Q: What is the difference between a coffee table book and a coffee table album?
A:Coffee Table albums are constructed from design files sent to the photo lab for printing on Kodak photo paper. These prints are usually double spreads (such as 10x20 for a 10x10 album) and are mounted to a 1/8 board creating rigid and sturdy pages. If choosing the thin mount version a very thin core board is used for those who want a more flexible and thin page. These prints become the pages of the album, also described as flush mounted albums. The final construction of the album gives the appearance of an actual book as opposed to a traditional matted album where photos are slipped behind matte openings.
Coffee Table Photo artbooks are produced using the same design files, but prepped so that the center of the page contains a gutter allowing the left and right sides to better match up when the design crosses through the center as typical for this style of photo designing. A digital offset press is used to print these page designs on both the front and back side of a satin finish stock paper. Pages are sewn together along the prepared gutter and hard cover bound just similar to a book you might buy in a bookstore accept produced limited just for you.
Q: What is a mini magazine?
A: These mini books are made exactly like the photo artbooks. A 1/8 gutter is prepared in order to line up left and right sides, but instead of sewing the pages together they are glued at the spine. This allows for a small replica to open up fully to see the entire design spread. Instead of a hard back cover a flexible cover is made using a cover design printed on card stock laminated and mounted to the end sheets to form a cover. They are meant for gift giving and marketing and are not an alternate to a longer lasting sewn artbook.
Q: What is the difference between a page, a spread, a page side and a print?
A: Just like pages of a book each page is equivalent to the front side of a printed design. A page spread is typically how our books are designed. For instance, if you are creating a 10x10 book they are designed as double paged spreads measuring 10x20. This design spread represents the right and left sides as well as 2 pages or page sides. Pricing is based on the number of page sides regardless of whether they are printed as full double paged spreads or as single page prints.
Q: How do I prepare my files for printing?
A: If you are producing a digi-book thick or thin mount album and are a mydesigner Template Manager user you can submit your designs for production. Album prep is a breeze in comparison to books. You simply save a copy of your original design in RGB color space and use a .JPG extension. You will submit full double spreads and can expect 1/8 to be trimmed along the perimeter of each design.
If you are producing a digi-book sewn artbook and are a mydesigner Template Manager user you will use the Digibooks Page Prep Tool and indicate a gutter of .25 and check CMYK color space and at this time we are requesting files saved in .JPG format, but CMYK. The Digibooks Page Prep Tool will create a folder full of print ready gutter split pages and a folder of thumbnails to submit on contact sheets for production to keep pages in order.
If you are producing a digi-book mini magazine and are a mydesigner Template Manager user you will use the Digibooks Page Prep Tool and indicate a gutter of .0625 and check CMYK color space and at this time we are requesting files saved in .JPG format, but CMYK. The Digibooks Page Prep Tool will create a folder full of print ready gutter split pages and a folder of thumbnails to submit on contact sheets for production to keep pages in order.
Q: How many pages will my album/book be?
A: There is no definite answer solely based on the number of images you submit. Depending on the images the flow will require more images to be grouped together while others will be less consolidated. However, on average every page side designed may have 2.5 images (5 images per double spread design). An average wedding album is based on about 80 images. Divide that by 5 and you will end up with around 16 spreads or 32 pages. 16 spreads times 1/8th means your album will be about 2 thick plus the cover.
If we are trying to keep to a certain budget there are two ways to help control cost.choose less images or request that I build the designs NOT to exceed a certain number of pages. It may mean I will design differently than I normally would, but if it helps control cost I am happy to help.
Q: If I am sending in prints for bind only service, what is the size do you expect?
A: We are not offering bind only services
Q: What's the shipping costs?
A: We use USPS Priority Mail shipping within the Continental US and International Shipping is done through Fed Ex. A typical 10x10 30 side digi-book album will weight about 6lbs and a photo book with the minimum 20 page sides is about 12oz. Extra packaging to secure your shipment will make albums about 8lbs and books under 2lbs. You can check with USPS.com and input our zip code (14224) and your zip code to get an idea of probable shipping costs.
Q: Could you give me some advice on the best way for color correction/calibration to fit with your printers?
A: When designing here at the Mydesigner Studio we set our Photoshop color workspace to Adobe RGB for the wider color gamut. The labs we use accept both RGB and sRGB files for photographic printing on Kodak Endura Luster and Metallic Photo Papers. Our photo books are converted to CMYK for printing so RGB offers a larger color space for that conversion. If your workflow better supports sRGB it is recommended to continue in that environment and then convert to CMYK color space using the Digi-book Page Prep Tool found in the mydesigner Template Manager program.
Q: What are the specs for designing a dust jacket or photo cover?
A: If you have designed a photo cover or a dust jacket it is best to submit the actual .PSD because it may need to be adjusted after book production to make the best fit. However, to determine the correct dimensions please do the following:
Dust Jackets:
Make the height of the jacket larger all the way around. Multiply the number of pages you have designed by 1/8 (.125) in order to estimate how wide to design the spine area for thick mount albums. Thin mount albums are about half the thickness so multiply by 1/16 (.0625). Add 4 to the left and right to make the inner flaps that wrap around and inside the book. Add the page height together with the extra on top and on bottom to get your overall height of the dust jacket file (ex: 10x10 albums 10 +.5 + .5 = 11 total jacket height). Then take the front page width + estimated spine width, + back page width, + 4" for front flap and 4" for back flap plus an extra to trim the flaps equally to get the overall width.
Photo Covers:
Your photo cover is calculated based on the size book you are ordering plus an extra 1 on top, 2 on the right (for the front cover) and 1 on bottom. No extra is needed on the side that meets the spine cover material as that is a seemless edge trimmed with a color coordinating finishing ribbon to cover the seem. You may opt to have a photo on the front with the spine and back covered in other book material or you can opt for a photo cover on the front and the back with a material of choice used for the spine.
MOST IMPORTANTLY: Do not just fill the extra area with a solid color just to put something there. If you are looking for a full bleed photo appearance than the photo must take up the entire document space. The easiest way to design is to use your photoshop guides and drag them to indicate where the design will wrap around the book board ensuring you do not have important photo details or digital type cut off or too close to the edges making your book imbalanced to the eye.