Lulu offers Photo Books and many other types of book printings. They only 2 sizes specifically for photo books but their others sizes can be created into photo books also.
I have printed about 5 books with Lulu. I feel that the overall quality is alright, especially for the price. It's somewhat grainy, and a bit more "red" than my original photos. But again, for the price, it's something I was alright with.
In the past, they've required PDF files to upload. These are not user friendly and made the creation process a headache. They do now take JPG files, which is a nice change. However, it's a slow process.
I've not been happy at all with the full bleed. They either cut too much off the end, or they have a white strip across the top. When I asked their customer service, they pointed to an error in my creation. However, when I fixed the supposed error (flatten the image in Photoshop prior to creating the PDF), the white strip was still there. The final printed version still had the white strip (i.e. not a full bleed as requested). These were going to be a fundraiser book, and I chose to print them elsewhere due to this "problem" not being addressed and/or corrected adequately.
I also printed a softcover book that was staple bound in the center. It appears that they bound it, then trimmed it -- which caused some of the full bleed pages to have a significant amount of the photo cut off, and some of the full bleed pages to have the white strip down the side. Their full bleed is inconsistent at best.
My biggest complaint is my most recent. I created an 8.5x11 spiral bound paperback book. Their 8.5x11 is PORTRAIT in orientation. I knew this when I created my LANDSCAPE pages. So when I uploaded, I rotated each page accordintly, so that it would print and be bound according to their 8.5x11 PORTRAIT specs.
When I received my project (which was a Christmas present), every single page had been rotated and bound 180 degrees from what I uploaded. After multiple emails, photos, etc, back and forth, I still have no resolution from them. In fact, they won't even acknowledge a mistake on their part. They continue to tell me, "That's the only way to print/bind an 8.5x11 book. If you wanted landscape, you should have chosen 9x7." Well... I wanted an 8.5x11, not a 9x7, and since there were no landscape options in 11x8.5, I improvised. It should have printed the same as any other book, as that's exactly how I uploaded my files. However, that was not the case. As I told them, had my book been a novel, every single page would have been printed upside down. However, since the book is images, not words, they're apparently unable to see my point.
Despite the low cost, I will definitely NOT be using Lulu again.
I used Lulu's to create a photobook using one of their book printing sizes and not their Photo Book sizes. I created the 7.5 x 7.5" inch book. I had to take all my images and create a pdf of them and then I uploaded the pdf and created the cover and back cover. To create the pdf, I "printed" all my photos to a cutepdf tool to create the correct sized pdf. I also did the spiral binding because it was a journal of sorts.
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