Photographs from Sicily

Finally I have it. My book about my trip to Sicily in May. It is a 137 page Blurb book designed via the book module in Adobe Lightroom. Now those of you who do not have Lightroom and don't plan to make a book with it, may want to jump right to the end of this blog entry if you just want to see the book and not clutter your mind with Lightroom stuff you are not going to use.

 If you have Lightroom, you really should explore making a book. I'm not saying that because it is easy because there is a learning curve. And the book module does have limitations. I would like more templates from which to choose. I would like an easier way to add pages of text that would flow from one page to the next. I would like that the text didn't disappear when you change the template. And, of course, I wish the cost of one Blurb book wasn't so expensive. On the other hand, I haven't found another source that is cheaper and offers the color management that I've had with Blurb.

I care a lot about color management. I want what I see on  my screen to be the same as what my printer produces or what shows up in my books. Blurb is pretty much spot on with color and I am always watching my histogram to be sure that I do not have any clipping of the whites or blacks so that I also control the contrast.

Another thing I like about using Lightroom is that I can work with my RAW images and if one image needs a bit of adjustment to make it work better with its  two-page spread partner, it is no problem. Just jump back to the develop module and make the adjustment. When you go back to the book module the image is there with the adjustment. It really does make it easier to not have to worry about making the image a certain size JPG to fit an image window, not to worry about margins, gutters and cut lines. I mean, you are aware of them but the module does a good job of managing them for you. I've done a couple of books as PDF's outside of Blurb and it was a lot of work figuring all those measurements out. They made nice e-books on Issuu but I have a lot of MB's on my hard disk with the RAW images, the PS layered images and then the flattened and sized images that finally went into the books.

The Lightroom book module has been working for me but I have a couple of more complex books in mind. Now that I've cut my teeth, so to speak, on making a book, I may be ready to take on a more sophisticated design program.

Here is the link, if you would like to see my book, Sicily.