Scaling and Dimensions in pixels vs inches??

Steve,

Greetings from PrestoPhoto, thank you for your question!

You should be able to export your JPG's in Lightroom according to the size you wish. You set size in Export. You can set pixels or inches+ppi.

You can also use the print module to Print to JPEG. There you can layout your image on the paper with precision and also fit images into standard sizes (like 4x6 or 8x10) if your crops happen to have non-standard ratios.

Here are some good links that may help you:

http://livedocs.adobe.com/en_US/Lightroom/1.0/help.html?content=WS450D132D-9820-4ea8-902A-ED08CEBD95FF.html

http://forums.adobe.com/message/2814025

We suggest adding and additional 1/4" to the outside of your book and allowing that to be Trim Crop guides. For the best viewing we also suggest to come in with your guides an additional 1/4" when placing vital content.

Example, for an 8.5x11 make the document 8.75x11.25 and stretch your background color or picture with irrelevant content (like sky or ocean) all the way to the edge. Then place guides at 8.25 by 10.75 and place all vital content (text and pictures of faces) only up to that point.

The best way to think about this is foreground and background. Background stretches to the edge and is irrelevant if trimmed or folded, foreground is safely within guides.

If you have any further questions please let us know and we will do our best to help.

Thank you for choosing PrestoPhoto!

PrestoPhoto support
support@prestophoto.com

Because all I can figure out how to make lightroom export is based purely on pixels, I need help understanding if PrestoPhoto can scale my images. You specify that for a 10x10 book I have to supply a 10.25 x 10.25 PDF. Since "size" is just a scale factor that can be changed without changing the actual number of pixels (just depends on the definition of pixels/inch), I wonder if you can scale. I can output a 3000 x 3000 pixel image, which provides 300 dpi @ 10" as you recommend. Assuming, that at a printout of 10.25", I have a 0.25" margin (1/8" on all sides) and have all my images pulled back an additional 75 pixels (caution area), does this meet your requirements for cropping & bleed? In other words, if I have a bleed & crop margin + caution of 37 + 75 pixels on a 3000 x 3000 pixel image, then you should be able to scale that image to 10.25 inches and there will be a 1/8"+1/4" caution allowance on all sides (300 dpi * 1/8" = 37 pixels). Is that correct?

(By the way, sometimes your web site is inconsistent... you say this on the Book Cover Specifications page: "make the cover images as well as the interior page images 1/2" larger than your book size. For 8.5x11 the cover image would be 8.75x11.25" BUT I think you meant images 1/4" larger than your book, not 1/2" larger. Which is correct, the 1/2" larger (meaning 9 x 11.5 final size) or the 8.75 x 11.25 final size (meaning 1/4") ?

Thanks