ku # 548 ~ some ins and outs
Monday, January 12, 2009 at 10:19AM 
More rime ice above the West Branch of the Au Sable • click to embiggenContinuing with our POD theme, we move on to the blank page / content.
But, before going there, I would be remiss if I didn't mention one critical factor, in fact, the most critical factor in obtaining good results - your monitor and its calibration.
Simply stated reasonable monitor calibration is a must but notice that I used the word "reasonable", not "perfect". That's because, at least on the Mac side of things, there is a way to achieve decent monitor calibration without having to own a calibration device. For those of you using a Mac, that procedure can be found in your System Preferences / Display settings. It's a fairly intuitive process and even if you don't get it exactly right it will still be a lot better than not doing it.
Important Caveat: Monitor calibration - with or without a calibration device - should be performed in a darkened environment as should all image editing. The monitor screen should have little or no ambient light striking it. That's the way the "big boys" do it.
Workstation • click to embiggen
My workstation is on a countertop installed in an alcove. The walls/ceiling in the alcove are painted a neutral 50% grey. My monitor and keyboard sit on a large black desktop blotter. The room lighting is on a dimmer switch set to very dim.
I am certain that most of you will not go to these lengths but here's the important thing. Try to calibrate in the same light conditions in which you will do your image editing. In other words, DON'T calibrate in a room flooded with daylight and then edit at night with tungsten light. Try your utmost to keep the room light constant both in intensity and color temperature. Think of it as the correct "white balance".
Now, on to the blank page.
I do all of my book design and layout, to include typography, in Photoshop. Photoshop's type tools are pretty sophisticated at this point. No, they are not as good as InDesign but they are more than up to the task of the requirements of photo book design wherein pictures, not typography, is the feature.
Pro power-user that I am, I use the full version of PS. I believe that PS Elements has type tools as well. If you do not have either of these programs, in order to work with a blank page you must have a page layout program that allows you to work with type and images together and that also allows you to output / save the results as a PDF - although that PDF will have to be opened / rasterized in an image editing program in order to create a hires (300dpi) jpeg for upload to the service provider.
Leather cover with cut out window / first inside page • click to embiggenIn any event, I start in PS with a 300 dpi (ppi), white background, RGB file that is sized to the page size of the book I am designing. Typically, for me, that is either a 12×12 inch or an 8×8 inch size file. Therefore, as an example, my blank page is a PS RGB file that is 8 in. x 8 in, 300 dpi, and has a white background.
Copyright / Statement spread • click to embiggenAt that point, the real business of design/layout begins and, IMO, the guiding principle from here on out is keep it simple.
The first question a good designer asks him/herself is, "what's the point of this design exercise?" In our case, the answer is a relatively simple one, "to showcase pictures". The pictures are the thing, NOT typographic virtuosity or graphics wizardry. That is why in my books:
1. pictures are always presented with a white surround (essentially the equivalent of matting a picture for presentation).
2. type/text is (almost) always black or a shade of grey.
3. type/text is (almost) always relatively small.
4. graphic elements - lines, boxes, etc. are always small and subtle.
In short, because pictures are the thing, I like to keep all of the other elements of a photo book simple. The result of doing so will most always be a "clean" and "elegant" look and feel. Nothing gets in the way of viewing the pictures. They are allowed to speak for themselves. There are no distractions.
Picture spread with image title page • click to embiggenA word to the wise regarding pictures presented with a white background. I know that there are probably more than a few out there who listen to picture framers' advice regarding the color of matting when it comes to framing your photographs. IMO, and quite frankly that of the rest of the Art world, there is only ONE color for matting and that is NONE, aka - white (or any number of subtle shades thereof).
The reason for this is simple - and goes back to your workstation environment - any color that you choose to surround your picture(s) with will greatly influence the eye's perception of the colors in those pictures - the stronger the color, the stronger the influence. Colored backgrounds in photo books wherein the pictures are intended to be presented as Art (or even art) is strictly for amateurs. The same can be said for printing pictures right out the edges of the page, aka - full bleed. The exception here is covers where full bleed is most often the rule rather than the exception.
All of that said, here are a few time-saving tips:
Make a master page file that has repetitive elements on it - things like page numbers (I don't use them), titles, captions, graphic elements and guides for image sizing placement.
