Photo Books by Shared Ink

Has anyone used sharedink.com to print out a hardcover book? I'm

thinking of having a book of some family photos printed and was

wondering if anyone has used them. If not, can you recommend someone

for printing a hardcover book from digital images?

I haven't heard of Shared Ink, but I've ordered hardbacks from both MyPublisher and Shutterfly a couple of months ago. The quality of MyPublisher's hardback stinks big time and I was extremely disappointed. To my knowledge, MyPublisher was the first to offer book printing service and I had high hopes. Stay away from this one. They advertise their hardbacks as being comparable to coffee table books, but I beg to differ. The quality of the book itself and the photos reminded me of my high school year books.

1. The title and photo on the cover of the book was glued onto the book itself. This alone gives the book a very cheesy appearance and amateurish feel.

2. I wasn't expecting a lot in phto quality but photos printed on my 4 year old HP 930c inkjet look better. Shutterfly's hardback had much better looking photos.

3. I ordered leather which is an extra cost but it doesn't look very "leathery." The leather is very thin and doesn't feel like leather in any way.

4. When you look at the front or back of the book closed, there are bubbles along the spine. I've seen this in other hardbacks but it doesn't lend to giving the book a very professional high quality look.

On points 1, 3 and 4, Shutterfly's hardback wins convincingly over MyPublisher's book. Shutterfly's book looks very professional, has impeccable appearance (there is a cutout on the cover to reveal a photo which is printed on the book's title page), great binding, and superior photo quality (although the photos still do not look as good as regular prints).

Costwise, Shutterfly and MyPublisher are comparable but in terms of overall quality, Shutterfly is wwwaaayyyy better. The only plus for MyPublisher is that you have layout options which you can choose through a software tool provided by MyPublisher. Shutterfly does not give you layout options, and it's strictly one photo per page.

I really appreciate your detailed message. I think that sharedink might be very similar to mypublisher. They both have tools to let you layout your book and they both use 4-color offset presses for the printing. The thing that intrigued me about sharedink is that you could do multiple images per page using their layout tool. But, if the quality of the images is bad, what is the point of having a book? I was looking at this as an alternative to printing pictures and pasting them into a photo album. Maybe I will try shutterfly.

Thanks again for the info.

You might also try Sony's website:

http://www.imagestation.com

What I liked about this site was the option for a laminated hardcover. I ordered a book for my wife for Mother's Day. She like the gift and wants me to make one up for her mother. I thought the quality of the photos were OK and the quality of the book's construction was great.

I haven't tried it myself, but ofoto offers photo "coffee table books". More info at:

http://www.ofoto.com/PhotoBookOverview.jsp