In photography and graphic design, color accuracy isn’t just about aesthetics. It’s crucial for conveying the right mood and message of your work. This precision ensures consistency—super important for professionals who rely on printed works like books, portfolios, and photographs. When colors shift unexpectedly between devices or during printing, all your meticulous edits are futile!

Calibrating your monitor might sound technical (and truthfully, there are some intricacies), but think of it as tuning an instrument before a concert. Like slightly out-of-tune instruments dramatically affect music quality, uncalibrated screens lead to visual disharmony. We’re here to help simplify the process.

What is monitor calibration, and why is it important?

Monitor calibration is fine-tuning your display’s settings to show colors, brightness, and contrast as accurately as possible. For anyone involved in photo editing or graphic design, this is a crucial step to ensure that what you see on-screen translates faithfully to other mediums—another monitor or a printed page.

• Color accuracy: This ensures the hues you pick match industry standards (like sRGB or Adobe RGB), which means no unexpected color shifts when printing.
• Brightness: Adjusting this helps maintain detail in highlights and shadows. Too bright, and you lose nuance. Too dim, and everything melds into shadow.
• Contrast: A proper contrast setting preserves details across the spectrum—from deep blacks to vibrant whites—without flattening your image’s dynamic range.
• Color profiles: These are like translators between different devices. They describe how colors should appear on different screens or printers so that an image looks consistent everywhere.

When preparing images for print specifically, these elements are even more critical. Printed products typically offer less leeway than digital displays because once ink hits paper, there’s no going back. Calibrated monitors ensure adjustments made during editing translate correctly from screen to page without unpleasant surprises in color fidelity or tonal ranges.

Monitor calibration tools for the job

When calibrating your monitor, the tools you use can make a significant difference in achieving accurate results. A range of hardware and software options are available for different needs and budgets.

• Colorimeters: The Datacolor SpyderX Pro offers an affordable yet effective solution, using its sensor to read color values from your screen and adjust them according to standard color spaces. For a higher-end option, professionals revere X-Rite’s i1Publish Pro 3 Plus toolkit for its advanced capabilities.
• Spectrophotometers: While generally pricier than colorimeters, X-Rite provides a wide range of options for photographers needing precise control over printer profiles and display calibration.
• Software solutions: For those looking beyond built-in operating system utilities, DisplayCAL is an open-source tool that works with various color sensors and provides detailed customization options. For more advanced features, check out X-Rite’s i1 software. 

Individuals without access to professional calibration tools or just starting can use manual calibration methods. These involve using test images or built-in monitor controls alongside online guides or tutorials. 

Though not as precise as hardware calibrators, these manual techniques can provide noticeable improvements over default settings and help develop an eye for detail, invaluable for all aspects of digital image work.

Steps to calibrate your monitor effectively

Now, let’s get into the actual steps. If you’re more of a visual learner, this video from Jared Platt provides an overview of the process we describe in detail below.

1. Preliminary setup and using the calibration software

Before you start calibrating, take control of your editing environment. The ambient light in your room can drastically affect how colors appear on-screen. Aim for moderate lighting that’s neither too bright nor too dark. Think about the typical conditions under which somebody will view the final printed work and try to replicate them as closely as possible.

Consider these factors.

• Ambient lighting: Use dimmable lights to adjust brightness levels or blackout curtains to manage natural light.
• Workspace conditions: Mimic lighting conditions anticipated at galleries or where you might showcase your work, calibrating under stronger lights if a gallery is well-lit or softer for home settings.
• Print preparation: Soft proofing features in calibration software allow you to preview images with different finishes, like glossy or matte paper. This will help you make informed adjustments before printing.

After setting up your workspace, install the monitor calibration software that came with your colorimeter or spectrophotometer device or from a reputable third-party provider.

A note on monitors

Your monitor is another important component to consider. For photo editing and print work, opt for IPS panels over TN for their superior color accuracy, consistency across various angles, and ability to reproduce broader color gamuts. 

What are we talking about? IPS (In-Plane Switching) panels and TN (Twisted Nematic) panels are two types of technologies used in LCD (Liquid Crystal Display) screens. IPS panels offer better color accuracy, wider viewing angles, and can reproduce a broader spectrum of colors—making them ideal for tasks that require precise color representation like photo editing. TN panels are cheaper and have faster response times, which are great for gaming. Photogs, stick with IPS panels!

2. Configure your calibration settings

Configuring the foundational settings of your monitor is key to a successful calibration. Here are the settings and our suggestions.

• White point: This determines your display’s color temperature, affecting how warm or cool colors appear. A common standard for print work is D50 (5000K), which emulates midday light and is consistent with gallery standards. For general editing where lighting conditions vary, D65 (6500K) often serves as a neutral baseline.
• Luminance: Brightness levels should reflect your typical working environment and final product. For image viewing primarily on monitors, aim for higher luminance, whereas lower brightness mimics paper in printed form—usually between 80 to 120 cd/m²—but always consider your specific ambient light conditions.
• Gamma value: The gamma setting affects mid-tone brightness. A gamma value that is too high results in washed-out images, too low, and they lose detail in shadows. Most operating systems and environments use a default gamma value of 2.2, balancing contrast across diverse viewing scenarios.

Integrating color spaces into this process ensures consistency from capture through editing to final output.

• sRGB offers a solid standard for web-based imagery.
• Adobe RGB encompasses a wider gamut suitable for high-quality prints.

Choosing the appropriate profile sets the stage for accurate translation of your editing across different devices and media types.

3. Start the calibration process

The calibration process is a dance between your hardware and software, each step requiring attention to detail.

• Calibrate your device: In some cases, before you adjust your monitor, you should calibrate the calibration device itself. This “pre-calibration” ensures its sensors are accurate and can measure colors correctly.
• Device placement: Carefully attach or place the colorimeter against your screen as directed by its instructions. Ensure it sits flush against the display for consistent readings without ambient light interference.

As you make adjustments, choose between manual or automatic control within the calibration software—automatic is generally easier but may not allow for fine-tuning.

If opting to adjust the display settings manually, gradually tweak brightness, contrast, and RGB gains as prompted by the software until they align with recommended values.

For those using photo editing suites like Adobe Photoshop or Lightroom to improve photo quality, check that the internal color management settings match those set during hardware calibration. Any inconsistencies here could lead to misleading visual information while editing.

Remember that software controls within these applications might override system-level settings unless properly configured, making verifying post-calibration accuracy critical in these environments. A well-calibrated monitor works hand-in-hand with well-configured software, ensuring what you edit translates accurately everywhere.

4. Fine-tune your monitor settings

After the initial calibration run, you may need to make finer adjustments to dial in perfect color accuracy.

• Adjust RGB values as needed: Depending on your monitor’s capabilities and the software’s guidance, you might have to adjust the Red, Green, and Blue values manually. This adjustment is typically necessary when colors appear tinted or washed out after the first calibration pass.
• When fine-tuning: Incrementally alter RGB sliders (if available) following calibration software prompts until no color cast remains.
• For brightness levels: Refine levels according to visual cues provided by the software. For example, you would make this adjustment to achieve a specific luminance value you set in step two.

