Lulu storefront for Lightstalkers

Okay folks, let’s see some books.

Paul, as you’re a Lulu veteran, it would be extremely useful if you could give us the benefit of your experience using the system – any ways of maximising print quality, workflow tips etc…it’s something I keep thinking about but am currently failing to get my act together.

Not sure about “veteran” as I’ve only published one book this way, though I have printed portfolios, brochures and flyers as well. The trick is to get your images looking gorgeous and then adding the various other elements such as text as layers. Save the files as tiffs making sure to preserve the layers. These are the master files. Then make flattened tiff copies of these and put them in order and generate a PDF file at maximum jpeg 12 setting. Upload this to Lulu and have a copy sent to you before you make the project public. That way you can make any adjustments for color balance and contrast and the like.

I would suggest that you use something like Noise Ninji to smooth out grain on scans and also some sharpening to make the images pop and life off the page a little.

Play with it to get a fell of it. It all takes a few weeks in the first instance but then you’re all set for future projects. You’ll have a sense of what to expect next time. I had to increase contrast quite a bit and correct for magenta some.

You can do everything you need in Photoshop. No need whatsoever for Quark or ImageMaker or similar.

Good luck. I hope you do something. I’d like to get it if you do. Lulu can also take care of ISBN registration, Google Book search and others. They are ending their association with Amazon however.

Another LS did a review and you can read about it at this link:

http://www.lightstalkers.org/posts/show/lulu-com-print-on-demand-review-how-to-20060526