Originally I wasn't going to do this, but then Paul Lester made a nice SoFoBoMo practice book, and that got me started on thinking about Pages, my selected typesetting program, which I don't know much about.
So I decided to use 1-2 hours to put together a photobook (1 MB PDF file) to see how hard it is with Pages, using some of my recent (last week or so) photographs as the material.
Was it hard? No, not so much, but there were some technical problems on the way. For example, I wanted to have a cover page and then an empty page, as in a normal book, after which would start the actual book from page 1. But I couldn't get Pages to manage the footers and page numbers the way I wanted. Either I had footers everywhere or nowhere. In the end I managed to make some sense of the "section" feature of Pages, and got the result I wanted.
What was good about Pages was the ease of putting the images where I wanted to have them, using the "image placeholder" functionality. What I suspect can be hard is finetuning the layout. I'm not at all familiar with the styles and other features in Pages which could help here, in making big changes to the layout at once. As the page size, I decided to use a 25x20 cm (10x8 inch) horizontal one. I'm not sure whether I'll stick with this in the final book, because for trees the vertical direction may be more important.
If you want to have a look at the result, the 20-page book "Wetness of Spring" is available as a PDF file. I had to use the least (worst?) quality in the export to PDF feature of Pages to get the file size to 1 MB. The better output levels generated a 6 MB and a 40 MB file, much too big I think.
One problem remains: I have still no idea how to generate bitmap images of the PDF pages to input into the Blurb sofware as full-bleed images for printing an actual book.
The photograph shown here is from yesterday, when it was raining. I didn't use this image in the book although perhaps I should have. But I'm not going to tweak the practice book any more. What I perhaps need to do is study the Pages software a bit more, those things which make it possible to automate some of the typesetting work - predefined templates etc. However, as I'm planning to include only 35 images or so, the amount of manual work shouldn't be that great.
Sunday, April 5, 2009
On the way to SoFoBoMo - making a practice photobook
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9 comments:
Juha, I don't know Pages but you'll need to get to grips with both resolution and compression of your pdf images. from your description of the files sizes, my guess is you're running high resolution, high compression. If pages has a way to change the resolution, drop it down to 90-100ppi for on-screen display. that'll have a bigger effect on file size than compression. Then you can use a high quality output.
I looked side-by-side the 1 MB and 40 MB files (worst and best quality), and although there was a difference it wasn't much apparent until I started to significantly magnify the PDF page.
I discovered that there is a way to generate small PDF files from big ones by using the Preview application. This way I managed to go from the 40 MB file to a 700 kB file, but then the image quality started to be quite low.
I forgot to say this: there isn't a setting or preference for controlling resolution or compression in Pages. (At least none was easily found.)
One way of coping with big file sizes might be to pre-scale iamges to a reasonable size, and then use the export settings in Pages for controlling the PDF quality. But have to see whether this would be needed in practice.
That looks like a nice book, Juha. I especially like the placement of the text on the last photo. It was cute.
Keep practicing and I'm sure that the software will become second nature very soon.
@Paul: Thanks - I needed some text for the last page and there was a natural frame for it...
Even in a simple program like Pages there seems to be a multitude of features which are not so easy to get into. Like the concept of "sections", which still is a mystery. But I guess the best way to learn is by doing.
Compared to Scribus, Pages is easier to get started, but I'm not yet sure whether I can easily do all of those things which need to be done with the actual SoFoBoMo book.
The good thing about the SoFoBoMo book is that it can be anything that you want it to be. There is no specific format, only that you have 35 photos and that you do the whole book in the one month. Pretty simple!
@Paul: Excellent point. I realized I was trying to make a normal book. But with PDF the result could be very different, more simple or complex whichever feels right.
Juha, regarding your one problem that reamins, I have published Blurb books from PDF files and thought I would share a couple of my thoughts on the process. I am sold on it being the way to go if you really need either a lot of text or need some real versatility in arranging the images. I have yet to find a POD publisher's templates that make me happy. Having said that I have published several books through Blurb using their templates simply because even though they may not be perfect they are considerably easier to assemble. However, Blurb's text editor, even with all the improvements they have made, which is several, is still a nightmare of a disaster.
Tracker Software has a relatively inexpensive software, TIFF-Xchange that will turn PDF files along with a few others into TIFF images that can be converted to JPG for inserting into Blurb books. www.docu-track.com. They also produce an inexpensive PDF program that is quite versatile. I use Microsoft Publisher for laying out the book and Tracker's PDF-Xchange if I need it in PDF format. If I do not need it in PDF, I simply use TIFF-Xchange to convert the Publisher files to TIF.
I am not familiar with the Page software that you mention. If Page saves in a PDF format or even if it saves in one of the Microsoft Word, Publisher or even Exel formats, TIFF-Xchange will convert it a 300 dpi TIFF image file.
Before your start, if your publishing software will allow custom sizes, set your page to match the full bleed page of the Blurb book you choose. That way you will not have to do any adjusting when you transfer it to Blurb. Set all the pages in the book to full bleed photo and import and insert your pages as .JPG images. The 8x10 horizontal page is 9.6"x8.2", the 8x10 vertical page is 7.9"x10", the coffee table book is 12.6"x10.9" and the small square is 6.9"x6.9". You will need to be concerned about gutters, the inside fold where you need more space than you do on the outside of the page, so you will need left and right hand pages that are formatted slightly differently.
Truthfully the first book I did I just centered without cropping 8.5"x11" into the 8x10 vertical and it actually looked pretty good although it would have had a much nicer appearance if I had used the exact size pages. The books that have used the correct size pages, IMO, appear to be much more professional than the books where I have used the Blurb templates. True they are not as easy to assemble because you have to do all your own layout but in my opinion it is well worth the effort, especially if you are working with as few images as twenty.
If you are interested in seeing a book done this way from the Blurb Bookstore page enter Me and My Camera The First Half Century into the Search Box and it should come up. If that doesn’t work search on my name, Gary Woodard. It is a plain white cover with the title and blurb only, no photos. As you can see from these fifteen pages that using a publishing software you can do things that are extremely difficult, if not impossible to do, in the Blurb text boxes. This is a 108 page book with over 260 photographs and lots of text.
@GW: Thanks for the detailed information, especially about the exact page sizes etc.
I have done a photo-only (only a little text) book with the Blurb software, and it was easy, but I also think it is not good for typesetting.
It seems that there are several programs on Mac OS X to convert PDF to image files, including the Preview application (which works only one page at a time, however).
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