Most modern calibration tools offer real-time feedback via software indicators that guide you toward optimal settings with clear targets for each parameter you adjust. Be patient, as minor changes can significantly impact overall image quality. The goal here is precision, so give yourself time to get it just right.

5. Finalize the calibration process

This is where you let technology take over to finalize your efforts. The calibration software will now perform an extensive color analysis, comparing a wide array of colors on your monitor with known standards.

Once this step concludes, carefully remove the calibration device from your screen, ensuring you do not disturb any settings or buttons that may alter display properties.

Now is the time for a review. Examine before-and-after results using color swatches typically provided by the calibration program. This visual comparison allows you to appreciate the adjustments and ensures satisfaction with your monitor’s newly calibrated state.

To preserve these new settings, save them as a named color profile. Be descriptive to easily identify them later (e.g., “PhotoEdit_Jan2024”).

Lastly, consider setting a reminder for future recalibrations. How often you recalibrate depends on usage; every one to two months is a common practice among professionals who rely heavily on accurate color reproduction in their work.

6. Review calibration results

With the calibration process complete, it’s crucial to evaluate its impact. Take a close look at how the calibrated settings affect color representation on your monitor. Colors should now appear more natural and true-to-life, without any dominant hue skewing the balance.

Consider making side-by-side comparisons. If possible, compare pre-calibrated versus post-calibrated images using test pictures that include a wide range of colors and tones. Notice how shadows, mid-tones, and highlights differ with the new profile.

Regularly reviewing these results will likely reinforce the importance of maintaining an accurately calibrated display for professional work. You’ll find routine calibrations equal creative that meets expectations every time—from screen to print.

Why regular monitor calibration is a must

Regular monitor calibration is essential to ensure every color step and tonal gesture aligns with your creative vision. It’s a practice that separates professionals from amateurs and showcases an attention to detail that clients notice and respect.

To maintain this level of professionalism, integrate calibration into your workflow as a routine maintenance task, just like you would regularly service high-end equipment.

Knowing when to recalibrate isn’t always clear-cut, but there are several indicators.

• Colors begin to look off, or prints no longer match their digital counterparts, a sign that it’s time for another session.
• After any significant hardware or software updates that can alter display characteristics without warning.
• If you frequently work in critical color management situations—or if environmental lighting conditions change substantially—it’s wise to recalibrate more often.

The takeaway here? Regularly calibrated monitors ensure reliability and consistency within all phases of photo editing—from first click-through to final print. By committing to these practices, you safeguard the quality of your work and reinforce trust with clients and collaborators alike, cementing yourself as an artist and a professional.

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Blurb is a self-publishing company by and for creators. We believe in helping photographers and artists of all kinds showcase their work with confidence. To learn more about self-publishing your work, visit Blurb’s website. Keep creating and pushing the boundaries of your art! 

The post How to calibrate your monitor for photo editing appeared first on Blurb Blog.

Today there are so many tool options catering to different needs, projects, and budgets. We’ll be focusing on book design software for Windows and macOS. While many authors and artists use tablets for composition and content creation, when it comes time to collect it all for output to print, you’ll want to fire up that laptop or desktop to take advantage of the best book design software options.

We’ll highlight some of the most popular self-publishing book layout software here, broken out into two general categories to help you narrow things down immediately.

Before we begin, there are three questions you should ask yourself.

Questions to start

What kind of book are you making?

Graphic- or photo-intensive book projects typically require (or at least benefit from) more complex software with robust design features. These can have a steep learning curve but ultimately offer the image handling and layout flexibility needed to produce a polished photo book with professional-looking images. 

Novels and other word-centric publications call for bookmaking software that can format and organize page upon page of text in a way that helps make sense of it all. Of course, you may do your writing using more composition-focused word processing software like Microsoft Word. Still, when it’s time to turn it into a book, book design programs are far more effective for better page layout, formatting, and other bookmaking ins and outs. 

What’s your price range?

Some software choices are a more considerable investment than others—they range from free, to monthly subscription fees, to spendy lifetime licenses. Many options here offer a discount to educators or students, and some offer a free trial period or a limited-feature demo version so you can explore the program’s interface and nuances without spending a dime. So, unless you’ve got a solid reason to go with a particular piece of software (compatibility with existing projects, for instance), you may want to kick the tires on a few before you commit.

How much time do you want to spend learning?

What’s not so free is the time it takes to learn a new program. We’ll call out a few that are especially easy to use immediately; the rest offer tutorials or help documentation. But the bookmaking and design communities online can be the best resource for anyone looking to get up to speed. User-made guides and helpful step-by-step videos abound, providing as much or as little hand-holding as you need. So don’t be intimidated—but also be realistic about the number of features you need (and are willing to study up on).

Best book design software for photographers, illustrators, and artists

QuarkXPress

Best for: Advanced typography and graphic design 

Platforms: Windows, macOS

Price: $259 per year; $699 lifetime license

This is the OG of desktop publishing software, and it’s WYSIWIG (What You See Is What You Get) interface revolutionized and dominated the world of digital print layout for years. QuarkXPress remains a solid, feature-rich option that’s especially adept in typography and design. There’s a reason many large publishers have continued to use this software for high-volume professional print projects. It’s more than capable of handling smaller jobs, too, but self-publishers may find the cost of entry and the challenging interface less than ideal. 

Adobe InDesign

Best for: Print design and layout

Platforms: Windows, macOS, Linux, Android, iOS, web

Price: $20.99 per month

The first major competitor to QuarkXPress, Adobe’s alternative quickly established itself as an industry standard. It’s got a similar set of features, with some extra design functions that can come in handy for advanced users—but all those features can make InDesign tricky to pick up and use right away.  

One of InDesign’s biggest advantages is its support for almost all the most common (and uncommon) publishing and e-book formats. It includes the XML and coding options needed to export the content for a wide range of digital and online applications and the ability to e-publish directly to Adobe-hosted servers. InDesign also integrates and syncs with Adobe’s other Creative Cloud software—including Photoshop—allowing you to work on every part of a project from anywhere, on a number of different devices. And, perhaps best of all, with the Blurb Adobe InDesign plug-in, you can upload your PDF for printing from within InDesign itself.

Affinity Publisher

Best for: Desktop publishing on a budget 

Platforms: Windows, macOS

Price: $50

Affinity has really caught on as a much cheaper alternative to QuarkXPress and InDesign. This one-time purchase offers most essential bookmaking features in a simpler package, making it more accessible from a learning standpoint. Its Studio Link feature also allows in-app integration of Affinity Photo and Affinity Designer—feature-rich yet more-affordable alternatives to Adobe’s Creative Suite programs. This makes for a well-synced integrated workflow that many users find convenient. So, if you’re just starting or are looking to adopt a new software ecosystem for your bookmaking, the Affinity route is pretty compelling. 

