My first photobook experience was an expensive disaster.

Question

I made my wife a 100 page photo book for Xmas and I'm baffled by how bad a lot of the pictures looked. I did some research prior to making it, to make sure that I got the most out of it. I carefully touched up and adjusted many of the pictures and spent a long time getting it all organized. When I got it back from Apple, I was STUNNED at how badly it looked. When A/B'ing the pictures I sent vs. the pictures in the book, many times there is NO comparison.
For instance, on one picture of my son's hospital baby picture, I had touched it up so that his skin looked perfect, and the contrast was just right. The picture in the book shows every single blemish, has tons of red shading all over his face, etc. And on many of the pictures, this is the case. Our skin looks red and flushed, the slightest pimple looks like leprosy! It looks like someone put white bad stage make up on our faces, etc. I just can't believe it. I even tried to duplicate the problem in iPhoto by slamming the contrast, etc and I can't. I have no clue how my awesome images could looks so bad.
That being said, some of the images look really good. They look as they should at least. I just can't figure out how some images of the same resolution could turn out great, while others looks completely different.
This book cost me just over $100, and I can almost bet that I'm stuck with it. It's so bad that I'm toying with the idea of having another vendor print it up, and tossing this one. These are precious memories stored in book form that we will hopefully have forever, and to always have to explain why the images looks so poorly every time someone looks at it, isn't something I particularly want to do.
Any advice? I could scan some of these pix from the book, and upload them along with the pix I actually uploaded if it helps.
Thanks!
Jason

Answer 1

I emailed Apple yesterday via the form, and without question of hesitation they refunded my money! $125! I was shocked. I'm happy they did. However, I would love to know how to avoid this in the future. Why on some pictures my face looks super red, when it shouldn't... or why my baby's face looks rashy in the book, when I touched it up and got rid of that stuff, is beyond me. I'd REALLY like to know how to avoid this next time. I expect some kind of difference between actual photos, and what's printed. But not to the point where my origs look great, yet the book has our faces look like we have bad stage make up on them, or super red, or every single blemish stand out like a sore thumb. I will say that there are many other pictures that turned out just fine, and I edited them no differently.
Very strange.
I may do a guinea pig test on some of the ones that I know looked like crap, have a book done via Apple of just a couple pages, then have the same one done by MyPublisher to compare. I may also send modified, and unmodified pictures of same shots too. I shouldn't have to spend a bunch of money to figure out what is causing it, but I might have to spend SOME anyway.
Thanks!
Jason