply type in my spine text. For Shutterfly I had to make an image to drop in. As you can see, my spine text on the Shutterfly book ended up being too big. I also chose a brown spine on the Shutterfly book to try to blend in with the dark brown background paper.

In comparison, the Blurb book spine area only wraps onto the cover about 1-2 mm. I really like this. If I remember correctly, in Bookify (Blur's online book creation software) the spine is simply typed in. Which is what I like - it's easier to just type something in than to actually design a spine.

One final thing:  my Shutterfly books have a strong unpleasant smell that I have not noticed with Blurb or with ArtsCow. It does dissipate, though, so that's good. (I am particularly sensitive to smells.)

Thanks for stopping by!