Adobe Photoshop

Best for: Creating graphics, illustrations, and editing photos while designing

Platforms: Windows, macOS, iPadOS

Price: $20.99 per month

Whether you’re editing and resizing photos or creating graphics from scratch, the venerable Photoshop can do it all, and it’s still the industry standard after years at the forefront. Although Photoshop is not technically a book design software, if you’re planning on including any imagery (including on the cover), you’ll probably want to use a dedicated graphics editor to get it looking its best. Its only downside is the time needed to learn all its features. If that’s too much work, there are many popular, competent, and usually more affordable (or free) Photoshop alternatives. 

Canva

Best for: Sharing and collaboration for bookmakers without much graphic design experience 

Platforms: Windows, macOS, Android, iOS, web

Price: Free with a subscription for added features

Another tool not explicitly built for book design, Canva, is an online graphic design editor with collaboration at its core. Free plans, hundreds of thousands of templates, and free graphics allow bookmakers and their creative networks to jump in and work together on images, graphics, and page layouts. Although it lacks the robust page management you need to plan a book properly, it’s a great way to collaborate with others on individual pages and designs to incorporate into your larger book projects.

BookWright

Best for: beginners, thanks to templates

Platforms: Windows, macOS

Price: Free

If you’re planning on self-publishing a book with Blurb, you’ll want to check out Blurb’s BookWright software. This free download provides all the templates and simple design tools needed to get a photo-intensive book project in order. Because it takes into account all of the different formats, papers types, trim sizes, and bindings Blurb offers, you’ll be designing every page (plus the cover, dust jacket, and more) to the exact dimensions and print areas you’ll use when it’s time to publish your book. 

BookWright offers built-in image scaling, cropping, and single-click image enhancement for beginners, and its photo Manager Module offers Adobe Lightroom integration for more advanced photo manipulation. Even if you use different book design software for your project, giving BookWright a try can be a great way to preview that awesome final step of any bookmaking journey: gathering it all up for printing. 

Best book design software for writers

Adobe FrameMaker

Best for: Long documents, technical writing, and books with complex layouts 

Platform: Windows

Price: $29.99 per month

Just as Adobe InDesign offers every feature even the most complex book could need, FrameMaker is loaded with everything an author—or an entire organization—could need to create and manage massive, deeply technical volumes. (As long as they’re running Windows.) It’s got all the functions of a powerful word processor, with smart tools for navigation, footnotes, tables of contents, and tons of other functions to help handle books and digital publications with high word counts.

Scrivener

Best for: Organizing large writing projects 

Platform: Windows, macOS, iOS

Price: $49 (macOS), $45 (Windows), $19.99 (iOS)

Scrivener takes a by-writers-for-writers approach that makes it seriously useful for handling all of the inputs that go into a big book project. In addition to being a solid word processor, Scrivener allows you to collect and interact with your notes, background materials, and references in one easy-to-navigate space that serves as a virtual corkboard. As a result, it’s an excellent environment for an author to go from concept to outline to the final manuscript—and export it all for publishing, all within one app. 

Vellum

Best for: ebook design

Platform: macOS

Price: $249 (print and ebook), $199 (ebook only)

This mac-only entry is a fast, very simple piece of software made with the ebook self-publisher squarely in mind. Import any Microsoft Word file, and Vellum can streamline its conversion into a number of popular electronic book formats, with a modest amount of templates and typefaces. The print license version makes prepping a physical copy as straightforward as choosing a trim size. However, its image and rich media handling are limited.  

Reedsy

Best for: Book formatting and layout

Platform: Web

Price: Free plus extra for collaboration

Reedsy’s Book Editor is a one-stop shop for indie authors to compose, collaborate, and print their book projects. The word processing and layout tools are free and easy to pick up and use, but the real advantage of Reedsy is its built-in access to a network of freelance editors and designers for hire to help polish your work and get things across the finish line. Then, when your book is ready to go, you can export your project as an EPUB file or as a separate interior and cover PDFs to upload directly to Reedsy’s recommended self-publishing printer: Blurb!

Scribus

Best for: budget-conscious authors, Linux users

Platform: Windows, macOS, Linux

Price: Free

Scribus began as a humble, free, Open Source page layout program and has evolved into a powerful, flexible tool that’s great for book design. Like all of the best Open Source projects, Scribus benefits from being supported by contributors worldwide. It’s not where you’ll want to compose your manuscript, but it’s great for getting it ready to publish, with easy layout and PDF creation and a great community for support. Seasoned pros take note: While Scribus’ feature set is expanding daily, it still doesn’t support Pantone color matching and can’t read or write native QuarkXPress and InDesign files. 

BookWright

Best for: Text-heavy work and easy publishing

Platforms: Windows, macOS

Price: Free

There’s no easier way to get a text-heavy book project ready for printing with Blurb than Blurb’s BookWright software. Select the book type you intend to print, and BookWright will serve up templates customized for your trim size and binding. Choose a template you love, then drop in your manuscript (plus any artwork and cover files), and you’ll have a pixel-perfect, print-ready preview of your physical copy, as well as a digital ebook version. You’ll even get the option to sell your title through the Blurb Bookstore, Amazon, and way more. 

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Here at Blurb, we’re all about making the joy of bookmaking more accessible to more creators. Whatever book design software you end up choosing to craft your masterpiece, we’re here to answer your publishing questions and help you get your book out into the world. 

Start designing your book with the free BookWright tool today.

The post Path to print: choosing the best book design software appeared first on Blurb Blog.

Nine BookWright features you can try today

It’s time to get into the features and tips you need to know. To supplement our favorite BookWright features, we asked Blurb’s creative evangelist (and BookWright fan) Dan Milnor to tell us about a few of the coolest yet little-known features bookmakers should know about—and use. 

School’s in session! Open your custom notebook, and let’s begin. 

1. Try templates

You can have all the amazing photos in the world, but if you don’t know how to lay them out on the page, it can make for an arduous bookmaking project. Fortunately, BookWright has several professionally designed templates for different types of books. You can use any template for any reason, but here are our thoughts on what each one can bring to your photo book.

• Modern Family: Lots of spreads with ample white space where the focus is one to three key shots per page, great for family photo books.
• Everyday Classic: Less white space and bigger photos that fill each page.
• Road Trip: Large areas for landscape shots and images overlaid on each other.
• World Travel: A blend of Modern Family and Everyday Classic, perfect for travel books.
• Celebrations: Large and small images work together on the page to showcase every moment. 
• Modern Romance: The perfect coupling of smaller signature shots mixed with full-bleed imagery for a stunning duo, ideal for wedding photo books or albums. 
• Minimalist Portfolio: Artsy and edgy layouts that pop especially well with black-and-white imagery.
• Modern Portfolio: Askew and asymmetrical describes this untraditional template, great for any professional portfolio.
• Summertime: A versatile template with plenty of room for full-page portraits and multi-pic pages.

Pro tip: You can download even more templates if you’re making a cookbook, baby book, and more!

How to use a template

Using a template in BookWright is straightforward. Here’s a step-by-step guide on how to do it.

