Is changing dpi of my jpegs necessary?

[edav]

I have a bunch of images from my Sony DSLR that are 10 megapixels in size and are at 72dpi. Do I need to open these with my photo editor and change them to 200dpi?

[Cruiser]

Your pictures at 10 mb are too large to upload to the MyPublisher site. Their help section at mypublisher.com recommends 5 mb as the best quality picture. They print at 180 dpi and 170 lpi. So, your pictures need to be resized.

What I do in Photoshop is set up a blank for the size of the book I am making. Again go to the help section for all the details. I choose 200 dpi because it seems to give the most consistant size. Then I drag my picture onto the blank and use the free transform function to resize it. There will be some cropping because the aspect ratio of your camera and the software are not the same. If you want the entire page shown, you will need to reduce the picture and have a colored background as a frame.

I save at 12 quality and most of my pictures range 3 mb to 5mb. You can resize slightly by changing the resollution too. Which photo editor are you using?

Also, remember to allow 1/2" at the binding side of your picture and 1/8" for the other three sides for cutting and binding of your book. Don't put anything important near the binding or the edges or something might get cut off in the production of your book.

[mypublisher]

Just to clarify, your 10 megapixel images are not likely 10 megabytes each. In truth, the help section on our website is amid a major overhaul, and this is an area that cries out for clarification. So meanwhile...

The following image sizes (in pixels) represent the minimum dimensions for the largest images (one photo per page) in each of our products:

- Paperback PocketBooks: 1500x1150 pixels
- Classic Hardcover Books: 2150x1700 pixels
- Deluxe Hardcover Books: 2850x2225 pixels

...and the maximum dimensions are:

- Paperback PocketBooks: 2250 x1725 pixels
- Classic Hardcover Books: 3225x2550 pixels
- Deluxe Hardcover Books: 4275x3338 pixels

If you have a lot of large images that exceed the maximum specs listed above, you may want to consider resizing them with a third party image editor prior to bringing them into BookMaker.

While BookMaker is capable of sizing the images accordingly when the book is purchased, resizing them first using a dedicated image editor will give rise to better performance while making the book, as well as faster uploads.

As Cruiser suggests, sizing a blank document in Photoshop to the above specs is a great way to go (the minimum dimensions above reflect the page sizes of each book at 200dpi) as this method deals with sizing, aspect ratio and potential design pitfalls all at once.