Sunday, November 01, 2009

A Portrait of The Alhambra

The making of a book

Finally I have both copies of the book "A Portrait of the Alhambra", that I made both in Apple's Aperture and in Blurb's Booksmart. The results are very interesting. Firstly the Aperture version is slightly larger at 28cm x 21.6cm, compared to the Blurb version which is 24.1cm x 20.3cm. I ordered the Blurb book in their "Premium paper", which is noticeably thicker than the Apple version. The Apple paper is still good though and both cover and pages have a nice silky finish while the Blurb book has a glossy cover and silky pages.

The slightly bigger Apple version

A Portrait of the Alhambra


The quality of the actual printing is very similar, and apart from one rather important difference, may simply be a matter of personal preference. I found the Apple photo prints to have slightly more reddish/yellowish tones, which on most of the photos gave quite a pleasing effect.

Pages from the Apple version

Portrait of the Alhambra


Pages from the Blurb version

A Portrait of the Alhambra

However, on the one black and white photo in the book, this was not what I wanted and in this respect the rendition of colours in the Blurb book is much better. The other photo that also gave a very different result in the Apple book, was one of the Alhambra at night, where the sky has a brownish tone, whereas in the Blurb book it is completely black. I personally think that the Apple version is perhaps closer to my original photo, but the Blurb print is far more pleasing.

So which one is better? Overall, I think I prefer the Blurb book, even though there are some aspects of the Apple book that I really like. What makes the decision easy in the end is the difference in price, the Apple book being considerably more expensive.

A Portrait of the Alhambra


The whole Blurb book can be previewed and purchased here.