This condensed book about the steam trains on the North Yorkshire Moors Railway, (NYMR), decided it should reside on Blurb. When I received my copy, I was more than happy with the appearance and feel of the soft cover version. While the shipping cost was rather high, the book landed on my doorstep within a couple of days.

My immediate impression was that it is a pretty good book, even for the price of one copy. Then I found some minor issues with fonts and line spacing, which I tidied up. I also added a 2-page spread of the Tornado locomotive. The Tornado photo was such that the logo plate on the locomotive would have been in the gutter if I'd simply left it that way. So, I reduced the size, using the Blurb Booksmart feature, moved it around a tad, and got what I wanted: the logo is out of the gutter.

When I started this, (and soon-to-be-similar projects), I was going 'full bore' Adobe CC. I followed the print profile guidelines, and got some good renditions of the photos through LightRoom and PhotoShop. There were some awful renditions as well, with a purple that drove me mad, and some heavy dark greens in the darker portions that dogged me until I gave up and went with my old handy PhotoImpact.

From then onward, I paid little or no attention to print profiles, going instead with my eye and instinct. This, I do not recommend for professional photographers, of course, but Blurb might not be the best place to construct a professional portfolio, according to some of the comments out there in blogs and such.

For me, Blurb Booksmart should be the ticket to turning out the planned series of North Yorkshire travel destinations, by Antony J Waller.