My tibet book from mypublisher just arrived!

[jacksonn298]

My tibet book, 3rd book from mypublisher, just arrived and I have to say they also did an excellent job. The color and production quality is consistent. So far I've recommended to a few dozen people at work. Here's the book preview link. You may have to cut and paste it into the browser.

http://www.mypublisher.com/bookstore/book_viewer.py?d=tq>y-cppl`je>:4:495

[Cruiser]

Deleted

[jacksonn298]

Yes. Working on Malaysia, with Nepal and other parts of China coming in a couple months. Nepal pics was taken on film so they need to be scanned. I'm using a service (Scancafe), that scans, correct color & scratches for .19 cent each but takes about 8 weeks. I should have them back before thanksgiving :). Anyway thanks for the compliments.

[Attagirl]

Jackson, thanks for sharing your photobooks. I love all 3...your photos as well as your vacation destinations!

I'm a new customer with MP and my first book was a little disappointing. However, they are giving me a chance to redo my book, which I'm grateful since a deluxe book is pretty expensive. I want to make the most of my 2nd chance...I need some advice. My complaint was that overall my photos were darker and more saturated (in redtones) than I expected. And some pictures, especially ones with people in them, were quite grainy.

I don't have my monitor(s) calibrated but I have viewed my pics from several monitors and none of them showed the dark images or so much redness. Regarding the graininess, I have since learned that perhaps some of my files could have been too large for the smaller templates. However, I did not get any red border warnings. I did not change the dpi; I believe most of them were 300 dpi. Color space was at sRGB. At its largest, for the full pages, the file size was 3008x2000. I thought you'd want that for the full pages?

I've read your past thread under "One satisfied customer", listing all the settings you used. Are you still using those same settings? Have you tried something different that also worked? On your books with 9 to 12 pics on a page, what did you change your file sizes to? Do you also change the dpi when you reduce file size? Do you need to sharpen your images in PS as a final step? Lastly, if I'm going to edit a photo for whatever reason, should I go ahead and change the color space to Adobe 1998?

Thanks for any advice you can give me! (or anyone else who is going thru the same issues as me).

[jackie828@gmail.com]

Your photos were amazing. I'm a beginner of mypublisher but I've seen a quite a few albums already. Your album showed me that it's the quality of photos that makes the album, and not the fancy extra work.

[jacksonn298]

Thanks Attagirl & jackie828 for the compliments. As for settings, yes I'm still using those settings. 90% of my pictures are in sRGB but the rest in Adobe98 cause I'm too lazy to change them all to Adobe98. The file size for full page deluxe book is around 2400x1900 or something like that. On pages with 4, 9, & 12 images all images are in 1280x900 180dpi. I've to resize the picture because otherwise the MP software would be very sluggish.

I do 95% of picture processing in element 6. You'd be surprise what it can do. The only time I go to photoshop CS3 is when I need to do masks and level curves. Even then element 6 can handle it. Yes I would use unsharpen mask to sharpen your picture a bit. I think I would highly recommend is to calibrate your monitor because you don't know if the red you see on the screen is indeed red. I do it religiously to ensure consistant color output and I believe the results speak for themselves - all 3 books with consistant color across. I work for an archictecture firm and we produce lots of color images. We routinely have color management consultants come in with their thousand dollar color spectrometer to calibrate and profile our monitor and printers. But I think a simple $150-300 color calibrator will do the job. Anyway I hope this helps. Let me know if you need more info.

[x0x098]

Great book! I'm new to mypublisher and I want to know how you put the Chinese characters into your book, because the text box doesn't support Chinese!

[chanchan8888]

Yes, I just making a new book of my latest travel to CHINA,
it would be much better if caption can be in CHINESE character e.g.) Place

Please kindly advice

Many thanks!

[chanchan8888]

Hi jacksonn,

I read all over your photos twice, photos quality are amazing and
discover you do made well use of My Publisher which I do know it can

1. Chinese Character (mention before)
2. Map in your introduction (is it a graphic? are you insert it as a photo?)
3. Thank you page in Page 0 (Back of front page, can't find in Bookmaker 2.1?)
4. Book Jacket (Size) you have a little narrow photos with some words
May I ask how to made it?
5. Your book have around 100 pages, as default only 20 pages.
Would it can support as it may getting more heavier?
What Photo Book size do you order?


Sorry for so many questions,
last, you are very professional and made fully utilize of it,
MyPublisher should give a VIP discount, as your generous show us give me strong intention to try made a own book.

Many thanks!

