How printbook stole christmas
This year my wife and I decided to attend to New Year's gifts for relatives not as always, but in advance. And, since a year ago a wonderful daughter was born to us, which all grandmothers and great-grandmothers simply adore, we decided to donate each living cell in a photo book with family photos.
After some not very deep research, the choice fell on PrintBook (aka NetPrint, aka MultiPhoto, aka Expert Photo). Mainly due to three factors: low price, short order fulfillment time (2 days) and high book customization with the help of a special program developed for PrintBook. Actually, the program for preparing a book layout is just a masterpiece. Where necessary - thinks out, where it is not necessary - does not interfere. You can take a ready-made layout and just insert photos, or you can create your own, from scratch, with all the backgrounds, frames, captions and other decorations.
My wife is a professional designer, so the layout was completely made. It turned out, in my opinion, very beautiful. She threatened her for two weeks and half a night because she did not give the child during the day. And so, after all these sleepless nights, proud of the fact that we did everything in advance, on December 2 we send the order ...
')
And then it happened: our order was already kicked off 7 times with comments, which even to us, as professionals, were given very little, and the unprepared user in general, in my opinion, should have fallen into a stupor. In this case, the refusal did not come after the stated 2 days, but after 3-4.
At first, the refusals came with a motivation: the order did not pass because of the blablabla.jpg file. There were no comments that could help to understand what was wrong with the file. The first time we just saved the photo and reinserted it - well, you never know, anything can happen. The second failure came with a complaint about the same file. We tried to remove it altogether and sent the order again - a refusal came with a complaint to another file. Here I had a suspicion that they didn’t check all the files, but before the first problem, that with the number of photos in the book about a hundred it means the following: 100 “problem” files = 100 order shipments with file replacements = the book will be ready only for the new 2011 . And then, provided that the new files will suit the system.
Here it became clear that you need to call and find out the relationship. I really do not like this business, but I had to :) A young man on the line confirmed my concerns about the principle of the system: indeed, at the first file that the program does not like, it interrupts the execution. At the same time, there is neither a list, nor even the number of “good” files in the refusal, but only the “bad” one on which the execution was interrupted.
I asked quite a reasonable question, what should I do if all 100 files do not like the program, which is quite likely, since they were all the same. The young man silenced the problem of a hundred files, and for a specific case of a problem with one photo, he suggested several solutions to the problem:
My wife remembered that the added and deleted photos are not immediately removed physically from the working directory of the book and it is not known whether they are included in the generated package as a result, so a phantom copy of the deleted file can spoil everything. Removed all the photos from the book, all the photos from the working directory of the program and sent again. The fifth failure came without specifying a specific file. Or rather, I didn’t even come, but just changed the status of the book in the interface, there was no letter, so we lost a few more days until we guessed to see the status.
We could not use the original files from the camera - some of the photos were taken in RAW at all, but even those that were shot immediately in JPEG were still corrected in Photoshop. We decided to browse through the JPEG saving settings - we found the enabled option “create files more compact but less compatible”. They thought: “Here it is! How do we forget about it! That's what it was all about! ”... the sixth rejection, also without a letter.
Called again. The girl listened to our entire situation, looked at the reason for the non-assembly of our last order, and said that again one of the pictures had not passed. I regret that I didn’t ask if it was the very first photo :) I tried to convince her that our JPEGs are normal and she said that yes, indeed, it could be some kind of system flaw, asked to leave a feedback application on the site order number, request to understand and note that the order is relevant - then they, they say, will turn to the developers and fix everything. I was somewhat surprised that she could not initiate this process by herself, but decided not to aggravate, thanked and said goodbye. Naturally, I did everything exactly as she said, described the situation in detail, expressed all the complaints, asked me to figure it out. And after a day or two :) I received a letter ... with the usual pattern of failure due to the fact that the file did not like the system.
Desperate, we re-saved everything in the paint. 12-megapixel originals, weighing 4-5MB each, which photoshop with a quality of 70 and optimization kept at 1.5MB, painter crumpled to a measly 400Kb each. They sent the order, no longer hoping for anything ... and did not hope correctly, because they again received the status “Assembly Error” without explaining the reasons and without a letter. The seventh failure.
Today is already the 29th, we feel completely exhausted by all this epic, it is already clear that there will be no books for NG, that we will not think up anything sensible for the remaining 2 days, we will not find it and, most likely, parents and grandparents will receive as a gift some banal "grocery basket." And I wanted to please them with an original gift.
In conclusion, I want to say the following: for almost 20 years my wife and I have been sitting at the monitors, she, as I said, is a professional designer, a great artist, and a good photographer. Works in a large, if not the largest, advertising agency in Moscow. No one has ever had any complaints about its JPEGs :) I, even though graphics are not my main field of activity, also have 15 years of experience in working with images, with their preparation for printing and for the web, photo processing and optimization of graphic files . So ...
Not one of us has ever met such that at least some program for viewing or editing images could not open at least some JPEG!
Great job, printbook! Holiday greetings!
In conclusion, I want to give here a couple of obvious tips, which I included in the application of the printbook feedback form and to which I did not receive a word in reply:
After some not very deep research, the choice fell on PrintBook (aka NetPrint, aka MultiPhoto, aka Expert Photo). Mainly due to three factors: low price, short order fulfillment time (2 days) and high book customization with the help of a special program developed for PrintBook. Actually, the program for preparing a book layout is just a masterpiece. Where necessary - thinks out, where it is not necessary - does not interfere. You can take a ready-made layout and just insert photos, or you can create your own, from scratch, with all the backgrounds, frames, captions and other decorations.
