Did you buy photo book on board... how'd it look?

On our cruise, they were selling a photo book, where you could up-load all your photos and they'd publish it and send you a professional looking coffee table book. Company is called PanRaven and I guess they cover all the cruise lines?

Did anyone buy this? Did you like the finished product? I ordered one, waiting for it to show up in the mail. Just thought I'd ask what others thought?

I had fun organizing my photos. Web site was very easy to use. Seems like a good idea. I usually buy a few 8x10's but never really find a way to display them when I get home. So maybe this is the best way to go?

We have done something similar but after we got back.....like this....

http://www.kodakgallery.com/gallery/category.jsp?catId=Books

How much do they charge on board?

I have purchased the scrapbooks but have never seen this option on board. I too have done it on Shutterfly, making my own books but it's nice to know that it is available through the cruiseline. I would be interested in seeing it when it arrives. I hope you will post it. :)

They charged $59.95 for 100 pages, and free shipping. I thought that was a good deal (it would cost me that to get my photos printed out, and I'm lazy, so they saved me the work)

I have a link to my book on-line.

http://www.panraven.com/visitor/VisitorViewStory.epage?sp=Sview&sp=154975 If link doesn't work try cutting and pasting it into the adderess bar of your web browser. Also I noticed that if you click the arrows below the cover photo you can see two pages at a time as you scroll through the album (this helps give you a panorama view) if you just click on the photo it gets bigger, but you can only see one page at a time.

I did add a few extra pages... they charged me $1 a page if you go over 100 pages.

It looks great on-line....but now that I'm sitting around waiting for the book to come in the mail... I was wondering how folks like the actual books when they got them?

Thanks :)

I think you'll be really happy with your album. I paid around the same price for my book from Shutterfly and it wasn't nearly as detailed or have 1/2 as many pictures.

Great job. Beautiful photographs and memories.

I'm confused - were they photos that you took or the ones that they take of you on the cruise - or a combo?

I'm confused - were they photos that you took or the ones that they take of you on the cruise - or a combo?

I was very careful when I bought it. They had 3 packages. I wanted the one where I could post all my own photos and then add the ones I bought from their photographers. (I bought 7 photos during the trip) and took about 500 photos myself (10 day Southern Caribbean)

The sales pitch was that if you buy the book during your trip, they would add to your internet account the photos you bought from the ship. (so you didn't need to go home and scan them into JPEGS)

They sold 3 different books...

1) Use only your photos (which didn't make sense since most people were buyng phots on board)

2) A book that was pre-sold with all stock photos from pro photographers

3) Use your photos and the professional photos that you bought.

I think in the future they are gong to simplify the options. Most people wanted to use their own photos and add the photos they bought during the cruise. The other two options cost about the same and just made the sales job more complicated then it need to be for the crew. It seemed to be a relatively new program... the photographers selling it did a good job, but seemed to be new to the entire idea.

What was cool, was that they had a few ship photos, maps, and Island shots in a stock photo section, available for those hard to get angles. So I used 95% of my shots, and then a few stock ship photos, and the portraits that we bought.

I think you'll be really happy with your album. I paid around the same price for my book from Shutterfly and it wasn't nearly as detailed or have 1/2 as many pictures.

Great job. Beautiful photographs and memories.

Thanks :)

Beautiful book. Price seems very reasonable for what you got.

We were married aboard the Star Princess in January, so I was thrilled with this option. The photo gallery downloaded all of our wedding photos and on board photos we purchased, plus I have downloaded the photos from the cruise I took with my camera. I am almost ready to submit it to be printed (all 87 pages). One problem I am having however is how to insert the chapters -- it just isn't clear to me. So if you have figured that out, let me know. I have contacted them at Panraven and I am waiting to hear. Hopefully, it will be as good as it looks on line. :)

They charged $59.95 for 100 pages, and free shipping. I thought that was a good deal (it would cost me that to get my photos printed out, and I'm lazy, so they saved me the work)

 

I have a link to my book on-line.

http://www.panraven.com/visitor/VisitorViewStory.epage?sp=Sview&sp=154975 If link doesn't work try cutting and pasting it into the adderess bar of your web browser. Also I noticed that if you click the arrows below the cover photo you can see two pages at a time as you scroll through the album (this helps give you a panorama view) if you just click on the photo it gets bigger, but you can only see one page at a time.

 

I did add a few extra pages... they charged me $1 a page if you go over 100 pages.

 

It looks great on-line....but now that I'm sitting around waiting for the book to come in the mail... I was wondering how folks like the actual books when they got them?

 

Thanks :)

I think you got a really good deal. Panraven's site charges $29.95 for 20 pages and $0.99 for each additional page. I usually use MyPublisher to make photo books of our vacations and the pricing is similar. It's a great deal that you got 100 pages plus getting to use your portrait photos for $59.95. I'm in the process of making one now for my Royal Caribbean cruise but there is no deal on the pricing and I have to scan my own portrait photos.