I like to present all of my pictures at the same size and in the same place on each page. Once I have determined that size/placement by dragging a picture (holding down the shift key in order that the picture will be centered on the page) onto my master blank page and playing around with it using the transform tool, I drag guides to the edges of the image (View>Snap ON). Then I delete the picture layer and re-save the master file.
Type elements like titles, page numbers and captions can be saved in position in the master file by creating any of the elements on the master page using the type tool. Make a separate type layer for each element and position the element where you want it to be using the typeface and size you want them to be - actually type in a title / caption / page number. Once determined, save the master file leaving the type as editable type.
Once you have a master page file, all you need to do to make a new page is drag (shift key) an image file onto it and resize it to the guides you have set up. Then highlight any text with the type tool and enter the appropriate info - new title / caption / page number. Then save the file with a new name.
Then start again on that file - delete the image, drag a new one in, redo the text elements, and save again with a new name. Keep repeating the same procedure to create as many pages as you need. Working in this manner means that you will have only one working file open at a time. This may be very important if you have a limited amount of RAM.
Once you are done making pages, you can open them one at a time. Flatten them and save them as jpegs for upload to the service provider. With both Shutterfly and SharedInk I save the jpegs with the Adobe RGB (1998) color profile embedded. To be totally honest, I do NOT know how important the Abobe RGB (1998) color profile is to the results I obtain. I live in an Adobe RGB color space world - I shoot with that profile, I edit with that profile, and save all my files with that profile. If you live in an sRGB color space world (a smaller color space world), you might want to ask the appropriate customer support for advice on that.
For those of you working with a page layout / design program to make your book (such as InDesign, Quark, et al) you are going to have to save out your book as individual page pdfs. Then you will have to open them in PS (or some other image editing program) as a rasterized file at 300dpi in order to save them as jpegs for upload. To my knowledge, there are no POD photo book service providers who accept whole document pdf files or pdf files with vector type embedded in them.
I hope this short-ish how-to helps answer some questions. I am sure many of you will have more. Ask away.
Reader Comments (18)
I cringe at the idea of doing layout in photoshop, but if it works for you what can anyone say... While the type tools are reasonable enough for something like this which concentrates so heavily on photos, I would still sorely miss niceties like style sheets and the ability to store the whole project in one file. It just makes is so much easier to make global changes--you decide you want a different font for the text for instance you can do that in one click rather than opening up dozens of individual files.
Also worth noting, InDesign will allow you to export your layout directly to jpegs--you can get individual jpegs for each page or each spread--so you don't need to jump through the hoops of rasterizing PDFs.
I've used shutterfly a bit and according to their FAQs they expect sRGB files. This suggests to me (although I can't confirm it, and frankly it would surprise me) that they are ignoring embedded profiles and just processing everything as if it were sRGB. If this is true, I would not expect AdobeRGB-tagged images to be even reasonably accurate. To get an idea of what this will look like take one of your images and assign the sRGB profile.
Nicely explained. On the colourspace front - virtually every POD publisher I've come across expects (or assumes) sRGB. I've even seen a couple who will not accept anything else.
Like you, I work in AdobeRGB but do conversions to sRGB on export for sending to print services (or the web).
Mark - I doubt if most non-designers out there are going to invest mucho $$$$$$$ to acquire InDesign, much less invest the time to learn it. Most are stretched just to acquire and learn PS, but, my bet is most have PS.
So, my tutorial is aimed at those who don't have InDesign.
As for sRGB / Adobe RGB (1998), I have been printing books with Shutterfly for 2-3 years saving my files with the Adobe RGB (1998) profile.
The color results have been nothing short of truly excellent.
I don't know what they're doing, but it's working.
You are no doubt right about InDesign.
As for the colorspace, shutterfly must be honoring your embeded profile if you are getting good results--that's good to know. I just had some holiday snapshots come back from them, and they were perfect, but I've never tried sending them anything other than sRGB images.
Good info Mark. Thanks. I've had an account at Shutterfly for quite awhile now but I certainly would have gotten one through your link if I was starting new. As helpful as you have been and as willing to take all the time that you do to write these descriptive posts I sure hope people will use the new link you have up there on the page if they decide to open a new account.
