Photo book time! (What we did with 10,000 safari photos) - Review of MyPublisher

Over the 11-day safari (and 2-day gorilla trek), everyone on our trip took at least 2,000 photos.  A couple people took about 2,500 photos.  My husband and I took even more.

The first time we saw a giraffe, in the far off distance, everyone rushed to one side of the jeep and snapped off 10-20 photos.  The giraffe came a little closer, and we each took another 10-20.  We did the same the first time we saw an elephant, a buffalo, an ostrich, a hyena and a turtle.  We took even more when we first saw a cheetah, a leopard, a lion and a lioness - and, in fact, every single time we saw large cats after that.

By the time we arrived home, my husband and I had ~10,000 photos between us.  What to do with them?  Since I never really look flip through my digital photos on my computer, the decision was obvious....We spent hours culling photos, applying Lightroom and Photoshop...and then made a photobook.  It included several hundred of our favorite photos.  

Here's a snapshot of the book:  

The paper is nice and heavy, and the colors printed out just right.

Okay, so... technically, this is not a photo of the book, but a screeenshot of the book as it appears on the virtual bookshelf of the photobook publishing company.  But the amazing thing is that this is pretty much exactly how the pages printed out. The pages are nice and thick, and even more impressive, MyPublisher printed this three times, in order to get it just right. 

What more than makes up for the buggy software - and what really impressed me - is that the customer service can't be beat.  When we explained the buggy software situation to MyPublisher, their customer service team rapidly issued the gift card for a free printing.  We took three photos, sent them to MyPublisher, and promptly received a coupon for a free reprint.  It came with free overnight shipping, too!

They are expensive, but keep your eyes peeled - they run regular discounts/promos.

Update!  I've seen 80% off coupons now!

Anyhow, so I did tons of research on different photobook options.  I wanted lay-flat, and the ability to include "a lot" of pages in the book.  This is what finally led me to MyPublisher...

Here's an image I sent over, where the background was supposed to be all in black, but there were some slight streaks:

See the white streaks in the upper left

This is almost embarrassing to admit, but version #2 of the book showed that there some light printing streaks on the light colored photos.  Nothing major, but also not something you want to see when you've just paid $100!  MyPublisher came through again, with a coupon for another free printing.  

Below are the images I attached to the email I sent MyPublisher, noting that "...on a number of the pages (at least seven), there is a pattern of streaks that runs horizontally across the page.  Attached are photos of the streaks on some of the pages."  These aren't streaks that you might notice, if you were just casually flipping through the book, but when we looked closely, I could definitely see them.  All communications were via email, and they responded almost immediately.  (Sorry, some of the images are upside-down...)

MyPublisher - Streaky Image

MyPublisher - Streaky Image 2

MyPublisher - Streaky Image 3. You can also see the shine on the super gloss photo paper.

While at first, having to do the reprinting seemed like somewhat of a pain, it actually was fantastic.  We had done the bulk of the work editing photos the first time around, and the customer service team explained to us we should simply just make any changes we wanted before ordering another book.  So we basically used the first copy of the book as a "proof book", then chose better photos for the second printing.  We also updated the colors to print the way we wanted (we didn't use color profiles the first time). 

NOTE: Don't be fooled by the two reprints into thinking that this is poor quality printing!  Everyone we showed the book to was impressed, and felt that the price (at ~$100) was a very good deal.  It's just that the printing had these minor imperfections, and after having spent all this money, I was pretty picky about this. 

We have shown our photobook to quite a few friends and family, too.  Folks are usually stunned (in a good way) at the quality of the printing.  Each of the pages almost looks like a photo in itself, which is due to the super gloss version.  The heavy paper makes it feel really high quality, too.

I'd recommend MyPublisher to anyone and everyone, at this point!

Side notes:  I've also used Shutterfly, Blurb, Mixbook and A&I Books.  The quality for MyPublisher is by far the best, if what you want is coffee table book quality (which is exactly what I wanted).  I also looked at a lot of other photo book options - ultimately, to me, MyPublisher was worth the additional cost because of the following criteria: the paper is the thickest; the colors are amazing (like a photo book!); and it has lay-flat.  I also wanted to have "a lot" of pages, and a pretty large size book - but these were less important criteria.