size matters

nicholasgn

nicholasgn

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nicholas
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Hi Everyone,happy new year to you all.
I'm embarking on making a book for a friend of mine,im using lr5,heres my problem...
I'd like all the photos to be the same size on the page,I dont like it when I use the zoom to fill cell option as it can crop out important info in the photo,so I end up with photo of different sizes and white borders of varying sizes,and no consistantcy from page to page.
Ive tried resizing them in photo shop but it squashes some to the point of ruining them.
so when i look at some of the lovely photo books ive bought,and all photos fill each page the same,im interested to know how!
1. do they only use prints that they havent cropped?
2. do the resize in photoshop?
help and thoughts please :)
 
Hi

Resizing, cropping and aspect ratio all go hand in glove. This tutorial may help you get to grips with the subject http://www.dpchallenge.com/tutorial.php?TUTORIAL_ID=35

Put simply you need to accept that the book is nothing more than a set of prints therefore the picture as it comes out of the camera might need cropping or resizing to suit the page size, as such that means cropping might be required but the squashing you refer to is because you are not keeping the aspect ratio.

Once you have grasped this I hope you will know better how to prepare your pictures for the book.

HTH :)
 
If you want them equally sized, find out the image dimensions on the page - in whatever units you prefer - mm, points, etc. Then set up the crop tool in PS with those dimensions @300ppi - this will be your resizing agent. Draw out the crop bounding box to embrace the whole image, & voila! Save out that version into an image folder for the book.

This way, PS has done the resizing, and to me there's no better engine.

So, first - establish the physical size of image on the page ...
 
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thanks droj and box brownie,im gonna give both these a try :)
thanks for taking the time to help!
 
droj said:
If you want them equally sized, find out the image dimensions on the page - in whatever units you prefer - mm, points, etc. Then set up the crop tool in PS with those dimensions @300ppi - this will be your resizing agent. Draw out the crop bounding box to embrace the whole image, & voila! Save out that version into an image folder for the book.

This way, PS has done the resizing, and to me there's no better engine.

So, first - establish the physical size of image on the page ...
Click to expand...
thanks ,so this is different to selecting the resize option? i'm gonna try that now
 
I guess im not gonna be able to make a photo taken in landscape fit the page (without cropping) the same way a photo taken in portrait will fit the page :/
using the crop tool means sacrificing some of the image,resizing distorts.I'm certainly gonna take a bit more time framing my shots as i take them me thinks.
 
nicholasgn said:
I guess im not gonna be able to make a photo taken in landscape fit the page (without cropping) the same way a photo taken in portrait will fit the page :/
using the crop tool means sacrificing some of the image,resizing distorts.I'm certainly gonna take a bit more time framing my shots as i take them me thinks.
Click to expand...

Resizing never distorts if you control or respect the aspect ratio. Cropping unless you are very careful & considered at the point you press shutter will always have a role when post processing images.

Therefore based on what you say ~ if your intention is to produce a portrait orientation book then unless you crop you will not find landscape orientated pictures suitable.

Best of luck getting the images you want to make the book.

Edit ~ never used it but I think LR has a Blurb plugin, I would have thought that will aid you in your process????
 
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Box Brownie said:
Resizing never distorts if you control or respect the aspect ratio. Cropping unless you are very careful & considered at the point you press shutter will always have a role when post processing images.

Therefore based on what you say ~ if your intention is to produce a portrait orientation book then unless you crop you will not find landscape orientated pictures suitable.

Best of luck getting the images you want to make the book.

Edit ~ never used it but I think LR has a Blurb plugin, I would have thought that will aid you in your process????
Click to expand...
thanks,ive been using the blurb thng on LR5,my problem is i want the white borders that occur to fill in the space in the cell to be the same size for all pages,all my images are different sizes,i can increse or decrese the size of the image using blurb but it means cropping a photo or having different sized borders that fill out parts of the cell which the image doesnt fill.For instance ,when I have two images together(one left page,one right page) i'm finding it difficult to get them matching each other in size without cropping/zooming and wthout having the borders not matching /meeting each other where the pages join. :(
 
Easiest book in the world to design is one where each page matches your camera aspect ratio and you drop in one image per spread, 12x8 or A4 is normally spot on.
If you have a mixture of portrait and landscape images you can do the same thing with an upright book, for example a 12x8 upright is spot on for full page portrait images and a double spread (16x12) is not far off for a landscape image.
I used to do this for wedding albums as I like the images to fill the pages and it saved a huge amount of time.
 
testbloke said:
Easiest book in the world to design is one where each page matches your camera aspect ratio and you drop in one image per spread, 12x8 or A4 is normally spot on.
If you have a mixture of portrait and landscape images you can do the same thing with an upright book, for example a 12x8 upright is spot on for full page portrait images and a double spread (16x12) is not far off for a landscape image.
I used to do this for wedding albums as I like the images to fill the pages and it saved a huge amount of time.
Click to expand...
brilliant thank you :)
 
Is there any particular reason why you want all the photos in the book to be the same size and shape? That constraint is just making life difficult for you. When I've made photo books for personal use (eg 2015 in pictures) I've always used a square book format and mixed up the layouts from page to page. That way I can accommodate portrait and landscape orientations, I can use a double spread for photos that deserve it, I can use lots of little photos on one page to illustrate variations on a theme, and so on. It might seem like more work designing it, but I suggest it's probably more rewarding than what you're trying to do; I'm working with the images to work out how to display them best, whereas you're fighting against them by trying to shoehorn them into a format which they may not fit.

Just my £0.02 worth.
 
It's a personal choice thing, I don't like laid out books with multi images, semi translucent images as background, white or black space on page etc.
 
StewartR said:
Is there any particular reason why you want all the photos in the book to be the same size and shape? That constraint is just making life difficult for you. When I've made photo books for personal use (eg 2015 in pictures) I've always used a square book format and mixed up the layouts from page to page. That way I can accommodate portrait and landscape orientations, I can use a double spread for photos that deserve it, I can use lots of little photos on one page to illustrate variations on a theme, and so on. It might seem like more work designing it, but I suggest it's probably more rewarding than what you're trying to do; I'm working with the images to work out how to display them best, whereas you're fighting against them by trying to shoehorn them into a format which they may not fit.

Just my £0.02 worth.
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I'm just trying to understand what can and can't be done,I got a book by roger ballen for christmas (outland),I liked the look,all the photos the same size on the page,I liked that consistancey
 
nicholasgn said:
I got a book by roger ballen for christmas (outland),I liked the look,all the photos the same size on the page,I liked that consistancey
Click to expand...
Fair enough. But he will probably have shot those photos in the knowledge that he would at some point want to put them in a book or an exhibition where consistency would be good. You could do that. But if you're starting with a bunch of images which were not taken with that thought in mind, then it's going to be harder.
 
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