1. Launch BookWright: Start by opening the BookWright app on your computer. If you don’t have it, download BookWright now.
2. Pick a template: Select Book Templates on the left. Browse the options and choose one that fits your vision.
3. Apply the template: Once you’ve found a template you love, select the size book you want to build. The template will apply, providing a framework for your content.
4. Customize your book: Now, you can start adding your content to your book. Drag and drop your photos, text, and other elements into the spaces provided by the template. Remember, the template is just a guide—you can customize it as much as you want!

2. Use layouts

Staring at blank pages can feel quite daunting when starting any project. If you don’t feel like using an entire template to build your book but are still getting the blank page nerves, try layouts.

Think of layouts as the blueprint of a page or spread, rather than your entire book—like a template. Even if you’re a first-time bookmaker, layouts can help you craft a book that looks like it’s been designed by a pro.

Title pages, table of contents, novels, recipes, yearbooks, planners: Whatever you can dream up, we’ve got a layout for it. Once you select your ideal layout, you can drag and drop images and place text.

Best yet, you can even save your own layouts—if you have a page or spread design that you want to repeat again and again.

How to use a layout

Layouts are easy to apply in BookWright. Here are the steps to guide you through the process.

1. Open your project: Create or open a project in BookWright.
2. Select a page: On the left side of the screen, you will see a thumbnail view of all the pages in your book. Click on the page where you want to apply a layout.
3. Choose a layout: At the top of the screen, select the Layouts tab. This will open a menu with many options. Browse the available layouts and choose one that suits your needs. Pro tip: The drop-down menu to the left of the layout options lets you filter layouts by category.
4. Apply the layout: Simply select the layout you like. This will automatically apply it to the selected page.
5. Customize your layout: Now that you have applied the layout, you can start customizing it. Add your photos, text, and other elements in the spaces provided by the layout. Remember, you don’t need to stick to the default layout design—feel free to make it your own!
6. Repeat: Keep doing these steps for all the pages where you want to apply a layout.

How to build your own layout

Did you create a page or spread design you love? Save it so you can use that same layout again and again.

1. Select your page or spread: On the left side of the screen, select the thumbnails of the page or spread you want to save as a layout.
2. Navigate to the layouts tab: At the top of the screen, select the Layouts tab. This will open up a menu.
3. Save your layout: In that same Layout tab, select the Save layout button. This will open a new window, allowing you to save it.
4. Pick your page(s): Choose from the left page, right page, or entire spread.
5. Name your layout: Enter a unique name for your new layout in the Layout Name field. Select Save Layout. Your custom layout will now be available in the My Layouts drop-down in the Layouts tab.
6. Apply your custom layout: To apply your new layout to a page, select it from the My Layouts section.

3. Automatically place your photos

Save a ton of time by letting BookWright auto-place your images in your book. Use these features in tandem with templates and layouts, and you can truly create a book in minutes.

You can choose to have BookWright place your images in chronological order with the Save Me Time feature. Or, you can auto-create your book by file name, date of import, last modification, or date taken (oldest to newest or the other way around). The choice is yours!

Imagine crafting a travelogue, a baby’s first year book, or a wedding photo album. Auto-placing images chronologically lets you recreate the journey as it unfolded in moments.

How to use the Save Me Time feature

This feature makes bookmaking a breeze. Here’s how to import and place all your photos in seconds flat.

1. Create a project: Select Create from the homepage of BookWright. Then pick your book format and size, paper and cover type, and name and save your new project.
2. Add photos: Select photos from your desktop or import them from a cloud service.
3. Use Save Me Time: A pop-up window asks if you want to save time. This will allow BookWright to automatically place images chronologically. Select the Save Me Time button.
4. Review and edit: After BookWright has autoflowed your images, review the placement. You can rearrange, add, or delete images as you like.

How to use the Auto-Create Book feature

It’s a snap to use this feature, too. Here’s how.

1. Start the process: Open your project in BookWright and select the Photos tab near the top of the app.
2. Choose your sort and direction: Select the first drop-down in the Photos tab. Sort your imported photos by imported date, date taken, modified date, or file name. Choose between newest to oldest or oldest to newest—or A to Z or the reverse.
3. Select your folder: In the second drop-down, you can select your photo folder.
4. Pick from used or unused photos: In the last drop-down, select all photos, photos used in the project, or unused photos. Selecting unused photos will help you auto-place images that you haven’t already placed!
5. Activate Auto-Create: Select the Auto-Create Book button. This will create your book according to the chosen sequence and direction.
6. Review and edit: Once BookWright has placed your images, review and edit!

4. Auto Flowfill long text

All you long-form writers and novelists out there will love this! Flowing in your text is a snap (and a few clicks). BookWright’s Auto Flowfill feature does the heavy lifting for you, automatically fitting your text to any text box or frame.

Say goodbye to tedious manual formatting and say hello to a more efficient workflow. Now, you can focus on writing without worrying about the formatting of your text, saving you time and effort in the long run.

How to flow test

1. Export as RTF: Export your writing as an RTF file (also known as Rich Text Format). You can usually find this option in File then Save As… in any word processing app (like Microsoft Word, Google Docs, or Open Office).
2. Import your file: In BookWright, select Text Files in the top toolbar. Then select Add RFT Files to the left. Browse your computer for the file you want to import. Then select Open.
3. Add your files to your book: Your imported RTF file(s) appear in blue in the toolbar, and you can drag and drop it right into your page.
4. Apply a layout: Once you drag and drop, choose a layout. From there, you’ll select Apply Layout, and your text will magically auto-fill. 

5. Add background colors

Adding a background color to your pages can enhance your book’s overall look and feel. You can easily compose a layout with depth just with a color behind your imagery, text, or illustrations.

A bold color creates a design that pops off the page. Or try to match a more muted color in the image with the background color for a cohesive look.

How to add a background color

1. Select the paint can icon: It’s in the upper right corner of BookWright.
2. Pick your color: The background color wheel window will appear. Choose the color you want from the wheel (or add your own RGB codes if you’re into that) and select Apply. 

6. Build and overlap shapes

Shapes are a fun and creative way to add interest and depth to your book. You can use shapes as borders, backgrounds, or as design elements on their own.

BookWright offers a variety of shapes, including circles, rectangles, triangles, and lines. And the best part? You can easily overlap these shapes to create unique designs and a sense of depth on a flat page. Plus, shapes can also be filled in with color or images, making them even more exciting than just a simple design flourish.

Dan Milnor, Blurb’s creative evangelist, likes to fill black shapes post-printing with a white gel pen and white shapes with black ink. This creates a unique, hand-crafted look that adds character.

How to add a shape

1. Select your page: On the left side of BookWright, select the thumbnail of the page you want your shape.
2. Pick a shape: In the toolbar directly above your book’s pages, select the Shapes icon (near Undo, Place Photo, and Place Text). Then, choose the shape you want.
3. Draw your shape: Click and drag on your page to create the shape at the desired size.
4. Adjust color and placement: With your shape selected, use the shape window to adjust its size, color, rotation, border, style, and thickness.
5. Add a photo: Select the Photos tab from the top of BookWright. Then, drag and drop the photo of your choice into your shape. Done!
6. Overlap your shapes: Add another shape on top of your initial shape. The key to overlapping is using the Arrange tool, also found near the Shape icon, so you can bring your shapes from the back to the front or vice versa as you see fit. 

