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    Home » Product Reviews

    Capturing Adventure (Blurb Photo Book Review)

    August 17, 2016 • Updated: July 28, 2021 • by Renée • This post may contain affiliate links.

    Capturing Adventure {Blurb Photo Book Review} | The Good Hearted Woman

    Capturing adventure in a Blurb photo book is simple, easy, and so worth the effort!

    Capturing Adventure - Blurb Photo Book Review | The Good Hearted Woman

    Preserving memories in book form is a passion of mine. Since my preteen years, I’ve been an avid scrapbooker, adhering images and ephemera between the pages of weighty albums with everything from old-fashion black photo corners to high-end archival-approved adhesives.

    Keeping those images accessible and leafing through them from time to time with the people I love brings our experiences back with vivid clarity, and gives us all a chance to enjoy the memories together once again.

    Capturing Adventure - Blurb Photo Book Review | The Good Hearted Woman

    About fifteen years ago, I made the conversion to digital scrapbooking and never looked back. The end products of my efforts are now high-quality hardback books, printed through one of a handful of dependable self-printing book services.

    Capturing Adventure - Blurb Photo Book Review | The Good Hearted Woman

    My most recent scrapbook project focuses on the trip Mr B and I took to Hawaii last July. We were on Oahu for ten days, and while we were there, I took well over a thousand pictures.

    Capturing Adventure - Blurb Photo Book Review | The Good Hearted Woman

    Our adventures in Hawaii were a perfect subject for a stand-alone memory book, and this time I chose to print it through Blurb, a well-renowned print-on-demand company that I have used a couple of times in the past.

    Blurb offers a number of both online and print formats, but for this review, I’ll be focusing on printing photo books.

    Capturing Adventure - Blurb Photo Book Review | The Good Hearted Woman

    Printed photo books are available in three formats: soft cover, image-wrapped [hard-cover], or dust jacket [hard cover]. (My preference for photo books is nearly always image-wrapped hard-cover.)

    Blurb offers three options for shape and size, ranging from a small 7” x 7” square book to a large 13” x 11” in portrait or landscape. I chose a moderate 8” x 10” landscape book for our Hawaii album.

    There are also five paper options, with varying weights and/or textures; everything from the standard semi-matte up to Premium semi-gloss or Proline pearl. Blurb's basic, standard weight is 80 lb. paper, (about the same as good-quality printer paper), but it cost very little to upgrade to the 100 lb. Premium paper. I strongly encourage that you upgrade too, especially for a book with a lot of images. (I went with 100 lb. semi-gloss paper for Our Hawaiian Adventures.) You can print up to 440 pages in one book: our Hawaiian Adventures came in at 114 pages!

    Now, let’s get to the two things we all really care about when it comes to making photo books online: Ease of use and quality of final product.

    Ease of Use

    This is where the rubber meets the road when it comes to online photo book creation. Some photo book printing sites are a little intimidating, but Blurb is not one of them.

    One of the things I like best about Blurb is the wide variety of options that they offer for content creation, and the ease at which a book can be completed. Whether you are a professional digital Creative or can barely turn on your computer, there is an option for you.

    Make Your Book Online
    Make your book quickly and easily without downloading anything. You can pull in images directly from Facebook or Instagram, or upload them from your computer and use Blurb’s templates and layouts to create a beautiful photo book quickly and easily.

    Adobe InDesign Plug-in
    If you have Adobe experience, this may be just the thing for you. Blurb’s Adobe InDesign Plug-In is free to download, and lets you create and lay out books directly within InDesign, with output options for both print and digital formats. You can also work on your book within Adobe Photoshop Lightroom.

    Upload PDF to make your book
    If you prefer, you can use Blurb’s specifications calculator to fine-tune your PDF to a Blurb-friendly book size.

    I’ve used all of these options at one time or another, but for this project, I wanted a fast, simple method that would give me complete control over my layouts - and I needed to be able to do in while I was on the road and away from my primary computer. With that in mind, I decided to go with my all-time favorite online photo editor, PicMonkey.

    3-Step Photo Book Creation Process

    Step 1 - Create individual pages on PicMonkey. Save as high-resolution JPGs.

    PicMonkey is a simple, easy-to-use tool for editing photos online. From Capturing Adventure {Blurb Photo Book Review} | The Good Hearted Woman
    ↑ I created all of the images for our Hawaiian Adventures book in PicMonkey.

    I created all of my pages in PicMonkey, saved them as high-resolution JPGs, and then uploaded them to Blurb. Then all I had to do was drag them onto the pages as full-bleed images. After that, I just proof-read everything about 100 times (but that’s just me), and then ordered my book. That’s all there was to it.

    Step 2 - Upload Full-page images to Blurb. Drag and drop. 

    Capturing Adventure - Blurb Photo Book Review | The Good Hearted Woman

    Step 3 - Proofread, proofread, proofread. Then proofread one more time, and order book. 🙂

    Product Quality

    As far as I'm concerned, Quality is the online photo book creation endgame. I expect my photo books to Pop! with bright, true-to-life colors, clean, clear printing, and solid, well-crafted construction. Anything less is unacceptable. Blurb did not disappoint.

