TIPS & TRICKS
Cover lay-out of FUN Designcover photo books
When designing your own cover of FUN photo books please take care of an appropriate orientation: The right half of the displayed lay-out will become the front cover page, and the left half will become the rear cover page. Just as if you would place the opened book with the printed inside pages downwards on the table.
When laying out the cover of a Designcover Cardboard photo book, you further have to remind that a part of the printed cover will be folded back around the cardboard and glued on in the inside. Hence, this about 2 cm wide margin area will not be visible from the outside of the finished book.
If you employ a self-designed lay-out for the cover, please make sure that any text or image content which shall be visible from the outside, has an adequate distance from the edge of the lay-outed page.
Lighting, colour and background
You won’t very often find the ideal light when taking your photos. One of the invaluable advantages of digital photography, however, is that you can subsequently correct many shortcomings.
The automatic lighting of your photos with the albumfactory Designer is advisable, if the photo has too little contrast or is too dark and therefore doesn’t appear to be in focus. Double-click on the respective photo and the “lighting” button appears in the upper left-hand corner of the picture-editing window. Through just one click you see the result. The photo acquires more contrast, becomes somewhat brighter and thereby gains visually on focus.
You can achieve similar results with the “picture optimising” controls. One often reaches very good customised results by carefully increasing colour intensity and contrast and by a slight adjustment of the entire brightness.
Try it – your original photo files will be retained anyway. You can’t do anything wrong!
Resolution for excellent print quality
Resolution of at least 150 dpi (dots per inch) is necessary for a qualitatively high class print of your digital photos. The albumfactory Designer automatically calculates resolution dependent on the photo pixel count and the size of the picture window and warns you when the resolution is too low during your picture selection for a picture window. It’s advisable to continuously work with high resolutions; this isn’t usually a problem with modern digital cameras.
The following table gives you an approximate guideline to the minimum pixels your digital photos should have in order to obtain a good printing result.
| Picture size in cm | 10 x 7,5 | 16 x 12 | 20 x 15 | 28 x 21 | 40 x 30 |
Resolution in mega pixels | 0,3 | 0,7 | 1,1 | 2,1 | 4,2 |
Image detail selection
The image detail of the original photo doesn’t always meet your expectations and sometimes what you want to emphasise is decided finally in the context of your photo book. In the albumfactory Designer picture-editing window, you can determine the image detail by clicking on “cut out”, and altering size and position with the mouse. In addition to the rectangular selection, ellipse and free-hand forms are also possible, for extra special effects.
Not only the picture contents that you want to show or remove play a role but also the entire balance of the resulting new picture, . Pictures, in which the focal point of observation in a landscape or in front of a somewhat neutral background is centrally orientated, can sometimes come across as being “deliberate” and less interesting to the eye. If the focal point is slightly offset from the middle, the picture’s “balance” appears to be more harmonious, as in the following example:
Own photo as background
You can also use your own pictures as a background on some or all pages of your photo book, in addition to the standard backgrounds, by using the albumfactory Designer.
Choose the file in the upper left file bar which contains your desired background photo. The picture now appears under the grey bar marked “My pictures” in the picture library. Click on your desired background photo and highlight the “tick” above the picture library. The picture will then appear on the current edited page in the editor window as a background photo with 50% transparency and thus, as a result, appears brighter. You can change the brightness by clicking on upper left %-value.
By double-clicking you can of course also carry out additional editing of your desired background in regard to colour, contrast, detail or special effects.
Back to TopText in the picture – also with transparency
All eyes have become accustomed to inserted text on an alternating picture background which now belongs to the routine design features of professional print products. By placing an existing or newly added text block over a picture or coloured background you can position pin sharp text over your photos, using the albumfactory Designer.
You can create a special effect using transparent letters by choosing, for example, “white” as text colour and then regulating the degree of transparency of the text box between 10% and 90%. The text will more or less let the picture underneath shine through depending on the degree of transparency.