[jacksonn298]

Hi x0x098 & chanchan888,

Thanks for the compliments. I was initially disappointmented that I couldn't use chinese characters as captions but found a work around. This is what I did:

1. Chinese characters were lay on top of the picture in Photoshop. Save as JPG and imported into Mypublisher. In Mypublisher, create a full bleed page and place the JPG in it.

2. Map was done in Adobe illustrator. I found a map on web save as jpg and use illustrator to trace it and then use the above step to imported into Mypublisher. One of the reasons why I didn't place a caption on each photos was:
-----a) to much work :). I have about 220 photos and to use photoshop to place captions (that is with chinese characters) would be too laborious.
-----b) due to different layout, each picture may be different size and I would have to use different size fonts to compensate other wise the caption on a 1 photo and a 2 photos page would look off.

In the end I thought a map with legend that shows what was the attraction and on what page that this attraction was on. If you're interested I could send you the jpg and let you see how it was done.

3. The thank you page was also done in illlustrator and use the above step to imported into mypublisher.

4. Book jacket with narrow photos with some words - that's a poem from Li-Bai. The text was added to the photos using photoshop and imported into mypublihser.

5. The book have 100 pages (I wish they could do more), and the book can absolutely handle it. Mypublisher did an excellent job in binding these book that it can handle opening the pages flat and fully.

6. The book size I ordered was the deluxe with jacket at 15"x11.5"

I brought the three books to work and left them at the front desk. They were all amazed at the quality of the printing and a few started their own projects :) If you have more questions please send it my way. It's my pleasure to give something back to mypublisher community. Just some background, I had made the tibet and sichuan book last year using a color printer at work, bought paper cutter, used binding machine off ebay, and laminate the covers by hand. I made about 30 of them and boy was it a pain not to mention costly. It was a perfect binding book using glue strip and to binding machine to melt the glue to bind them. In the end some book turn out okay but most of them the pages simply fall off due to the numbers of pages I have (about 150) and not having the right equipment. I had look at mypublisher at that time but I didn't care for their picture in a window look. Now that they offer jackets and that's what got me started. Anyway please feel free to send me any questions. I'll be happy to answer them. Good luck with your book.

Jackson

[mcgowanb45]

2 quick, potentially stupid questions.
1. When referring to a 100 page book - is that 100 pages with pics i.e. 50 indiividual pages?
2. How many pics did you use?
Thanks! I'm working on one for Tanzania right now. When I get it done I will post it for all to see.
Bonne

[jacksonn298]

2 quick answers:
1. 50 individual pages
2. I have about 220 photos.

Good luck with you book.

[chanchan8888]

Dear Jacksoon,

Again, your answer show you are very professional and no wonder your book is well usef of MP and so amusing result.

"In the end I thought a map with legend that shows what was the attraction and on what page that this attraction was on. If you're interested I could send you the jpg and let you see how it was done." - Yes, thousand thanks, as I am making a book of Travel China (Wah Tung).

Last, how long do it takes to get your books after ordered?

[jacksonn298]

Hi chanchan8888 - just sent you a PM with map picture.

[x0x098]

Jackson,
What Chinese program did you used for the characters to be transferring to Photoshop? After reading some other postings, I figured how to add the Chinese characters by using MS Powerpoint (then using the same steps you mentioned with Photoshop). It was easier to manipulated the characters using Powerpoint, because I'm not too savvy with Photoshop.
Can you email me the map also? Thanks again for the info.

x0x098

[chanchan8888]

Hi Jacksonn,

I'm afraid have not receive the map picture,
would you mind send me once again?

thanks!

[jacksonn298]

Hello chanchan8888 and x0x098, I don't know if the email in your profile is correct. Could you send an email to me to make sure I have the right address. My email address is in my profile.

[glennaa11]

Wow! What a gorgeous book. Looks like you had some great weather and light.

[azhiker]

I would love to see your book, but it seems your link is not complete. Is there anyway you can repost?
Thanks

[cathyar]

Jacksonn298, your book is simply magnificent. What a joy to view! Absolutely gorgeous! Thank you. :-D

[machellrk]

I am trying to make a travel book for my son and his friend for their vacation in Hawaii this past summer. Anyway, I'm trying to use Photoshop Elements 6 to create some full bleed pages like you did for the Content page, map etc. as well as a few other random page layouts with their photos.

The trouble I'm having is trying to figure out what size to make my pages so that nothing is cut off and it doesn't have to be shrunk down smaller than the page size. Can you tell me what sizes you used when you created your Tibet book?

By the way it is spectacular! I'm going to Australia and Fiji in November and I hope to have something just as lovely after I get home. Those will be the first photos I take using RAW instead of JPEG. So, I'm really excited about that.

Any way, any help you could lend would be greatly appreicated!

Michelle