Mrs. Emerald, Chicago
Age and Occupation: 26, Hospitality Administration
Fiance's Age and Occupation: 26, Paralegal
Engagement Date: October 8, 2006
Wedding Date: September 2007
Blogging Since: November 29, 2006
Venue: Hyatt Lodge, Oak Brook IL
About Me: I have been dreaming about my wedding forever, and flipping through bridal magazines since high school, so I am in my element! I am calling our theme "Vintage Inspired French/Asian Fusion." Mr. Emerald is very involved in the planning process, but of course he generally defers to me cuz I have a strong opinion of how I want everything to be :-).
MyPublisher Gets an A!
June 29th, 2007 @ 2:38 pm by Mrs. Emerald
I was so excited when a big flat box arrived at my office yesterday. My photo guestbook was here! I have heard many reviews of MyPublisher, good, bad, and ok. Overall, the reviews were more positive than negative so I decided to use MP to design my guestbook using our engagement pictures by Dennis Lee. I also left a good amount of white space so that guests can sign their names or leave little messages. I must admit that I borrowed Miss Tomato’s idea of incorporating love quotes into my book (thanks Miss T!) 
.So here are some pics!
The MP book compared to the photo book I printed with Blurb.com a few months ago, and with a foot-long ruler underneath so you can see that it is considerably larger.
And here are some inside pages:
Total Cost: $66.04 including shipping. I used a 25% off coupon code that was good for the month of June.
Total Pages: 23
The Pros: Very easy to use software! I really like how MP gives you photo editing options like cropping, turning pix black and white, etc. When I designed the Blurb book a few months ago, my main complaint was that they did not give you these options. I have to say that I was thoroughly impressed by the overall quality of the book. I have heard some reviews where people commented that the pages were too thin, however I have to disagree. I personally think the pages are very thick and luxurious! I also loved how vibrant all the colors are.
The Cons: The only negative issue was that a few pictures were rather pixelated. This should not have been the case since these are super high-res images. I initially thought that perhaps I accidentally subbed in a low-res image, but I don’t think so cuz there are at least three pictures that have the same problem. Thankfully it isn’t very noticeable unless you scrutinize it closely (which of course I did). MP is definitely more expensive than Blurb. For $66, I only got 23 pages, whereas with Blurb I got almost 80 pages for $43.
Final Thought: I was very happy with the end result and will feel confident in using MP for our wedding albums!! Even my mom was impressed, and she is not easy to impress, haha.
15 Responses to “MyPublisher Gets an A!”
That looks amazing! How long did it take to get there? Our wedding is less than 2 months away… so Im not sure if I have enough time…
Your pics are gorgeous…. And of course bonus points for the Eiffel tower page. 
Thanks for running this review!!! I have been agonizing over what do to w/ all our w-pics. We have them all in hi-res digital, so it’s almost like too many options is paralyzing. I would LOVE it if the Mrs. bees would post all the post-wedding photo projects & scrapbook ideas, please!
Your book looks great! I have a question about MyPublisher–from the looks of it, it doesn’t seem like you can “layer” pictures on top of one another, like having a background picture (no shading available either) and then superimposing other pictures on top. I can do this with mpix and picaboo, but I don’t see a way to do this for MyPublisher or Blurb (unless you upload powerpoint slides saved as pictures). Anyone know how to do it?
It looks beautiful!!!! Thanks for posting this. This is such a great idea.
Miss Jelly Beans - I ordered it last Thursday 6/21 and it arrived 6/28!! Fairly speedy for sure =) It took me maybe 5 or 6 hours to actually lay out.
Lydia - I have heard that there is a way to layout the pictures in another program like Powerpoint, and somehow this allows you to layer the pictures. I know it is possible cuz I’ve seen pictures of other knottie Mypublisher books with these effects!! However, I wouldn’t know how to tell you to go about doing it, hehe =)
beautiful!
so, if you were to recommend someone wanting to do their own guest book at one of those outlets, which would you recommend? MP or Blurb? (ive used blurb, but not MP)
Soooo beautiful!!! I love this idea!!
for those who have a COSTCO membership. it’s cheaper if you go through COSTCO. just go to http://www.costco.com and look under pictures/prints.
thanks for the review and your book looks gorgeous!
i tried using blurb and i can’t seem to put more than ONE photo on each page…am i doing something wrong?
would you say that mypublisher is better than blurb quality-wise?
on anoter note, perhaps the pixelations happened because you resized the image on the page too many times?
i just love the cover
I just ordered a book myself to sample the quality and it is of very high quality for the price!!! I highly recommend Mypublisher!
Ordering to Canada took 7 days from file-upload to delivery by FedEx…very fast. The quality of the printed-jackets is great…like a laminated cover from a nice coffee-table book.
I used the template pages in the Bookmaker software for ~50% of the pages. For special layouts (e.g. overlaying images on-top of each other, transparency of images for background effect, custom cropping, etc)…use a “real” bitmap editing program like Photoshop Elements/CS2/CS3, Paintshop Pro, etc).
Using “layer” options, you can place images on top of each other and adjust the transparency of the layers to create the effect you need.
Layout images according to MyPublisher.com requirements (10.75″x8.5″, 240dpi for the Classic Hardcover). Save the images as jpg files, and upload them as “full-bleed” or full-page, single images in the MP software. This will give you infite layout options…including text layout.
Doing full-page image uploads will “hide” page numbering.
Be careful about sticking important details close to the edges for full-bleed page layouts as the pages get trimmed to get that “full-page” look…which means you might get things chopped off like eyes or text if they are too close to the edge.
Coupon codes apply to single orders…you can’t have different books in a single order…and some coupons only apply for multiple copies of a single book. Think presents…and you won’t be disappointed.
[…] coupon codes for Buy-One-Get-One-Free photobooks!! I had an awesome experience with MP and my photo guestbook, so I definitely plan to use it again for my actual wedding album. Now I can get one for my […]
I just ordered a MyPublisher book - 89 pages! It turned out incredible! I would also highly recommend their service. Everyone who has seen my book has LOVED it!
