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Author Topic: How to design a photography book? tips &technique  (Read 8881 times)

gearu

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How to design a photography book? tips &technique
« on: January 16, 2007, 05:27:58 am »

I need some help and/or advice on how to go about producing a color photography book myself(ie doing the photoshop rocessing and graphic design, but not the printing of course!). Want something maybe 40-60 pages of mostly pictures and some text.

This is really just something that I want to do for my parents who are selling their farm and I wanted to make a coffee table book with photos and text from all their time on the farm, so I would only get a couple printed.

I really would like to try and do the processing and graphic design stuff myself, but I am not sure what software i should use, what format i need things in and how to design up the whole book.

-- Tips for processing images in Photoshop to be in the best format (ie resolution and color properties that might need to be optimized etc)
 
-- Suggestions on software to use to design up the whole book.....do i do this page by page in photoshop? is there software that i should be using to do something like this?

any help or suggestions would be appreciated. I am an amature photographer, but i do have a lot of nice photos, but they are all JPEGS taken at about 3mp.
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RonBoyd

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« Reply #1 on: January 16, 2007, 11:01:30 am »

Quote
I need some help and/or advice on how to go about producing a color photography book myself(ie doing the photoshop rocessing and graphic design, but not the printing of course!). Want something maybe 40-60 pages of mostly pictures and some text.

-- Suggestions on software to use to design up the whole book.....do i do this page by page in photoshop? is there software that i should be using to do something like this?
[a href=\"index.php?act=findpost&pid=95944\"][{POST_SNAPBACK}][/a]

I am thinking along the same lines and have been looking at Booksmart (http://www.blurb.com/). Although in all honesty, I have done nothing more than take a cursory look at it -- I have not, for example, downloaded the "free" software. So I am just throwing it out there for your consideration.

Ron
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GregW

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How to design a photography book? tips &technique
« Reply #2 on: January 16, 2007, 11:19:23 am »

Indesign from Adobe is what immediately springs to mind if you are determined to do as much as possible yourself.  Just like most Adobe products you'll need to invest a bit of time to get to know it, but it an excellent package imo.  I'd contact one or two of the photo book printers out there as they might even have customer Indesign templates you could use as a learning resource of starting point.
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gearu

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« Reply #3 on: January 16, 2007, 03:53:16 pm »

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Indesign from Adobe is what immediately springs to mind
[a href=\"index.php?act=findpost&pid=95988\"][{POST_SNAPBACK}][/a]
a bit of a google and I have discovered that adobe InDesign and QuarkXPress are the two leading Desktop Publishing programs. I have access to a copy of inDesign, so I am going to use this. A review that I read suggested that this was better than quarkXpress, being a little easier to use.

Does anyone know of a good tutorial or reference that might have good templates or information on the format that I would need to create the files in? ie are there standard page sizes, the resolution and color etc? Are there standard number of pages that should be used?

I am based in New Zealand. Does anyone know about any publishers that are over this side of the world, or international publishers that would be cost effective for a small number of prints?
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gearu

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« Reply #4 on: January 16, 2007, 05:32:50 pm »

I found some interesting information here about desktop publishing.
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gearu

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« Reply #5 on: January 16, 2007, 05:37:07 pm »

some more info here about Submission of Electronic Figures for Accepted Manuscripts: Detailed Instructions [link]

Can anyone comment on what is really important here? and how i go about achieving some of these things...

ie
--Note that color artwork is processed in CMYK format for print and processed in RGB format for online.

I am still seeking information about how i should format a project from adobe InDesign. does anyone know of a good link for industry standards or templates??
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DarkPenguin

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How to design a photography book? tips &technique
« Reply #6 on: January 16, 2007, 05:40:47 pm »

Nope.  But lulu.com has some information for formatting for their press.  Also here are a couple of articles from Nature Photographers on book making ...

http://www.naturephotographers.net/article...5/mh0405-1.html
http://www.naturephotographers.net/article...5/mh0905-1.html

Probably not the level you are looking for but I thought I'd mention it.
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gearu

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How to design a photography book? tips &technique
« Reply #7 on: January 16, 2007, 05:50:19 pm »

Quote
Probably not the level you are looking for but I thought I'd mention it.
[a href=\"index.php?act=findpost&pid=96053\"][{POST_SNAPBACK}][/a]
These links are great, thank you....I do not have time to read in depth but they seem to have a lot of the information I am seeking.
Lulu.com is interesting too....perhaps not allowing me enough creative control over the look of the book though?
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gearu

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How to design a photography book? tips &technique
« Reply #8 on: January 16, 2007, 06:08:12 pm »

I have been having a look at http://www.sharedink.com/.
I think that i might be able to achieve what I want with these guys...see below.

I will explore this more, but for the project i am currently working on this approach might be the most cost effective and simple.

