Hi Bill,
I use Blurb.
http://www.blurb.com/user/store/Klipsi
I haven't tried all different ones, but I had tried Lulu before and if I remember well the thing I disliked with Lulu ( this may have changed since then ?) was that I had to be connected online all the time to prepare the book and add images and that each time I added a photo it took a certain time to upload the large files etc.. while with Blurb you download the application and then you can prepare your book off-line , and later you connect and upload the entire book only once the book is finished. I find this much better for editing a book on a laptop, working on the book over several weeks and being able to do so regardless of available webaccess . You just need a fast connection when you upload the finished book.
as for the image quality, I am happy with it. However, I realized that in certain cases some images may get cropped. E.g. in my North Pole voyage book ,
http://www.blurb.com/bookstore/detail/519376
the images that are alone on a page turn out in 4:3 format even though I uploaded only 3:2 format images ( taken at 12 MP with Canon EOS 450D ). You can see this in the preview of the book.
http://www.blurb.com/books/519376 click on the book and click forward a few pages till you see the polar bear pages.
When I put 2 images on the same page, one above the other, then each image got printed correctly in 3:2 format , but the images I uploaded individually for just one image per page well those images got cropped on the side, ending up in 4:3 format.
about image quality : in my first book ( Klipsi, Paparazzo Del Cielo ) ,
http://www.blurb.com/bookstore/detail/514069 ,
I found just a few storm images to turn out a little bit too dark but I guess that is because I did too much editing / contrast / saturation. This was my first attempt .
with the winter coming I think I will do another book with fullpage prints. In my first books I did not use the fullpage setup, sadly.
I believe that images printed in fullpage format will also end up cropped on the sides. You upload a 3:2 image but it will fill a page that is 4:3 . Luckily it does not resize / compress the image but it does cut off a bit left and / or right, depending on how you position the image . This detail may also depend on what book format you choose.
