Blurb.com or similar

I’m looking for a high quality way to “publish” a book of photographs and text. I found a couple of threads here where people were very happy with both blurb.com and lulu.com. I want very high quality for this both in the layout and execution. I have absolutely zero experience doing this–would I be better off paying someone to do the layout for me or is the software for either blurb or lulu easy enough to use that I will be able to put together a great looking book? How does the final product compare to a commercial “coffee table book”?

Any thoughts, tips or recommendations are more than welcome…

Thanks.