Cover photo questions

Eric,

greetings from PrestoPhoto and thank you for your interest.

We prefer one complete PDF or separate .jpg files. We recommend your images be at 300 dpi.

For all our trim sizes we recommend you make the cover images as well as the interior page images 1/4" larger than your book size. For example if you plan to create an 8.5x11 book the cover image as well as interior pages would be 8.75x11.25 (at 300 dpi).

Most importantly, keep all important items (people, heads, text,borders) away from the outer 1/2" on all sides.

We trim 1/8" on all sides and just keep in mind an 1/8" is a greater percentage of the book for our mini books than it is for say an 8.5x11 book. In other words 1/8" is a greater percentage of 5" than it is of 8.5". Does that make sense?

Interior is better in CMYK, but for the cover RGB is best. All cover images are normalized to the RGB color space because the full wrap covers have to be assembled from several images. We convert everything to RGB, and flatten to a single rasterized image, then make the single composite image from the separate front, back, and spine text, etc.

So saving out your cover in RGB is best. In fact, saving it out as a high quality RGB jpeg is ideal, since that is what we do in the code to make sure the full wrap covers are printable.

Here is a link on color that may help also: http://www.prestophoto.com/forums/topic/9714

If you have other questions or if I missed something let me know and I'll do my best to help.


PrestoPhoto Support

Update:

I just uploaded my cover images as JPGs instead of as PDF files, and that seemed to fix the black/contrast issues with my images. This leads me to wonder if I should upload all of my interior pages as separate JPGs instead of as a PDF? Will the internal pages lose contrast when printed, the way the cover images appeared to when uploaded as PDFs?

Thanks,
Eric

Hi,

I am trying to create the cover for my photo book and am confused as to what I am seeing...

1. My cover photos are losing contrast-- the blacks are no longer black. My back cover is made up of several photos on a black background. Not only does the black background appear greyish, but the blacks in the photos themselves are also no longer black. Likewise, the front cover photo has lost its contrast as well, and looks very dull because the blacks are not black. I have numerous internal pages with photos on black backgrounds, and they all look correct in the PDF preview. Both the cover PDFs and the internal pages PDF were exported using the same settings. How can I achieve real blacks for the cover photos?

2. The dimensions of the pages in my book are all 12.25x12.25, yet the site seems to indicate that a significant amount will be "trimmed" from the cover (more than the 1/8inch around the 4 sides). How much is being trimmed on the cover images for hardcover image wrap. so I can position my text appropriately?

3. The spine dimensions look to be set to a fixed 20px wide. However, the spine width obviously changes depending on the style of book I print... How is this handled when printing?

Thanks,
Eric