My wife is a professional designer, so the layout was completely made. It turned out, in my opinion, very beautiful. She threatened her for two weeks and half a night because she did not give the child during the day. And so, after all these sleepless nights, proud of the fact that we did everything in advance, on December 2 we send the order ...
')
And then it happened: our order was already kicked off 7 times with comments, which even to us, as professionals, were given very little, and the unprepared user in general, in my opinion, should have fallen into a stupor. In this case, the refusal did not come after the stated 2 days, but after 3-4.
At first, the refusals came with a motivation: the order did not pass because of the blablabla.jpg file. There were no comments that could help to understand what was wrong with the file. The first time we just saved the photo and reinserted it - well, you never know, anything can happen. The second failure came with a complaint about the same file. We tried to remove it altogether and sent the order again - a refusal came with a complaint to another file. Here I had a suspicion that they didn’t check all the files, but before the first problem, that with the number of photos in the book about a hundred it means the following: 100 “problem” files = 100 order shipments with file replacements = the book will be ready only for the new 2011 . And then, provided that the new files will suit the system.
Here it became clear that you need to call and find out the relationship. I really do not like this business, but I had to :) A young man on the line confirmed my concerns about the principle of the system: indeed, at the first file that the program does not like, it interrupts the execution. At the same time, there is neither a list, nor even the number of “good” files in the refusal, but only the “bad” one on which the execution was interrupted.
I asked quite a reasonable question, what should I do if all 100 files do not like the program, which is quite likely, since they were all the same. The young man silenced the problem of a hundred files, and for a specific case of a problem with one photo, he suggested several solutions to the problem:
- delete the file from the program, resave and rename the original and add it again;
- use original camera files;
- resave everything in Paint;
My wife remembered that the added and deleted photos are not immediately removed physically from the working directory of the book and it is not known whether they are included in the generated package as a result, so a phantom copy of the deleted file can spoil everything. Removed all the photos from the book, all the photos from the working directory of the program and sent again. The fifth failure came without specifying a specific file. Or rather, I didn’t even come, but just changed the status of the book in the interface, there was no letter, so we lost a few more days until we guessed to see the status.
We could not use the original files from the camera - some of the photos were taken in RAW at all, but even those that were shot immediately in JPEG were still corrected in Photoshop. We decided to browse through the JPEG saving settings - we found the enabled option “create files more compact but less compatible”. They thought: “Here it is! How do we forget about it! That's what it was all about! ”... the sixth rejection, also without a letter.
Called again. The girl listened to our entire situation, looked at the reason for the non-assembly of our last order, and said that again one of the pictures had not passed. I regret that I didn’t ask if it was the very first photo :) I tried to convince her that our JPEGs are normal and she said that yes, indeed, it could be some kind of system flaw, asked to leave a feedback application on the site order number, request to understand and note that the order is relevant - then they, they say, will turn to the developers and fix everything. I was somewhat surprised that she could not initiate this process by herself, but decided not to aggravate, thanked and said goodbye. Naturally, I did everything exactly as she said, described the situation in detail, expressed all the complaints, asked me to figure it out. And after a day or two :) I received a letter ... with the usual pattern of failure due to the fact that the file did not like the system.
Desperate, we re-saved everything in the paint. 12-megapixel originals, weighing 4-5MB each, which photoshop with a quality of 70 and optimization kept at 1.5MB, painter crumpled to a measly 400Kb each. They sent the order, no longer hoping for anything ... and did not hope correctly, because they again received the status “Assembly Error” without explaining the reasons and without a letter. The seventh failure.
Today is already the 29th, we feel completely exhausted by all this epic, it is already clear that there will be no books for NG, that we will not think up anything sensible for the remaining 2 days, we will not find it and, most likely, parents and grandparents will receive as a gift some banal "grocery basket." And I wanted to please them with an original gift.
In conclusion, I want to say the following: for almost 20 years my wife and I have been sitting at the monitors, she, as I said, is a professional designer, a great artist, and a good photographer. Works in a large, if not the largest, advertising agency in Moscow. No one has ever had any complaints about its JPEGs :) I, even though graphics are not my main field of activity, also have 15 years of experience in working with images, with their preparation for printing and for the web, photo processing and optimization of graphic files . So ...
Not one of us has ever met such that at least some program for viewing or editing images could not open at least some JPEG!
Great job, printbook! Holiday greetings!
In conclusion, I want to give here a couple of obvious tips, which I included in the application of the printbook feedback form and to which I did not receive a word in reply:
- If some JPEG doesn’t like the system, it can be a client’s problem only if there are clear formal requirements for the format of the sent JPEG files: presence of EXIF, color profile, restrictions on weight, resolution, width / height ratio of 16 pixels and etc. If there are no such requirements (and I did not find them) - this is the business of the executor - take this file and re-save it as needed.
- Specifying in refusal only that file name on which the program stumbled is a complete nonsense and disrespect. We need a complete list of “good” and “bad” files to make it clear what to compare with. And so that there is no situation “guess from 10 attempts what the file doesn’t like to your printbook”.
Source: https://habr.com/ru/post/79635/
All Articles