From Sharedlink FAQ:
Can I design my pages in a third-party application, like Photoshop?
You can design your pages in a third-party party application. Some of our more advanced users have been laying out their pages in third-party software applications (like Photoshop, PowerPoint, PictureIt, PaintShop Pro), and have been building some pretty amazing books.

After you design your pages in your third-party application, save each page individually as a JPEG image. Then upload all of your images to your WebBook. To make it easier for you to upload your images, you can zip them all up in a single zip file and then upload that one zip file.

For each page, create a new WebBook page and attach the appropriate image to each single page. If you turn off page titles and borders in your WebBook, the image will take up the full page.

You should format your pages to be 10" wide by 8" tall at 300 dpi resolution (i.e. 3000 x 2400 pixels).
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Gordon Buck

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How to design a photography book? tips &technique
« Reply #9 on: January 16, 2007, 10:00:33 pm »

http://www.stoneeditions.com/

is a good way to make a nice album on your own printer.  You can do all this in Photoshop by being careful in your work and planning (and by first making a draft on plain paper!).
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GregW

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« Reply #10 on: January 17, 2007, 07:36:08 am »

Here is bit more information on SharedInk, from a user perspective.

http://www.nikonians.org/html/resources/no...dInk/index.html
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Mark D Segal

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How to design a photography book? tips &technique
« Reply #11 on: January 18, 2007, 07:20:33 am »

Michael wrote a comprehensive article about this on this website describing how he produced his Bangladesh book. Sorry I don't have the link handy but do a search and you'll be sure to find it.
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Mark D Segal (formerly MarkDS)
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wood

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How to design a photography book? tips &technique
« Reply #12 on: January 21, 2007, 11:07:54 am »

Here is the Link of MICHAEL

Good Luk.

Wood
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Gordon Buck

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« Reply #13 on: August 19, 2007, 02:33:23 pm »

I just received my "book" of photographs from Blurb.com and am very pleased with it.  This is just a private book and won't be offer for sale.

Although some might find the Blurb templates a bit limiting, it is a simple and useful system well worth considering.
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Alaska

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« Reply #14 on: August 19, 2007, 05:45:31 pm »

Quote
I just received my "book" of photographs from Blurb.com and am very pleased with it. 
[a href=\"index.php?act=findpost&pid=134164\"][{POST_SNAPBACK}][/a]

Took a look at the Blurb site.  From what I can gather you only have to order one book at a price that ranges from about 20 to 40 dollars depending on size and cover.  Is that correct?  So your total cost would be in that range as there are no setup fees, etc.

Also, how are the pages printed?  Are the pages printed two sided on inkjet paper?  If inkjet do they use dye or pigment based inks?  Is the paper 100% acid free?  Is the stock heavy weight?  

Noticed that they did say four color and sRGB but today's inkjet printers have up to 12 inks.  Assuming that Blurb uses the inkjet process.  Or maybe they are using the wet photo print process such as a Fuji digital printer or a four color offset press process.  If a commercial-quality 4-color printing process then I would expect to see a CYMK conversion along with the typical screening done for the printing process.

Did not see any of this information in their FAQ's.

Jim
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DarkPenguin

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How to design a photography book? tips &technique
« Reply #15 on: August 19, 2007, 06:00:58 pm »

Dunno if this answers anything but thought I'd post it ...

http://www.outbackphoto.com/CONTENT_2007_0...ence/index.html
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Alaska

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« Reply #16 on: August 19, 2007, 06:21:58 pm »

Quote
Dunno if this answers anything but thought I'd post it ...

http://www.outbackphoto.com/CONTENT_2007_0...ence/index.html
[{POST_SNAPBACK}][/a]

Yes the link in the material was of interest.  Like the idea of the how to set up your images for Blurb.

[a href=\"http://www.bonsai-photography.com/blurb-color-management.pdf]http://www.bonsai-photography.com/blurb-color-management.pdf[/url]

And one other question was answered as  they use an HP 5000 for output as follows:

"Blurb uses the HP 5000, which is used in a number of commercial bookprinting
businesses, and an output device I know well. It is a “workhorse” for
producing good image quality at a high output rate."

Thanks for the link as it is most appreciated.

Jim
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Alaska

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« Reply #17 on: August 19, 2007, 06:45:24 pm »

Looks like the HP Indigo press 5000 uses line screens to develop half tone dots.  It uses the CYMK process and can use two more inks (violet and orange) to increase gamut.

"Liquid ink technology means higher quality. Only HP uses a liquid ink-based electrophotographic digital printing technology"

and

"This patented process creates high definition imaging that pops with vibrant color and sharp text – at 812 x 812 dpi and up to 812 x 1,624 dpi when printing in high resolution mode and up to 230 lines per inch. With precise control, HP ElectroInk is applied in thin layers of sub-micron-sized particles to conform to paper surfaces at high speed."

All in all it appears to be a modified offset press.

Here is a link to the HP PDF.

http://h30267.www3.hp.com/Data/en/us/5000_...?pageseq=701617

Jim
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