7. Use grids and shapes together

Making a journal or notebook? BookWright offers four kinds of pages: blank, lined, square, or dot grid. But why leave it at that? You can easily break up a massive grid page by using shapes on top, which you can fill with color or images.

Imagine having a lined page with a circle in the upper corner with a photo of your favorite flower or even a positive affirmation. These can be neat little accents to make the ordinary journal uniquely yours. 

Add a colored shape behind a grid, and a cool hack will happen. You’ll need to see it to believe it!

How to add a grid and shapes

Adding grids to your pages is simple. But a word to the wise: You must create a notebook project to get grids. You can’t add a grid to your book if it is not a notebook! Let’s get into it.

1. Create a notebook: Select Create from BookWright’s home screen. Then, choose Notebooks and the size you’d like to create. On the next page, select your style (blank, lined, or grid) and cover (hardcover or softcover). Finally, name and start your new project.
2. Add a shape: In the toolbar directly above your book’s pages, select the Shapes icon (near Undo, Place Photo, and Place Text). Then, choose the shape you want.
3. Draw your shape: Click and drag on your page to create the shape at the desired size.
4. Adjust shape style and placement: With your shape selected, use the shape window to adjust its size, color, rotation, border, style, and thickness.
5. Arrange your shape: Make your notebook even cooler by selecting the Arrange icon near the Shape icon to place it behind your grid. If you add a background color to your shape and send it backward, behind your grid, cool things will happen!

8. Enhance images

Shots that are too dark, a bit fuzzy, have people with red eyes, and a dozen other photo faux pas can all benefit from the Auto Image Adjust feature. It’s built right into BookWright, and you can use it on a single image or apply the setting to all the images in your book. 

When activated, this feature analyzes images and automatically optimizes them for printing by enhancing the darker areas, slightly increasing depth and contrast, and lightly sharpening. The feature can also brighten photos without losing any detail and correct skin tone issues when they appear too red or green. It’s magic!

How to enhance your image

It’s so easy to use! Just follow these two steps.

1. Toggle it on: To turn Auto Image Adjust on for one image, simply click on an image to open its photo tools, then toggle the feature to On.
2. Apply to all images: If you want to apply this feature to every image, open BookWright’s Preferences window and select Auto-adjust all images added to project. This will automatically improve all the photos you add to your book project after you’ve changed this setting. 

9. Include page numbers

Page numbers are important for keeping your book organized and easy to follow. They also act as a reference for readers to find specific pages quickly. Fortunately, BookWright makes it easy to add page numbers that will automatically update as you make changes or rearrange your book’s layout.

Whether you want to add page numbers to every page, just the left-hand pages, or just the right-hand pages, BookWright gives you several options. And yes, you can omit page numbers altogether, too.

Pro tip: Page numbers are all or nothing. So if you don’t want page numbers on certain pages, you’ll need to add an image or shape (perhaps in the same color as the page color) over the page number to hide it. 

How to add page numbers

You’re a BookWright pro at this point. Let’s finish off with another quick step-by-step.

1. Select your pages: To add, remove, or format page numbers, select the 123 icon.
2. Choose your settings: Select where you want your page numbers to display and any formatting. You can also choose the page to start and end the numbering.
3. Remove your page numbers: To remove page numbers, click the Remove Page Numbers button in this same window.

And there you have it: the BookWright features we most like to use and most love to tell others about. Ready to use these tips and tricks on your next book project? Try BookWright today.

***

Blurb is a self-publishing platform that allows you to take control of your book publishing journey—whether you’re building a book for yourself and friends or for mass distribution. Blurb’s free design tool, BookWright, allows you to create the book of your dreams in minutes. Once ready, order copies for yourself or publish and sell—or do both at the same time.

The post BookWright tips, features, and tricks you should be using appeared first on Blurb Blog.

Whether you’re brand new to book-making, an endless innovator, or the quickest thinker/maker/doer on the block—we’ve got a design tool that fits your project, timeline, skill set, and personality. Take our tool quiz to find your perfect match!

1. When I start a new project, I like to:

A) Start from scratch and discover along the way
B) Build on one idea and follow a basic outline
C) Jump straight in and keep it simple

2. Everyone knows what to expect when I tell a story:

A) Pull up a chair, it’s going to be a while
B) Stick to the plot and finish strong
C) Pics or it didn’t happen

3. When it comes to new technology, I am:

A) An early adopter with a knack for technical details
B) A patient practitioner ready to learn new skills
C) Comfortable thinking on my feet, learning on the go

4. One thing I tend to do at restaurants is:

A) Order something that’s not on the menu (I probably know the chef)
B) Look at the menu, but I already know what I want
C) Take the daily special to go

5. Out on the road, my travel motto is:

A) The journey is the destination . . . Take the scenic route!
B) Show me a list of hot spots! I appreciate a head start.
C) Go with the fastest route. My itinerary is full!

6. My ideal book has:

A) Carefully edited photos with captions, essays, maybe even an index
B) Straightforward layouts with simple headers and captions
C) Mostly images

7. My design philosophy is:

A) Think outside the box (rules are meant to be broken!)
B) Lead by example and use proven strategies
C) Follow the leader and go with the flow

8. When I get flat-pack furniture, my approach is always the same:

A) Read the instructions before starting
B) Watch a how-to video first
C) Have it delivered pre-assembled

9. To complete my book project start to finish, I plan to spend:

A) 1 month or more (as long as it takes)
B) 2 days to 2 weeks
C) Less than 1 hour

10. The pair of words that best describes my creative process:

A) Innovative and experimental
B) Idealistic and organized
C) Energetic and goal-oriented

11) If I’m shopping for a friend or family member, the gift I choose is probably:

A) Unique, elaborate, and personalized
B) Based on research using “top 10 gifts” lists
C) Whatever is in the window (hello, last-minute shopper!)

Congratulations, you breezed through the questionnaire!

Now, simply add up how many A, B, and C answers you selected to discover your tool persona.

Mostly A’s: InDesign Innovator

As an Adobe InDesign Innovator, you are agile and imaginative with a keen editorial eye. So it’s no surprise you matched with the book design tool that creative pros love. Every page is a blank canvas where you can experiment with modern compositions and perfect pops of color. Our Adobe InDesign Plug-In lets you create Blurb-ready templates and upload your project without leaving your InDesign workflow. You can take your time creating custom templates and layouts for every inch of your book, before revealing those gorgeous pages to the world.

Feeling inspired to start something new? Download the Plug-in today.

Mostly B’s: BookWright Visionary

As a BookWright Visionary, you like to dream big as long as you have a clear plan to meet your goals. Starting new projects is exciting and rewarding because you believe in your ideas and know where to look for answers. Enter: BookWright! Our free book design software gives you complete creative control, plus tips and video tutorials when you want a helping hand. Try our customizable templates to get a head start on your book design, or start fresh with your own layouts. For a savvy, organized maker like you, it’s all about balance.