Question: If I wanted to center a 6x6 image on the 8x8 page will the book binding mess all that up? Should the image be scooted out toward the edges a bit to compensate for that? I'm guessing you've already run off some books with a similar layout? Thanks much for anything you can offer about this.
Hi Mark, the "Support the Landscapist" link to shutterfly does not seem to be active. Am I missing something?
Cedric - click on the Shutterfly logo
Mary - I assumed that page offset or "creep" is automatically corrected in their RIP software although (to get all technical on you), POD books are not bound using signatures so creep is much less of an issue.
Thanks Mark. I thought there was probably built- in software compensation for that. And now I know a little more about bookbinding....looked up "signatures." :-)
I followed the link to the Shutterfly book page, but I can't figure out what to do next. The Shutterfly page is loaded with "memory books" and "story books", but I can't find the link where you can upload your own layout pages as you described above.
Thanks in advance,
Andy Frazer
Andy - did you "Join" or "Sign up"?
Once you have joined, clicking on just about anything that says "photo book" will get you to the photo book page where you select the size book you want and be linked to a page with a "get started" button (under the "choose cover" dropdown menu). Choose a cover and you're off and started.
Your "My Shutterfly" page has an "add pictures" link that will allow to upload pictures.
Mark,
Sorry I wasn't clear in my original post. The problem I have is that every link in Shutterfly is taking me through a set of pre-designed book templates (i.e., you pick the cover, you pick the background of the pages, etc.). But in your post, above, you seem to be talking about designing the pages yourself, and by-passing the Shutterfly page templates. Is that correct? I can't figure out how to bypass the Shutterfly templates.
Thanks
Andy
Mark,
One more question. Did Aaron use Shutterfly to produce his book? I bought one (#5!!!), and I was very impressed with the print quality (and the photo quality, of course) of that book.
Andy Frazer
Andy - As I mentioned previously, you can actually bypass the templates - after you pick the cover style and click "get started", on the next page choose "Classic White" under the "styles" menu and un-click "drop shadows" on the "Photo edge" dropdown menu (ignore the "Text" settings)... click on "Next" ... on the next page, click the "Pages" tab
At that point, you be on "Title Page" - on the left, click on the "blank page" layout icon (all grey about 7 rows down) .. after clicking on it, you'll notice that the Title Page is now blank.
Scroll down to the bottom of the layout section and click on "Apply to all pages" (be sure that the blank page icon is still selected) ... now all of the pages in the book are "blank". Once you have your pictures, just drag them on the appropriate page.
"Did Aaron use Shutterfly to produce his book?"
No Andy, it was Blurb. I was using beta testing their "pro" program at the time, but now I believe that it has gone public? It offers color management profiles and better paper options.
Mark,
I'm looking for a link to your pod books and only find the online versions. Isn't this the point of Print On Demand, that anyone could order a book and have it sent to them from the printer?
The easiest way with Shutterfly is to select the Photo Books option, then choose "Print My Digital Scrapbook" from the list of occasions. That gives you a completely blank, full-bleed page where you can add your own jpgs.
Another alternative is to choose "Digital Scrapbookers" from the Solutions menu at the top of the page. that takes you to a complete set of blank, full-bleed products that allow you to upload your own jpgs instead of using Shutterfly's templates.
Also, here are the specs for Shutterfly's photo books with the bleed, trim, etc. all marked. You can also download Photoshop templates with guides already set.
http://www.shutterfly.com/digitalscrapbook/scrapbook-design-specs.jsp
Hope this helps!
Is it still the case that "To my knowledge, there are no POD photo book service providers who accept whole document pdf files or pdf files with vector type embedded in them?"
I was just looking around the Web for POD folks who do offer this service and it looks like Lulu does. Check out
http://www.lulu.com/en/help/how_do_I_make_pdf
for more details.
Have you seen any of Lulu's books? If so, I'd enjoy your opinion of their work.
--Pat from Lancaster PA
This is a new blogg where there is information about general blackhat moneymaking like ppi ( Pay Per Install ). There is also links to private affiliate companies that give you the best payout, companies that is not known to the public.
Also there is tutorials on how to get installs, sites wich sell installs and alot other cool info.
Link: http://blackhatPPI.com/ or http://payperinstall-ppi.blogspot.com/
if you like the site please give feedback, also tell us if there is something you would want on the site. We have also more private compies that we cannot show on site, to get theese please contact us!