Print-ibles Quality Printed Products
Photo Books User Guide
Introducing PRINT-IBLES photo books, a fun way to preserve and present your cherished photo memories in an elegant manner. Creating your very own customized photo books has never been easier!
FEATURES
PRINT-IBLES ‘My Photo Books’ free software offers a wide array of tools and features to design and enhance your project, including:
| Individual page layout | Flexible placement of pictures or snap-to-grid |
| Templates – applied to complete book | Picture cropping, resizing, & rotation |
| Picture borders | Drag & drop placement of pictures |
| Page backgrounds | Fading control of pictures and backgrounds |
| Resizable picture frames | B&W and sepia filters |
| Easy picture distribution | Captions – anywhere |
| Drag & drop placement of design elements |
HOW TO CREATE A PHOTO BOOK
1. Double-click ‘My Photo Books’ desktop shortcut.
2. A Welcome dialog will come up. Click Create New Book or Fast Track.
3. Select a book type and size for your photo book (i.e. Landscape Custom 10 x 8 Hardcover Book or 10 x 8 Softcover Book)
4. You should now see the Photo Book workspace. Use the Image Browser at the bottom of the workspace to load pictures to use for your photo book.
To do so:
Ø Click the Add Picture or Add Folder (of pictures) icon at the left of the Image Browser. You can then drag & drop pictures directly from the Image Browser and onto your photo book pages.
Ø If you are using layouts or templates, you can use the Distribute Pictures command (under the Layout menu) to automatically distribute your pictures among the pages.
5. Toggle among the various page display options seen as tabs on the Image Browser:
Ø Book Pictures – pictures loaded for use or used in the book
Ø Page Layouts – preset arrangements of picture-ready picture frames. Once applied to a page, you can still rearrange the layout elements any way you choose.
Ø Page Backgrounds – various colors, textures, and designs you can apply to your pages.
Ø Picture Borders – borders of various color and thickness you can apply to pictures.
Ø Templates – themes that can be applied to your entire photo book. Once applied to a page, you can still rearrange the template elements any way you choose.
All of these items can be dragged & dropped directly onto a page (or frame, as the case may be).
6. To navigate the pages of your photo book, click the desired page in the Pages Browser. You can also navigate using the navigation arrows located on the toolbar.
7. When you’re done designing your photo book, call Lynda and I will direct you how to send file.
Book Monitor
Using the Book Monitor feature, you can see issues that arise in your photo book in real-time. By default, the Book Monitor is set to on. If the Book Monitor has been turned off, go to the View menu and click “Show Book Monitor.”
The color of the arrow at the left indicates the most serious of the problems within the book. Placing the cursor over a color-coded error box will display a page’s problems, and allow you to go directly to the page to make changes.
Multiple problems on a single page with the same color-code will be represented by a single box of the pertinent color.
Two-Page Spreads
Any of your pictures can be used as a background for a two-page spread. Just drag a picture from the Image Browser to a page (but not onto a frame), and when asked “Would you like your picture to be used as a background for a single page, or across a two-page spread?” click the Two-Page Spread button.
NOTE: When using a landscape picture for a two-page spread background, it’s often best to use a portrait orientation book. Also, faces should be kept out of the gutter, as some of their fine details may be lost or distorted within the spine.
Adjusting & Cropping Your Pictures
Black & White and Sepia Filters, Fading
Aligning Pictures
Removing & Duplicating Frames / Pictures
Photo Book Cover
The design process for the cover of your photo book is the same as for the interior pages, except that you cannot use separate backgrounds for the front & back covers, nor can you see the front & back covers at the same time. Otherwise, frames captions, grids, and so on behave exactly as they do within the book.
Designing Pages in Adobe Photoshop®
If you plan to design some or all of your pages in Adobe Photoshop®, there are a few more things you need to know:
Bleed – when one or more sides of a printed image touch the edge of the paper. The use of bleed guarantees that the finished (cropped) page will look neat & precise. The page bleed allowance should be 1/8 inch at all four sides of the page. The bleed area (i.e. beyond the crop marks) will be trimmed off. If you use a background color or image, it should fill the entire page including the bleed area. For example, if your printed page size is 8.3 inch wide, your page design should be 8.55 inch wide with the bleed (1/8” + 8.3” + 1/8”).
2 Page Spread – this is a page design than spans both right & left-hand pages. The pages are centered at the gutter where they are bound into the spine. Approximately 1/4″ of the spread will be bound into (and thus hidden within) the spine. This, in of itself, is not a problem, but it does require a bit of special attention when using an external tool, such as Adobe Photoshop to create your page designs:
Be sure to leave bleed on all 4 sides. The My Photo Books software will automatically adjust any background used as if it has a bleed designed into it.
Keep important design details at least 1/8” from all sides of the page (1/4” is even better) so that unwelcome trimming does not occur.
Keep important design details an extra 1/4″ away from the center binding (this is in addition to the bleed you leave on all 4 sides of the page).
For example, for a 8.5×11 photobook:
For pages, use image size 8.75 x 22.5.
For cover, the best way to design the cover is to do it with our software and not as a spread. But if a design for a spread is to be made, the specification is as follows:
The spread size has extra .75″ top & bottom, 7/8″ right & left, and .375″ between the front and back for the spine.
So we looking at ( 7/8 + 11 + 3/8 + 11 + 7/8 ) x ( 3/4 + 8.5 + 3/4 ).
OTHER IMPORTANT TIPS & TRICKS.
1. You can use any jpeg file as a background for both single or double side page just by importing your file into the picture monitor like any other picture, drag it into the page and choose from the selection that is prompted.
2. One of the most important tools in our program is our IMAGE ENHANCEMENT tool. You can use this individually as you go or at the end to all pictures. We suggest you always use this tool. If pictures are correct, nothing will happen, but if they are not perfect for printing they will lighten.
NOTE: DO NOT USE THIS TOOL AFTER EMBELLISHMENTS HAVE BEEN ADDED.
3. If you would like to add embellishments to your pages that can be added as follows:
In another graphic program such as photoshop remove the background and leave it with a transparent background. Save as a PNG file. This can then be imported into our software just like a JPEG file into the picture monitor. The only difference is that these must be left to the end after page is complete and the photo enhance tool as been used. Never use photo enhance after importing a PNG. You can use the add shadow to your PNG file.
From the picture monitor drag the embellishment onto the background of your page, never into a picture frame. You will be prompted as you drag as to what you want to do – chose add picture and finish dragging on background area. You can then enlarge and move the embellishment anywhere on the page including on top of a picture.
