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advantages. If you are leaning toward photo books
but are a little intimidated about the terminology or process, I'm
here to help! Let's unbind the process and discover how fun creating
a photo book can be!
Size and Cover:
When shopping for photo books, there are several factors to
consider: size, cover style, binding method, price, quality,
reputation, and interface. Different photo book printers, offer
different sizes. Many offer the most common scrapper sizes, 8x8 and
12x12. But, if you scrap a non-traditional size, you may have to do
a little research to find a size that meets your needs. If you look
around, you can find photo books for almost any size. Other common
sizes include letter size (portrait and landscape), 10x10, brag book
and 8x10. Once you choose a size, you will likely find several
different cover styles to choose from. Hard cover books are the most
expensive, but also the most durable, Some companies allow you to
design your own covers. Others use solid-color leather, suede or
canvas for their covers. Soft covers are another option, as are
covers with openings that show the first page. The type cover you
choose will likely affect your binding Opinions as well. Hard cover
books are perfect bound, meaning the pages are stacked and glued to
the cover. Saddle-stitched books are folded and stapled in the
center. Saddle=stitch binding will limit the number of pages you can
have. Wire=o binding (or spiral binding) will punch holes along the
spine of the book, and insert wires similar to traditional
notebooks. These type of wires allow the book to lie flat when open
and can be "concealed" by the covers in some cases. Wire-o binding
is a very inexpensive method of binding. Your choice of printer,
cover and binding type may also dictate the minimum and maximum
number of pages you can have in your book.
Printing:
Once you decide what your preferences are, you will be able to
narrow down your photo printer to just a few. At that point, I
suggest considering quality, reputation, price and ease of software
use to help narrow down your choice.
Here is a list of photo book
printers:
http://www.digiscrapinfo.com/dsiwiki/OnlinePhotoBookPrinters
Once you choose your printer, you will need to create an account,
make sure your pages are sized to that printer's specifications,
upload the photos, and then assemble and order your book.
The most important step in the creation of your photo book will
be creating your pages according to the printer's specifications.
Each printer will have their own specifications depending on their
equipment and printing process. If you are a scrapper with simple
style, who tend to leave large margins on your pages, you will be
able to upload your pages as is and achieve a perfect result.
However, if you are like me, you probably have layouts with flowers
or photos going off the edge of the page. Perhaps you have cropped
your photos just so. Or, maybe you like the grungy or glittery
borders around the edge of your pages, If you do, you need to pay
special attention to the printer's specifications and make some
adjustments to your layouts before uploading them so that your pages
will not be cut off unexpectedly.
Let's take a brief look at some of the terms that you might
encounter when your are reading these specifications.
BLEED:
Bleed is the area of a page that will be cut off
during the printing process. Unlike the photo printers of today that
allow "full-bleed" photo printing, most commercial printers cannot
print all the way to the edge of the paper. So, they print on a
larger sheet of paper and then trim it down to size. They will take
all the pages in your book, stack them on top of each other, and
place them under a large blade which trims them down to size. It is
virtually impossible to trim EXACTLY o the edge of the layout. So,
the printers ask that extra background image, or "bleed" be printed
on the page. That way, l if the stack of pages is not perfectly
aligned, or moves a little in the process, your page will not show
any white paper on the edges. I like to explain it like this...
Imagine printing a page on your printer, and then trimming it out
with scissors. You cannot cut exactly on the edge. If you try to,
you will likely miss a bit here and there and leave a bit of white
paper. Instead, you aim just inside the edge as you trim. That will
ensure that no paper is left showing. Printing and cutting photo
books works on the same principle, but since they are stacking pages
and cutting the stack all at once, they need even more tolerance
than you do. Most printers will ask for 1/8" to 1/4" bleed added to
each side of the layout.
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