We just got a copy of the photobook we made for our trip to Italy.
We used Blurb, mostly because they had a slightly better selection of page layouts than your standard KodakGallery and Shutterfly options. (And they claim that the layout options will continue to improve.) The downloadable user application is somewhat clunky: fonts don't render correctly unless you're in preview mode, some mouse-click/movement actions don't follow convention, there are few keyboard shortcuts, font sizes behave strangely... Y'know, little things. But, it gets the job done.
Overall, we were happy with the results, with most of the glitches arising from user error. (although possibly avoidable were the UI a little cleaner) The images were generally a little darker than we expected. The aspect ratio of the images also seemed a little different, although this often resulted in a pleasant surprise. And it's just as likely that these two points were monitor-related.
The only real issue we had was that the binding broke as soon as we opened the front cover. I don't know if it's because we chose the large 13"x11" format hardcover, the number of pages (around 250, which I'm not sure is a lot or a little for the format, but sure did run on the expensive side) or if it's just a testament to lower production quality, either by Blurb themselves or print-on-demand publishing in general.
Anyway, we'll keep playing with it, and hopefully have better luck with the next project.
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