Time to make the magic happen! Download BookWright now.

Mostly C’s: Mobile Marvel

As a Mobile Marvel, you are a spontaneous creator, always collecting new pics and inspiration to post on Instagram or Facebook. Once you decide on a new project, you take a no-fuss, no-frills approach: dream it, do it, done! Blurb’s mobile app is made for you because it’s the easiest way to create, print, and share a photo book in minutes. Just autoflow images right into your book, then choose from 3 great page layouts. Keep the creative process simple and streamlined, so you get the clean, bold lines and bright designs you love.

Ready to bring your beautiful book to life? Download the Mobile app!

If you want to keep exploring, check out all of Blurb’s book-making tools, including the PDF to Book Uploader and Adobe Lightroom Built-In Book Module.

The post Quiz: Which Design Tool Are You? appeared first on Blurb Blog.

One of the coolest updates Blurb did to BookWright, was adding the Shapes tools. The Shapes mean your images can assume alternative geometric forms, and you can add geometric graphic elements to your pages—for folks like me who love shapes and want to give their books an extra flair. We can now create circles, squares, triangles, and lines within the book-making tool! To showcase just how powerful the tool is, I decided to put it to the test by creating a book exclusively made out of shapes. Giving a strong nod to Modernism’s giants: László Moholy-Nagy, Josef Albers, and Piet Mondrian, I started to play. And as they say on the Internet, the results surprised me.

Before creating the book, though, which I cleverly named 4 Shapes: A Circle, a Square, and a Triangle Walk Into a Bar, it was time to think about the basics again. I interviewed other designers at Blurb to get a sense of what their favorite shapes were and why. Conveniently enough, no shape was left behind as each of the 4 designers interviewed quickly adopted their favorite and defended its value:

Sylvie Lee sided with the circle: “Squares and triangles feel more rigid and restricting. A circle can roll or float away, become bigger or smaller. The circle is the most organic shape.”

Grace Domecus sided with the square: “I like organization and grids, squares fit naturally into both. They have crisp corners, work at a variety of sizes and can be used to measure things.”

Jarrod Bryan sided with the triangle: “I like the multi-symbolism behind the triangle and it’s a great graphic element. Geometrically, it’s very interesting. Also, there’s the connection with pyramids and aliens.”

Stacey Toth sided with the line: “I hate shapes because they are confined, just like our existence. I like the line because it goes on forever.”

Sure, technically speaking all shapes are tiny dots united in a two-dimensional plane to create the visible world, but all of these explanations resonated with me, and I took them with me as the 4 Shapes book developed.

FROM MY EXPERIENCE, THINGS TO KNOW:

1. Shapes appear cleaner when turning off the stroke setting.
2. You can drag and drop your photos inside any shape, even into circles and triangles.
3. There’s no need to fill every page with something. Emptiness is just as important as content.
4. Changing a shape’s corner radius can create unexpected derivative shapes, even creatures.
5. Lines are the perfect content dividers. Consider them before whipping out the square.
6. Shapes hiding behind other shapes can create far more complex scenes: like a rectangle with a circle behind can imply a sunset.
7. To create diamonds, simply turn your squares to a 45-degree angle.
8. You can copy and paste groups of shapes and move them strategically as a way to easily create patterns.
9. Limiting the color palette to a few colors can hold your theme together.
10. Letters are shapes too!

Anyway, don’t take my word for it. Check out the 4 Shapes book, and hopefully you’ll be inspired to play with shapes in your own book, just like I was. I promise it will be the most fun you’ll have today.

The post 4 Shapes: A circle, a square, and a triangle walk into a bar appeared first on Blurb Blog.

Tool 1: Pens and pencils

Let’s start with the basics. The popularity of digital tools and apps has increased as more people turn to their tablets and styluses, but a good pen or pencil is arguably the only thing you really need to be able to draw or illustrate.

While pens and pencils are simple tools, there’s an unlimited number of brands and styles to choose from. This might feel a bit daunting, especially if you’re just starting out.

The best place to start is to think about the style of book illustration you want to achieve. Is it clean and precise? Maybe try a perpetually sharp mechanical pencil. Going for something more expressive and bold? Try a thicker brush tip pen. Also, and this may seem simple, but it’s important to remember the best pen or pencil (or paintbrush!) is the one that feels best to you.

Here are some of the Blurb design team’s favorite book illustration tools:

• Pentel Sharp Mechanical Pencils
• Marvy Le Pen Marker Pen
• Dixon Ticonderoga Pencils
• Tombow 62038 Fudenosuke Brush Pen 

Tool 2: Paper

For many book illustrators, there’s nothing more exciting than a fresh sheet of blank paper. As with selecting the right pen or pencil, selecting the right type of paper is part science, part emotion. Do you want something bright and smooth for your crisp pencil sketches or something slightly rougher and sturdier to show off the texture of your inky masterpieces?

Consider portability too. Will you want something fairly small that you can carry with you?

After you’ve narrowed it down, a fun way to make your final decision is to visit your local art store, have a feel of all the different options, and see which papers call to you.

Here are a few of my favorites:

• Strathmore 300 Series Sketch Pads
• CONDA Hardcover Spiral Sketch Pad Sketchbook
• Canson XL Series Mix Media Paper Pad
• Field Notes Original Kraft

Tool 3: Tracing paper

While you will eventually develop your own unique book illustration style, tracing paper can be extremely helpful when you are first developing your drawing skills.

Tracing paper is a special type of paper that is very thin and nearly see-through. Place it on top of reference material, such as photos or other illustrations, and you can trace directly on it. This practice can help you get a better understanding of shape and form and break down complex images into digestible pieces.

Some illustrators and artists also use a slightly sturdier translucent paper called vellum for their finished drawings to achieve an airy or ethereal look.

Try one of these for starters:

• Darice 9”x12” Artist’s Tracing Paper
• Strathmore 370-9 300 Series Tracing Pad

Tool 4: Ruler or straight edge

A ruler is an essential book illustration tool. A proper straight edge is vital to creating clean crisp, straight lines. And the measurements on a ruler will help if you are working on something very precise that requires consistent sizing.

Along the same lines, a compass or protractor will help you create perfect circles. Many artists choose to draw these shapes without these tools, which can produce drawings with a lot of charm, but it’s helpful to have them on hand when precision is important.

Tool 5: Reference material  

Some artists have imaginations so powerful, that they can draw straight from the scenes they visualize in their head. For others, having inspiring reference material is necessary. There is no right or wrong way of working, but collecting reference materials (such as photographs, everyday objects, posters, magazines, catalogs, Instagram photos, Pinterest posts, etc) can be very valuable.

Being able to refer to an image will help train your eye and your hand to create more realistic images. Collecting reference material also helps you figure out what type of imagery you’re drawn to and hone in on your personal aesthetic.

These days, collecting reference material doesn’t have to mean piles of scrapbooks. Apps such as Pinterest, Instagram, Dribbble, and Behance make it easy to curate portable, digital collections that you can add to on the go.