    Capturing Adventure {Blurb Photo Book Review} | The Good Hearted Woman

    Overall, the quality of our Hawaiian Adventures book is excellent. The cover is solid, smooth, and semi-matte, which discourages fingerprints, and the cover image is clear and vivid. The printed images inside the book are sharp and clear, and the resolution is good to excellent. The colors are vivid and true to the digital preview. I do think that paper selection makes a significant difference here, so once again, I strongly encourage you to upgrade to Premium or Proline paper.

    Bottom Line

    Mr B and I could not be happier with our newest photo book. Flipping through those pages is like reliving our adventure all over again (yes, fellow grammar divas, I know), which makes all the time and effort it took to create totally worth it, and the book itself priceless.

    Capturing Adventure - Blurb Photo Book Review | The Good Hearted Woman

    Disclosure: This post may contain affiliate links, including Amazon affiliate links, which means we may receive a commission if you click a link and purchase something that we have recommended. While clicking these links won't cost you any extra money, they do help keep this site up and running. As always, all opinions and images are my own. Please check out our disclosure policy for more details. Thank you for your support!

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    About Renée

    Renée is writer, music maker, artist, and storyteller. In her spare time, you can find her writing love songs about cowboys, exploring the moss-covered nooks and crannies of the Pacific Northwest, and making music with her talented singer-husband.

    Reader Interactions

    Comments

    1. Teresa says

      August 22, 2016 at 10:16 am

      This is so awesome! I definitely need to create one of these. My photos end up living on the computer, and I wish I had something tangible.

      Reply
    2. Christina Shoemaker says

      August 22, 2016 at 4:52 am

      I love photo books too but I'm the worst and remembering to make them! Yours is beautiful and it looks so high quality! Such a great idea to document your adventures this way!

      Reply
    3. Sona Sethi says

      August 19, 2016 at 4:09 am

      Wow! This is so awesome! Instead of paying someone else, its so good to do your own photobook at blurb. I will definitely check it out.

      Reply
    4. jen says

      August 18, 2016 at 11:07 am

      I'm never fast enough to get my photos in a book so I can enjoy them soon after the vacation. I need to get on a better schedule... But anyways, I love how your book turned out! Gorgeous photos!

      Reply
      • Renée ♥ says

        August 18, 2016 at 11:46 am

        Thank you! It was definitely a labor of love.

        Reply
    5. Roxanne says

      August 18, 2016 at 5:42 am

      Great review! I have not tried Blurb yet, but will check them out! I try to make a photo book at the end of every season!

      Reply
      • Renée ♥ says

        August 18, 2016 at 6:44 am

        Thanks, Roxanne! I'm so impressed that you make one every season. I'm so behind.

        Reply
    6. Debra says

      August 17, 2016 at 11:07 pm

      I love blurb books! I haven't printed one in awhile, I am going to have to look in to them again.

      Reply
    7. Kara says

      August 17, 2016 at 7:31 pm

      It turned out so well. You can really tell that the quality is great.

      Reply
    8. Amanda says

      August 17, 2016 at 7:25 pm

      I love photo books! I started scrap booking several years ago (for a minute) and then I found photo books. They make the best gifts!

      Reply
    9. Cynthia @craftoflaughter says

      August 17, 2016 at 7:15 pm

      I love the whole thought behind these books! I have several that hubby made for me and I think they make incredible gifts

      Reply
    10. Di says

      August 17, 2016 at 5:06 pm

      I've done the photo books before, and they are great, much better than traditional photo albums. I was just saying to my husband that I need to get started on our 2016 album!

      Reply
      • Renée ♥ says

        August 17, 2016 at 5:27 pm

        I am so behind on our yearly albums!

        Reply
    11. Amber Nelson says

      August 17, 2016 at 4:15 pm

      This reminds me I have a couple books I need to get started on. It is very relaxing for me to make photo books.

      Reply
      • Renée ♥ says

        August 17, 2016 at 5:03 pm

        I find it very therapeutic too, Amber. 🙂

        Reply
    12. Pech says

      August 17, 2016 at 2:47 pm

      I definitely have to give Blurb a try: I've used Shutterfly and Picaboo before. My main thing is I notice my books get thick with many pages and photos and performance starts to suffer loading a project after I've been working for a while and this has particularly been bad on Shutterfly where I made my most recent book. Though, I've never thought about pre-assembled pages that are loaded instead of designing them in their tool, doh!

      Reply
    13. Ashley says

      August 17, 2016 at 1:08 pm

      I love blurb for our yearly family yearbook of photos but I never though of creating pages in picmonkey and then dropping them into blurb! They look great. Thanks for the tip.

      Reply
      • Renée ♥ says

        August 17, 2016 at 1:15 pm

        You're welcome! I've never done it that way either, but I had to get it together while we were on a road trip. PicMonkey was a great option!

        Reply
    14. karen says

      August 17, 2016 at 12:54 pm

      So wondering why I never heard of Blurb before! I have done many online photo scrapbooks to make/print... and love how it really tells a story of a vacation or wedding or anything!

      Reply
      • Renée ♥ says

        August 17, 2016 at 1:04 pm

        I do too, Karen. They are such a valuable way to spend your time and effort.

        Reply
    15. Robin Masshole Mommy says

      August 17, 2016 at 12:22 pm

      I make a lot of photo books for my mother, so I will definitely check Blurb out next time. They look really nice.

      Reply
      • Renée ♥ says

        August 17, 2016 at 12:34 pm

        That is such a great thing to do for your mom. I've made my parents a number of books over the years, too, and I know that they really appreciate them.

        Reply

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