Photobox help!

[ian in lancs]

I'm trying to create a Photobook of our holiday. The pictures are a variety of aspect ratios. When I create the book Photobox crop the pictures to the layout aperture ratio rather than the picture ratio. Thus carefully cropped pics just aren't! Ok, so I get up the green aperture box and change the aperture and of course the layout goes to pot. Is there a way of doing this better? What am I not doing right? Are all the photobook makers the same? etc. Help!

[GetCarter]

An easy one for a change. Go to www.Blurb.co.uk and do it cheaper and better.

As you know, I use photobox for all prints, and they are great, but they have lost the plot on books. FAR too expensive.

HTH

Edited by GetCarter on Thursday 6th September 19:11

[ian in lancs]

Thanks! I am suitably chastised & off to Blurb! Although in my defence I had a to good to miss voucher. The time Ive taken though has cost me far more than Ive saved though!

[GetCarter]

Ian... you also need to look for discount codes. I posted one here about two weeks ago that will give 25% off. Can't remember off hand what it was, but if you can't find my post, Google Blurb Discount Codes.

[ian in lancs]

Argh! Blurb does it too! By way of example, say I have a landscape pic and insert it into a 2 x 2 grid of 4 square pics it scales the pic until it fits to the pic box height and trims off the sides.

I guess I was expecting the software to keep the pic dimensions and scale proportionally AND fit a nice layout. Maybe that's too hard. Oh, well fun while it lasted!

[cirks]

I'm certain you can do what you need in Photobox as I usually end up having to adjust layouts etc for images that I've cropped to "my spec". I'll have to log in though to tell you how to do it!

However, are you using Lightroom? If so, I believe there's a photobook add-in now you can use?

p.s I've used Blurb and Photobox. Have been pleased and disappointed with both at different times. However, it's frequently possibly to get 50% off at Photobox which means they're not expensive...

[ian in lancs]

ian in lancs said:

Argh! Blurb does it too! By way of example, say I have a landscape pic and insert it into a 2 x 2 grid of 4 square pics it scales the pic until it fits to the pic box height and trims off the sides.

I guess I was expecting the software to keep the pic dimensions and scale proportionally AND fit a nice layout. Maybe that's too hard. Oh, well fun while it lasted!

Ahh, I can right click on the photo and it gives a few no crop options

[ian in lancs]

cirks said:

I'm certain you can do what you need in Photobox as I usually end up having to adjust layouts etc for images that I've cropped to "my spec". I'll have to log in though to tell you how to do it!

However, are you using Lightroom? If so, I believe there's a photobook add-in now you can use?

p.s I've used Blurb and Photobox. Have been pleased and disappointed with both at different times. However, it's frequently possibly to get 50% off at Photobox which means they're not expensive...

thanks,

LR3

[cirks]

Ok - just had a quick play. When you say "the layout goes to pot" - what happens? If I play with say their layout with three square images across the page and I want to amend to my pictures' ratios but keep the widths the same in the layout (ie reducing height only) it works fine. It's a bit of a pain but if you drop your image onto the aperture as you were doing, get the boundary green and then drag which ever direction it needs to go in to go to your ratio, at some point, the whole image will look like it's scaling - at that point, stop as that's when it's hit your image's ratio.
There - clear as mud....
This screenshot with a somewhat random selection of images probably doesn't help much but it may show what I mean.

[ian in lancs]

cirks said:

Ok - just had a quick play. When you say "the layout goes to pot" - what happens? If I play with say their layout with three square images across the page and I want to amend to my pictures' ratios but keep the widths the same in the layout (ie reducing height only) it works fine. It's a bit of a pain but if you drop your image onto the aperture as you were doing, get the boundary green and then drag which ever direction it needs to go in to go to your ratio, at some point, the whole image will look like it's scaling - at that point, stop as that's when it's hit your image's ratio.
There - clear as mud....
This screenshot with a somewhat random selection of images probably doesn't help much but it may show what I mean.

That's how I ended up doing it but really want the software to do it

[cirks]

this might help too:
http://closescapes.net/blog/?p=530

or, if you want to upgrade to LR4 (this from Adobe site)
Photo book creation
Create beautiful photo books from your images with a variety of easy-to-use templates included in Lightroom. Upload your book for printing with just a few clicks. Receive 20% off from Blurb on your first book created using Lightroom 4 software.*

[ian in lancs]

cirks said:

this might help too:
http://closescapes.net/blog/?p=530

or, if you want to upgrade to LR4 (this from Adobe site)
Photo book creation
Create beautiful photo books from your images with a variety of easy-to-use templates included in Lightroom. Upload your book for printing with just a few clicks. Receive 20% off from Blurb on your first book created using Lightroom 4 software.*

Creating a book from single page Jpegs from the print module is a good idea and got me thinking about using PS and guides to do the same sort of thing. thanks

[DIW35]

ian in lancs said:

Argh! Blurb does it too! By way of example, say I have a landscape pic and insert it into a 2 x 2 grid of 4 square pics it scales the pic until it fits to the pic box height and trims off the sides.

It sounds like you are trying to make a rectangle fit in to a square, which won't work without either distorting the rectangle or cutting bits off it.

[ian in lancs]

DIW35 said:

It sounds like you are trying to make a rectangle fit in to a square, which won't work without either distorting the rectangle or cutting bits off it.

Insightful....

I want the software to modify the shape of the box. Not randomly crop my photos or in a few cases non scale compression to fit the box. In short photo box think that the shape of the box in the layout is more important than maintaining the integrity of the shot. Got it wrong way round me thinks. Manual it is then.

[MikeGTi]

If you have LR4 the photobook module can sync directly to Blurb - if that helps at all!

[DIW35]

Can't remember who I had my photobooks done with, but as far as I remember it was just a simple case of dragging the photos on to the page. The software didn't try to resize, crop or in any other way try to alter the images. I seem to remember that you had to download the software though, rather than try to compile the book online. Once you had everything to your satisfaction, you just uploaded the finished item for printing.

[GetCarter]

DIW35 said:

Can't remember who I had my photobooks done with, but as far as I remember it was just a simple case of dragging the photos on to the page. The software didn't try to resize, crop or in any other way try to alter the images. I seem to remember that you had to download the software though, rather than try to compile the book online. Once you had everything to your satisfaction, you just uploaded the finished item for printing.

That'll be Blurb. (It's certainly the way I do it with them)

[ian in lancs]

Manual method and Blurb is where I've ended up. Thanks y'all!

[DIW35]

GetCarter said:

That'll be Blurb. (It's certainly the way I do it with them)

Nah it wasn't Blurb. It was Foto something or other.

[Gemm]

Photobox has 2 for 1 hard cover photobooks offer atm.