Tool 6: Camera 

Speaking of reference materials, you can always create your own by taking photos of objects, landscapes, and even people that you would like to illustrate. You don’t need a state of the art camera for this. Portability is probably more important; just something to quickly capture an image or scene. In fact, the camera on your phone is probably ideal for this purpose because it is easily accessible and always with you.

Tool 7: High-resolution flatbed scanner 

This book illustration tool will open up a world of possibilities for your drawings. In addition to being able to make multiple prints and copies of your artwork, you can use software such as Adobe Illustrator or Adobe Photoshop to clean up and edit your hand-drawn illustrations.

You’ll also be able to convert your work into the proper format for other mediums. For example, if you wanted to print a drawing onto a t-shirt, you could do so via digitization. Digitizing your work in this way also allows you to turn your collections into a beautiful book.

See how artist and illustrator Monica Garwood turned her sketches into a beautiful art book.

Tool 8: iPad or tablet 

If you prefer working in the digital realm, you could technically create beautiful illustrations without any of the above if you have a smart tablet, such as an iPad, and the right illustration software.

While they can be quite pricey, tablets are very powerful drawing and illustration tools. They are portable, and many apps allow you to access a limitless variety of pen and brush styles, textures, and colors.

Another great advantage of using a tablet is that you can skip the scanning phase entirely. If the final version of your illustration involves digitization of any kind, you may find it convenient to work on an iPad or tablet from the beginning.

Tool 9: Stylus

If you choose to work digitally, a stylus will help you get the most out of your iPad or tablet. A stylus is a pen-shaped object that you can use to draw on the surface of your tablet. You use it just as you would a pen, pencil, or brush.

Tool 10: Illustration apps 

As digital illustration has become so popular, there are now many apps out there created specifically to make drawing on a tablet with a stylus easy, beautiful, and fun. Some of the best-known illustration apps are Procreate, Adobe Photoshop Sketch, and Paper.

Whether you’re working in the digital realm or with pen and paper, mastering a few essential book illustration tools will see you well on your way to developing your own unique style of illustration.

Do you have a favorite book illustration tool that you think we should have included? Let us know in the comments below!

***

Ready to make a professional portfolio of your illustrations? Get started with one of our high-on-design templates or create your own custom layout from scratch.

The post 10 essential book illustration tools appeared first on Blurb Blog.

Tip #1
Know Your Equipment, Then Forget It

The best photography equipment is the equipment you never have to think about. This means not only the buttons and dials, but in modern photography, it also means the software, firmware, and endless menu options, too. Set it and forget it. New cameras are launched all the time, so it’s easy to get distracted by the latest and greatest, but technology will not save you from yourself.

I typically teach a few photography workshops each year, and I’ve noticed that many students spend the first two or three days staring at the back of their camera instead of making pictures, watching the world pass by without attempting to capture it. Find equipment you love, learn it inside and out, backward and forward, and then forget about it.

Tip #2
Commit to Finding and Addressing Your Weakness

Me, I don’t like the technical side of photography. I love the aesthetic side. But I simply can’t be who I want to be without knowing things like film developers, paper types, inkjet printers, and software like Adobe Lightroom. Do I love these things? No, but I know I NEED detailed knowledge of them to ultimately realize my photography. Tech is my weakness, so I take special care to acknowledge this reality and address it.

Tip #3
Practice

Sometimes we forget how difficult photography is. Technology itself does not make good photographs. We do. But making great photographs takes a copious amount of practice—daily, if possible. This doesn’t mean you have to shoot 10,000 pictures a day. It means taking the time to photograph with intent and focus. It means going out specifically to make images.

Technology itself does not make good photographs.

Tip #4
Be Patient

I’ve spoken to young photographers who have chosen their book publisher and their gallery before they have made a single photograph. It’s good to be confident but it’s important to find a balance. I photographed every day for ten years before I finally figured out who I was with a camera in hand. Up until that day, I was making other people’s pictures, copying things I’d seen before, but finally, after all that time, I learned how to make my pictures. Be patient. Enjoy the process. Slow down. Take your time. This is the fun part.

Tip #5
Look at the Work of the Photographers You Admire

This doesn’t mean COPY the work of the photographers you admire. This means learning from them. What light do they work in? How do they approach their subjects? How do they light their portraits? This is the detective work you use to build a foundation for your own work. At some point, this knowledge will set you free to make your own unique imagery.

Read more: What makes a great photographer?

Tip #6
Less is More

Less gear, less distraction, less mental baggage. I’m a huge fan of the one camera/one lens approach to learning photography. Take your favorite camera body and your favorite lens, and leave everything else behind. I prefer the Leica M4 with 50mm or my Fuji XT-2 with 35mm (50mm equivalent.) In fact, the Fuji is the camera that goes with me seven days a week.

Also, give yourself time to specifically go and make better photographs. Leave everything and everyone behind, including your phone. There is simply no way you can do two things at once and expect to do either to the best of your ability. And finally, forget about what you know, what you think, what’s hot or trendy, and just react physically and emotionally to your surroundings.

Tip #7
Learn the Basics

Great imagery, at least in my opinion, comes from three basic ingredients: Light, timing, and composition.

Learning to read light is step one. What light allows you to make the images you see in your mind’s eye? What light doesn’t work? Do you need to work in the early morning and late afternoon, or is noon the best time for your style?

Timing is the freezing of a split second that can add drama to an image. Think about all the amazing photojournalistic images made over the years, in what Henri Cartier-Bresson described as “the decisive moment.” Again, be patient. You might miss things at first, but eventually, you will be ahead of the game and ahead of those moments.

Finally, composition—this aspect is as unique as your fingerprint. There is no right and wrong with composition, not in my book. So, work long enough and hard enough to understand what your preferred composition is. Minimal, layered, or detailed—again, there is no right and wrong.

Tip #8
Take Chances

I see so much photography that looks exactly the same. For me, this is no longer photography. It’s just content. We’ve all heard the expression “happy accident.” Well, this applies to photography as well. Maybe you think you can’t handhold your camera at less than a 30^th of a second? So, go shoot at 1/4^th of a second and see what happens. Slow down your shutter speed and pan with a subject. Stack a few filters on the end of your lens and shoot a portrait. Maybe your thing is long exposures of a landscape at night. So how do you make something similar during the day? The lesson is, make yourself uncomfortable and take chances to make better photos.

Tip #9
Create a Narrative

It’s one thing to go and make random photographs. But there is something to be said for attempting to create a good photo-story or photo-essay. Think National Geographic: This publication is legendary for sending their photographers into the field for extended periods. Why? Because they are looking for a cohesive body of photographs that tell an entire story on their own.

Shooting narratives requires a different skill set, one that will broaden your quiver of photographic tools. Scene setters, details, portraits, action shots, etc. all edited together to form one story. Working in narrative will quickly show you where your weaknesses live. That’s okay. Keep plugging and turn those weaknesses into strengths to take better photos.

