1st Baby Book created for Mother's Day

[jaydewofford]

I created this book for our Mothers as a brag book gift. It has pictures that I took from out son's first year & a half of life. As a photographer & graphic designer, I could have spent a lot of time in Photoshop creating collages & special layouts, but I prefer to let the pictures speak for themselves. There is no text except for the Jacket and Title page.

What does everyone think? I should receive them by the end of this week, can't wait!

http://www.mypublisher.com/bookshelf/bookviewer.py?d=tq%3Ey-cppl%60je%3E372356:&_mp=Q4UEpRyDrRhx7h5y1VTiKK8qnzQtM5Gf

[baldmarc1]

it's nice... i just got our books today and was a little underwhelmed. i bought the soft cover books and now wish i had gone with the hard cover. as a graphic artist myself, i though the print quality was fair at best, at least on the soft cover which is probably the same as the other products.

[mypublisher]

Hi baldmarc1,

Please contact us at customerservice@mypublisher.com or 877-411-6978 (bet. 9am-9pm EST, Monday through Friday for US residents) and please let us know what is specifically wrong with the print quality.

We have a 100% satisfaction guarantee policy and we want you to be satisfied with your book. We will do all we can to help you print a great quality book.

Best Regards,

MyPublisher

[baldmarc1]

I'm sure they average person will be very satisfied, however to my eye the pages looked some what pixelated like they had printed on an inkjet rather than offset. I know the pictures I took were hi res and I know better than to save a jpg as a jpg as a jpg and mess with image compression.

[jaydewofford]

I received my books in the mail today & was very happy with the quality of the printing. You have to realize that you are using a print on demand service with no proofing system. And you are getting a very reasonable price for a small sized print run. If impeccable quality was really that important to you, then you would go to a place like Couture Books and spend $350+ per book.

I would recommend MP to anyone that was looking for a good quality option at a good price. Plus I got 1 free... Love my books!

[mypublisher]

Hi baldmarc1,

We print our books using a four color digital printing process on the Hewlett Packard 3050 Digital Offset Press.

Also to ensure that your images are printed to our highest standards, it's crucial that they conform to the following specifications:

--- FILE FORMAT ---------------------------------

Your images must be saved as JPEG files (file ends in .jpg or .jpeg)

--- IMAGE SIZE ---------------------------------

Image size requirements (in pixels) ultimately depend on the desired printed size.

The software will warn you if you have used a photo that has insufficient resolution for the size you have chosen. These images will be outlined in red as opposed to blue. Reduce the size of any red outlined images (by using the Zoom Out button) until the outline turns from red to blue; otherwise, images will not print clearly and may appear pixelated.

If, on the other hand, your images slightly exceed the specs, or are used in a smaller size in the book (in a four per page layout for example), your software will downsize them accordingly – no adjustments are necessary.

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

The maximum dimensions are:

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

--- RESIZING ---------------------------------

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 your software.

While your software 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.

--- USING THIRD PARTY IMAGE EDITING SOFTWARE ---------------------

If you are using photo editing software to create or edit your images, please keep these points in mind:

~ Use sRGB or RGB when enhancing photos – no CMYK.
~ Use sRGB or RGB for black and white photos – no Grayscale.
~ Remove any vectors, slices or layers from your images.

IMPORTANT: Please allow a 1/8 inch to 1/4 inch 'gutter' around all sides of these images to allow for cropping. Without this allowance, any text or image elements near the edges of the image will be cut off when the book is printed.

--- ASPECT RATIO ---------------------------------

If you want to use square images in your book, we recommend that you use a third party image editor to create a rectangular document that maintains a 4:3 aspect ratio, using at least the minimum specs listed above.

You can then place the square image into this rectangular document, allowing a border or background to occupy the remaining space in the rectangle.

Inserting this rectangular image with the 4:3 aspect ratio into the templates in your softwarewill ensure that images with differing aspect ratios are printed without distortion or cropping. This also holds true for any image whose aspect ratio differs from that of the book – ie, panoramic or widescreen images.

--- VIEWING IMAGE DETAILS -----------------------------

To verify specific information about your images, you'll need to take the following steps. Please note that you cannot do this from within your software– this information can only be acquired from the original image file.

PC Users

~ Right click on the image
~ Left click 'Properties' from the menu that follows
~ Left click on the Summary tab
~ Left click on Advanced

Mac Users

~ Right (or ctrl) click on the image
~ Left click 'Get Info' from the menu that follows
~ Left click on the 'More Info' arrow

From here, you can view an image's pixel dimensions.

Hope this helps!

MyPublisher

[GOLDENONYX]

Your book is beautiful. The photos are great and the layouts you chose work wonderfully. Not to mention the adorable baby (those eyes!). Great job.

[kbuicker]

Wow! Very impressive! Nice photography! My book will give yours a run for your money :) (as soon as I figure out the program glitch I'm dealing with :confused: )