iPhoto Book...

[Ric]

I don't know if you are aware, but from iPhoto 5 you can create your own book .

I did this a while ago, for Wifey's birthday, (don't worry she got other stuff!!).

I went with the largest hardback book, and ended up using 98 pages, (the max is 100 !)

The first time iPhoto tried to upload it, it failed but second time lucky, it went.

Then 3 weeks later, it arrived !

Having worked in the industry (for quite some time!) I was extremely impressed.

The print and finishing, is excellent !

As far as I can see, the book must have been printed in America, and then shipped back via Germany, Amsterdam to the UK.

If you are unsure as to have a go, I would personally recommend it !

I'll post a few pics of the book in a bit !

Ric

 

[MikeCaine]

I did one in April for a Eurostar trip I did with my wife and parents - London > Paris > Brussells > London

Was quite impressed with the book but would like to find out what the best size for the photos is. Do you just slap in a 3000 x 2000 (ish) pixel 5 meg photo or is it best to resize to a msaller size, and if so what?

 

[Ric]

I just used my photos straight from iPhoto, most of them are 2106 pixels by 1512 pixels @72dpi, 9mb uncompressed, 800k compressed. In theory way to big for what is required ! But I was unaware of how Apple would print the book, digital or litho, haven't had chance to get my 'glass' out yet to have a look !

As a rule of thumb, as long as the photo would be between 305-400dpi at the finished printed size then you should be okay. If I was wearing my 'Repro' hat then you would scale them images to 2.5 dpi x line screen. So if the printed matter was a 175 lpi job, (good quality), then you would technically require a 437.5 dpi picture at the correct printed size. In reality anything over 300 dpi would suffice.

The main problems would occur if there isn't enough data in the picture, iPhoto does warn you if you try to put to small (not enough data) picture into a book !

I would stick to putting in your largest size in and letting Apple's repro house 'downsample' if required !

regards

Ric

 

[MikeCaine]

Thanks for that. I think I'll process my RAW files to 16 bit tiffs and then crop / touch them up and then perhaps save them as the largest jpeg I can and see what happens.

 

[Ric]

No problem Mike,

I'll have a look around to see if I can find out any info on the recommended 'specs'...

You could just leave your files as RAW...but they would take a while to upload, my book was just under 100mb, that was with jpg (max quality) compression...

regards

Ric

 

[MikeCaine]

I hadn't realised that the system would cope with RAW files, but at about 8MB each they're fairly large and I'd rather tweak / crop / straighten them before sending them for inclusion in a book.

I've only the one book so far but I'm off to Prague 26/12 to 1/06 so hope to have material for another book then

 

[Ric]

I think RAW support was added from version 5. Probably best to compress them a bit ;-)

Just compiling my second book now, nice easy Christmas present for Grandparents, a book each !

Have never been to Prague, still on my list, gave Wifey the choice of Prague or Rome for a long weekend once and she opted for Rome !

regards

Ric

 

[MikeCaine]

Ah, I knew v5 of iPhoto could handle RAW files but hadn't appreciated it could accept those files for the book. I did have a look at Apple's site to see if there were any guides or recommendations about file sizes and formats for the books but couldn't see any

My wife had a long weekend in Prague a couple of years ago but the friend she went with was only interested in boozing and lying in so she didn't really get to see the place much. It should hardly get above freezing but I've survived Munich and Toronto before so hopefully will cope with the temperature