I'm very interested in doing this for my upcoming Princess cruise. Did you have to make the book while onboard? If so, is there a computer in the photo shop for you to make it or do you have to pay for internet time too? Is there the option of making it at home? I'd rather do that and not waste onboard time making it.

Thanks in advance!

We have one we are still working on...

One observation: the PanRaven site is slow. You really need to carve out a lot of time if you want to do it right. Also, the layouts are more inflexible than I would like, and the caption length is unreasonably limited. I know that a website can only do so much, but at least an improvement in the website speed would be nice.

My wife and I have ordered several through winkflash.com, and have been pretty pleased with the quality. If you are on their mailing list, they send out coupons for $30 books, up to 100 pages.

SirWired

We were married aboard the Star Princess in January, so I was thrilled with this option. The photo gallery downloaded all of our wedding photos and on board photos we purchased, plus I have downloaded the photos from the cruise I took with my camera. I am almost ready to submit it to be printed (all 87 pages). One problem I am having however is how to insert the chapters -- it just isn't clear to me. So if you have figured that out, let me know. I have contacted them at Panraven and I am waiting to hear. Hopefully, it will be as good as it looks on line. :)

Congratulations on your Star Princess wedding. :)

I had the same question about the chapters.

Since we went to 6 islands, I just used the logical breaks in the islands, as places to divide me story, with a new page listing the islands name as a substitue for chapers, and never inserted chapters. When I got done, I asked PanRaven if I was missing-out on anything by not using chapters and they said- "No, and if you didn't put them in from the beginning, its easier just to not bother with them, since I was almost finished. They were mainly for navigating around while you built your book"

I used Winkflash to make 12 x 12 inch photobooks for my family with 92 pages. Winkflash.com has "bulk" sales a couple of times a year and you can have as many as 100 pages printed. The full bleed pages looked great! Two books, with shipping, cost me about $63. You do have to upload your own photos, but the savings are worth it.

If you're looking for really, really good quality books, I highly recommend blurbbooks.com -- I recently did a book of digitally scrapped pages. They do not have discounted prices like Winkflash but if you're doing a book of wedding photos or something, I suggest you look into them. A 134-page book cost about $130 but it's above average quality.

JoAnn

I'm very interested in doing this for my upcoming Princess cruise. Did you have to make the book while onboard?

Thanks in advance!

Nope, you just had to pay on-board to get the deal. It took me 30 days once I got home to pick the best 200 photos from the 500 I shot :o

I think they give you 4 months to finish your book.

They charged $59.95 for 100 pages, and free shipping. I thought that was a good deal (it would cost me that to get my photos printed out, and I'm lazy, so they saved me the work)

 

I have a link to my book on-line.

http://www.panraven.com/visitor/VisitorViewStory.epage?sp=Sview&sp=154975 If link doesn't work try cutting and pasting it into the adderess bar of your web browser. Also I noticed that if you click the arrows below the cover photo you can see two pages at a time as you scroll through the album (this helps give you a panorama view) if you just click on the photo it gets bigger, but you can only see one page at a time.

 

I did add a few extra pages... they charged me $1 a page if you go over 100 pages.

 

It looks great on-line....but now that I'm sitting around waiting for the book to come in the mail... I was wondering how folks like the actual books when they got them?

 

Thanks :)

Your photo book looks great! This is something I will be looking into (going on my first cruise on the Crown Princess next month). I always like to scrapbook my photos, but this looks like a great idea and the price seems good too. :)

We have one we are still working on...

 

- One observation: the PanRaven site is slow.

- the layouts are more inflexible than I would like,

- and the caption length is unreasonably limited.

I agree with your 3 points.

- But... instead of up-loading all my photos at the start...I loaded my photos as I filled each page, the site didn't slow down for me until I filled 90 pages, and then it seemed the more photos I uploaded, the slower the site became. If you are doing a book...it might be a good tip to not up-load all the photos before you start, but instead load one island at a time as you need them.

- the layouts drove me nuts in a few place, but I worked it out like a puzzle, and came up with some good solutions that I really liked. It forced me to be creative. But I still wish we had more freedom to place photos anywhere in any size. The best thing I discovered- is if you put two full pages shots side-by-side it makes a great panoramic shot!

- I also agree that the caption length is unreasonably limited, and it took a lot more time to get my wording just right as a result. But it did keep me from being too wordy, and I think it helped me. I had a tendency to want to say my name over and over again, and describe things from the photo that didn't need to be written out :rolleyes:"Mark standing by the ship":rolleyes: I had to think about adding value to the photo with my words, instead of repeating the obvious. The down-side was that the few pages that let your really write a lot of text, were a little limited with the number of photos and sizes you could add.