The best effect is obtained with photos in conjunction with very large font sizes (40 to 60 pt).
Back to TopPhoto conversion into a coloured line-drawing
You can convert your photos into black/white line-drawings using the picture editor. You can achieve exceedingly attractive effects with this in combination with colour or picture backgrounds.
Place the picture that has been converted into a line-drawing on a coloured background and adjust the transparency between 10% and 90% to suit your taste for this purpose. The line-drawing adopts the colour of the background.
This effect can also be reached with photos as background; the background picture shines primarily through the white areas of the line-drawing. The best effects are achieved by photos that hardly vary.
Oversize pictures
Our customers are thrilled time and time again, when they see one of their photos printed in 20 or even 30 cm format. Oversize photos can fascinate and this effect is made ample use of in every illustrated book that you see in book shops.
At the same time, positioning is not irrelevant. The right-hand page (with uneven page number) catches one’s eye first when turning the pages. Place exceptionally large and lovely photographs on that side if you want to engage the attention of the viewer and fascinate him.
Oversize photos don’t usually require a frame in order to appeal. Do place your photos up to the top, bottom and right-hand side margin (or even somewhat over the margin so that no unwanted white border will be produced later in production).
Back to TopPage-overlapping photos
Placing a large photo on two opposite pages in selected places is a popular design feature. Mostly, it doesn’t cover both pages completely. Position the larger part on the right-hand side page - if possible over the complete width, the smaller part on the left-hand page. It’s very important to have adequate resolution for this design.
For instance, you can place a 4:3 landscape format digital photo in a quadratic book format by placing three quarters on the right page and one quarter on the left page. To this end, choose a full-page window for the right page and for the rest of the image on the left page a central window. Suitable page layouts are already provided in albumfactory Designer. Next, fill both picture windows with the same picture by using the cutting function; you specify the right and then the left part of the photo.
Back to TopPicture in picture
Additionally, inserts of one or more pictures into a larger picture can be an interesting design variation, for example, when the pictures fit together as a theme (further views, details), and as a complete colour theme.
Pay attention to the background picture when doing this. Check whether it still has enough room and meaningful content to maintain its effect despite the disturbance. The complete impression is often better if inserts are used where the background picture varies the least.
Turn focus to the centre of the page
Whenever people in your photo are not looking towards the camera but “outside of the picture”, make sure by using appropriate placement that their glances tend to point to the centre of the book and not towards the edge. Otherwise they appear to be strangely “lost”.
Back to TopLong text passages don’t have to be difficult to read
It can be that you don’t want to just use picture captions in your photo book but want to insert a longer explanatory text now and again. Extensive text blocks can be off-putting; long lines make it difficult for the eye to skip horizontally.
Arrange the text in paragraphs in order to remain readable. One should seldom confront the eye with more than 40 to 50 characters per line when using a 10 point font size. Many compact text blocks often have a quieter effect than a “whole string” of text.
Keep distance from the binding margin when positioning text
Remember that your book pages are going to be bound. Text blocks that are too close to the inside margin are often difficult to read or force the reader to have to really press the book pages down in the middle.
Keeping a good “thumb-width” distance from the inside margin reliably corrects the problem (control this when using the 100% view in albumfactory Designer).
Back to TopEffective contrast of font sizes
Various font sizes, differing only slightly from each other, can easily confuse the viewer as the eye doesn’t immediately understand the “pecking order”.
On the other hand, very large and very small font sizes can harmonise well. A 60 point heading and a continuous text block with 8 or 9 point font size can complement each other well. Various types of lettering or colours are then also possible without disturbing the overall harmonious impression.
Back to TopOrganisation and line of suspense
A photo book also tells a story. It will be talked about a lot if it contains a logical set up and a suspense line.
A certain classification can help – by places, events, (“in front of the church”, “the wedding”, “the celebration”) or themes (“pure relaxation”, “culinary”, “excursions”) or however you want to organise it. If a chapter begins with a lovely designed double-page it makes you want more.
