Making Short Run Books - Print on Demand?

[skillian]

I made the decision last year to create limited edition portfolios - the first of which will be a Bisti Badlands portfolio I hope to put out this spring. The format would include 8 - 12 original prints in a letterpress box with a small, handmade book that would contain reproductions of all the photographs and a short essay. The book would also be available separately. To make this happen, I've been researching ways to make short-run books for a few months and have really come up empty handed. Other than having a printer produce a small number using traditional processes, it seems like there are two options that would allow me to make units of 1 or more:

1. Using a Print on Demand company like Blurb or Lulu. The binding is nice, but from what I've seen, the quality of B&W reproduction is terrible. Has anyone seen or been able to produce an acceptable B&W image using one of these providers? If so, how did you do it?

2. Investing in an ink-jet printer of some kind to make the pages and then binding them using some kind of binding system. I've seen several binding systems on the market including this one: www.powis.com This idea is appealing to me because I would have more control over the quality, but it would require a real investment in equipment to get started.

Anyone have other ideas about how to produce short-run books that can deliver good reproduction quality?

 

[Photo Engineer]

I have read of some excellent equipment to do this, and have seen a superb Xerox product about 5 years ago that produced superb B&W and color. Their POD unit is about as big as 2 SUVs and produces bound books at the end of the unit.

One of our daughters is working on new advanced systems, which she cannot discuss, but she said that the new generations are even better.

PE

 

[reellis67]

I don't know how many books you're looking at printing, but I've been thinking of printing up small prints with wide borders and then binding them into a book by hand so that the end result is a book of actual prints rather than reproductions. Book binding is not for everyone, but it's not rocket science either - I don't know of any printing method that gives that kind of quality for the price.

- Randy

 

[TheFlyingCamera]

Over on LFInfo forum, Frank Petronio posted something about finally getting success with coaxing acceptable quality from Lulu....

http://www.largeformatphotography.info/forum/showthread.php?t=23049&highlight=Lulu+printing

It's a start in the right direction, but it still isn't perfect.

 

[skillian]

Thanks, guys. I'm going to give Lulu a whirl and see what happens. Appreciate the link to Frank's review.

 

[HerrBremerhaven]

The LF Forum discussion has some great aspects to it. Definitely a suggested reading for anyone considering On Demand printing.

I was at the printing industry trade show recently and got to see some samples from newer machines that allow On Demand printing. While the Xerox iGen is still quite good, the newest Kodak Nexpress has some great image quality.

On the ability to create reasonable B/W images with On Demand printing, you might find the approach different than other commercial printing methods. Unless you want a duotone, or warm or cool black, only use the single ink (Black output). While this is the opposite of recommendations for normal commercial sheet fed printing, all the samples I have seen done this way create the best tonal range without colour casts.

I think some of these On Demand printing places are good choices for portfolios. They are not really at good art photo book quality, but the prices are far lower. If you only need a few books, or want a service that mails to anyplace for you one-at-a-time, then On Demand is not a bad choice.

Ciao!

Gordon Moat
Dead Link Removed

 

[Photo Engineer]

Today it was announced that Fuji and Xerox have formed a digital-analog alliance to effectively go after Kodak's market in the printing industry and to improve POD and other printing technologies using mutual proprietary technologies.

This may get ugly.

Not good news for Kodak.

PE

 

[HerrBremerhaven]

I always wondered when Heidelberg sold the Nexpress system to Kodak, because at the time it seemed that Heidelberg did not see a future with that. It also took many years for Kodak to improve on the original aquisition from Heidelberg. In that time period, HP Indigo systems (with some technology bought from IBM), and Xerox iGen systems already became somewhat common on the market.

So who will buy a new Kodak Nexpress? While the quality is good, any place already running a Xerox, HP, or other company solution might not be too likely to change. Kodak might have placed too much emphasis on offset printing solutions, and missed much of the market for On Demand.

The delays in implementing these came in two forms. One was variable data printing, and the other was getting designers to properly set-up runs (pre-press) to get the best out of the gear. The ideas and problems are not now, though we currently see much more of this.

Something that might help those considering On Demand Printing is that Lulu.com is far from the only choice out there, and by some measures not even the best choice. Compare other places based upon using a template, or controlling your layout, and on consistency of results. One thing you want to avoid, if you use these places for portfolios, is getting anything that looks bad or really off in quality. Everyone looking at these should also check locally, and see who has On Demand Presses, then try to make a deal in getting printing.

Ciao!

Gordon Moat
Dead Link Removed