Overall I enjoyed it. But there is room from improvement from PanRaven.

- the layouts drove me nuts in a few place, but I worked it out like a puzzle, and came up with some good solutions that I really liked. It forced me to be creative. But I still wish we had more freedom to place photos anywhere in any size. The best thing I discovered- is if you put two full pages shots side-by-side it makes a great panoramic shot!

The way to get around this is to create the page with the exact layout and photo sizes you want using another program, like Photoshop or Powerpoint. Then save it as a jpg. In Panraven, choose the full page layout and drop in the page you created. I've done this several times in MyPublisher to put more photos on each page. :D

The way to get around this is to create the page with the exact layout and photo sizes you want using another program, like Photoshop or Powerpoint. Then save it as a jpg. In Panraven, choose the full page layout and drop in the page you created. I've done this several times in MyPublisher to put more photos on each page. :D

Thanks... I came up with the same idea, but I played with my photos long enough to wiggle them all into PanRaven's template.... so I didn't have to go all the way to "Plan B" :D But I was ready in-case I needed it :rolleyes:

I've been making my own 12" books for years of our cruises with Shutterfly and Kodak Gallery. It's expensive even though I usually don't have too many pages.

It's good to know that you had 4 months to get your pics sorted, put on the pages the way you wanted them, then have it printed.

How was this package priced? For example, did you buy package #3 and get a receipt or a code to enter on the PanRaven website showing that you had paid already?

I can never figure out how many pages I need ahead of time. Did you have to do that or could you pay for additional pages as you were making the book?

How was this package priced? For example, did you buy package #3 and get a receipt or a code to enter on the PanRaven website showing that you had paid already?

I can never figure out how many pages I need ahead of time. Did you have to do that or could you pay for additional pages as you were making the book?

Yes package #3 was the package that everyone was buying.... the one where you could use your own photos, and they also added any photos you bought on the ship to your account on-line.

I paid the $59.95 and it was for up to 100 pages. ( I think they had a cheaper option if you wanted to do 30 pages or something like that, but I didn't get the details).

I paid on the ship, and they enter your info and a email was waiting for me when I got home. They said I had a credit for 100 pages at PanRaven, plus free shipping, and if I went over 100 pages I could pay $1.00 a page when I sent in my final order to be printed.

It was very easy.

Yes package #3 was the package that everyone was buying.... the one where you could use your own photos, and they also added any photos you bought on the ship to your account on-line.

 

I paid the $59.95 and it was for up to 100 pages. ( I think they had a cheaper option if you wanted to do 30 pages or something like that, but I didn't get the details).

 

I paid on the ship, and they enter your info and a email was waiting for me when I got home. They said I had a credit for 100 pages at PanRaven, plus free shipping, and if I went over 100 pages I could pay $1.00 a page when I sent in my final order to be printed.

 

It was very easy.

Awesome!!! :) That is a great price then! Thanks for the details of it. I will definitely buy this if it's offered on our Europe cruise. I usually end up paying about $55-$59 per photo book and I only have about 35-40 pages and use a discount code! :eek:

They charged $59.95 for 100 pages, and free shipping. I thought that was a good deal (it would cost me that to get my photos printed out, and I'm lazy, so they saved me the work)

 

I have a link to my book on-line.

http://www.panraven.com/visitor/VisitorViewStory.epage?sp=Sview&sp=154975 If link doesn't work try cutting and pasting it into the adderess bar of your web browser. Also I noticed that if you click the arrows below the cover photo you can see two pages at a time as you scroll through the album (this helps give you a panorama view) if you just click on the photo it gets bigger, but you can only see one page at a time.

 

I did add a few extra pages... they charged me $1 a page if you go over 100 pages.

 

It looks great on-line....but now that I'm sitting around waiting for the book to come in the mail... I was wondering how folks like the actual books when they got them?

 

Thanks :)

What a wonderful book to keep your memories. Thanks for sharing.

Louise

I am an avid scrapbooker, so it is necessary for me to have the flexibility to add die cuts and embellishments, which I did not see available on their program.

I agree, your album is beautiful and I think it is perfect especially for people who are not necessarily into scrapbooking but want a beautiful album. It looks like you had a fantastic cruise.

I am an avid scrapbooker, so it is necessary for me to have the flexibility to add die cuts and embellishments, which I did not see available on their program. It looks like you had a fantastic cruise.

Thanks for the kind words. Glad you liked the pictures :)

I was just trying to do a photo album, and had no idea what Scrap Booking was all about in the computer age. But thanks for sharing (die cuts and embellishments) I learn something new everyday :D Very interesting how far you can take all this with computers. I was stilling living in the days of Elmer's paste and scissors :o