Tip #10
Have Fun

Even if photography is your singular passion, it’s okay to let go and have fun. The idea that you have time to make pictures puts you in a small percentage of the world population, so take advantage. I used to drive my wife to breaking point because I was so consumed by my work I was difficult to be around. Moody, emotional, insecure, and freaked out. This isn’t fun, and the people you photograph can pick up on this as well. Breathe, and enjoy.

Ready to turn your best pictures into a Photo Book? Get started today. Choose from six book sizes, three cover types, and six paper options, including Layflat.

The post How to Take Better Photos appeared first on Blurb Blog.

Since 2010, photographers have been uploading their pages directly from within Adobe Lightroom to the Blurb site, and then receiving beautifully-rendered images on the best paper in Blurb’s Photo Books. Now you can do even more!

This most recent update gives Lightroom users the opportunity to leverage the best of Blurb’s book-making tools to create and print bookstore-quality Trade Books, Premium Magazines, and our very popular Layflat Photo Books. All via the Book Module.

What Adobe Lightroom Ccc Updates Mean For Photographers

Layflat Photo Books

Allow photographers to seamlessly showcase their creativity across a two-page spread, without losing any part of their image to the gutter (or center of the book). You can now sell Layflat albums as part of professional packages using the Blurb Bookstore—all without leaving Lightroom.

Premium Magazines

Affordable, lighter-weight publications ideal for serial content or high-volume printing projects. These work great for leave-behinds, short-run projects, or even as proof guides for clients.

Trade Books

Include three industry-standard trim sizes printed on uncoated paper. Their lower base price allows authors to reach a wider audience by selling at market-comparable prices. You have to see the Trade Book Standard Color print quality to believe it. It’s competitive with many large-run traditionally published books you’d find in a bookstore.

“Our partnership with Adobe as the sole self-publishing platform in the Lightroom Book Module spans seven years, during which more than 100,000 Lightroom customers have printed nearly one million books through Blurb. With the ability to offer some of Blurb’s most popular features, we are excited to continue to provide new print options to Adobe’s creative users.”
— Rix Kramlich, Chief Executive Officer of Blurb

Next time you’re working in Lightroom Classic CC, be sure to take a look at these new updates and offerings.

For more information, visit www.blurb.com/lightroom.

The post NEW Adobe Lightroom CC Updates Mean Big Things for Books appeared first on Blurb Blog.

Take a look at these:

BookWright (Free book-making software)

If you’re making a book, Blurb’s free book creation software, BookWright, allows you to make custom layouts with an easy drag-and-drop interface. Pro tip: Once you’ve perfected your custom layouts, you can use the Save Layout feature to save and apply them to other pages in your book with a single click. Consistency is one of the easiest ways to make your book look more professional, so this is a great feature to try on your next project.

Unsplash (Free high-resolution photographs)

Unsplash is a collection of free, curated, high-res photos, submitted by photographers from around the world. The content of these gorgeous photos is very diverse, and the resolution is high enough that you can use them for both web and print projects.

CreativeMarket, (A marketplace of visual assets)

CreativeMarket is a marketplace of visual assets created for designers, by designers. Think fonts, logos, images, mockups, etc. While the majority of items here are for sale (with profits going to independent designers), many items cost less than $20. They also have a section of their website called “Freebies” where they offer a sampling of products for free; it’s updated weekly.

The Noun Project (Free iconography)

If you ever need vector icons or simple illustrated graphics, The Noun Project has you covered. This community-supported site offers thousands of vector icons, free to use under a Creative Commons [In other words, you may use the image for free as long as you credit the creator.] Icons are also available to purchase if you decide not to use the Creative Commons license.

Canva (Free customizable graphic design templates)

Canva is an online tool that makes it easy to create custom graphics. Their robust database offers pre-made templates for all the most common social media and marketing sizes. You can create assets specifically sized for every major online platform: Instagram, Facebook, Twitter, YouTube, and Etsy, to name a few.

A Color Story (Free photo-editing app)

If you’re looking to dress up some of your photos, try applying a filter to them. A Color Story offers a variety of simple editing and filtering tools, which are great giving your photos a stylized look. You can download this app for free in the Apple Store or Google Play.

Gridulator (Free customizable grids)

If you read our post about creating great layouts, you know how important The Grid is to great design. Gridulator allows you to create a custom-size grid which you can download and use as a guide for any project. Just enter the width of your book in pixels and the number of columns you want. It will then generate a downloadable PNG for you. (This tool is best suited for digital projects.)

Google Fonts (Free open-source fonts)

Google has compiled a huge database of open-source designer fonts. They’re all free to download and use in any way you need. Since BookWright allows you to use any font on your machine in printed books, this opens up your project to a whole new world of beautiful fonts.

So there you have it; eight free resources for you to try on your next project. Have you ever used any of these? Do you know of any other great tools for designers? Let us know in the comments!

The post Our Favorite Free Resources for Designers appeared first on Blurb Blog.

When choosing your tool we recommend taking three questions into consideration.

1. What type of book are you planning on making?

Will you be making a Photo Book, a Trade Book, an ebook, or a print magazine? Make that decision before you start, as not all of Blurb’s tools make everything Blurb has to offer.

2. How much time do you have to create your book?

Probably the most overlooked aspect of book-making is how much time you have to spend on it. Or from another angle, how much time you’re willing to invest in your creation. Whether it’s a couple of days, a month, or six months, and beyond, deciding this up front will save you lots of pain as you go through the book creation process.

3. Do you have any experience with a particular tool?

Have you used BookWright  in the past? Do you work with Adobe InDesign or Lightroom already? Do you use Microsoft Word, Powerpoint, or any other program that has a Save To PDF feature?

In an effort to save yourself time and to be able to focus on getting the design of the book exactly how you want, use a tool you’re already comfortable with. Don’t get caught up in a frenzy trying to learn to use a design tool you’re not confident with. In addition to our downloadable and online tools, Blurb accepts PDFs from just about anything, so keep that in mind before you get started.

Subscribing to the adage a picture is worth a thousand words, below is a simple decision tree to help get you on your way!

What’s your favorite book-making tool and why? Lets us know in the comments below!

The post How to Make a Book: Choosing the Right Tool appeared first on Blurb Blog.

Celebrate the creative work of someone you love, and give the gift of photography right back to your favorite photographer.

Is it just me or does gift giving get harder as the years go on?

On our first holiday together, I made a photo book (of us). On this fifth holiday together, I decided to go back to the basics—this time, showcasing his talent and love for cars, and in particular, Porsches.

I created a gorgeous book using Blurb’s new Layflat photo book format, featuring KSOLE’s amazing shots at a Porsche event he attended a few months back. He never uploaded or published these photos himself, as he stated he never had the time, so I decided to surprise him with this book. Of course, getting the photos is another story, but he never questioned it so we’re all good.

Creating the book was a breeze with Blurb’s book-making tools and easy to follow directions. I also loved that the Layflat book accommodates up to 110 pages and has a double-thick paper type, which feels amazing in person. His unbroken images looked so beautiful spread across two pages.

The photos I had published were of Porsches, so it worked out great since Layflat allowed me to create full spreads and utilize the entire space of the book. I’ve used other companies prior, but Blurb Books has the best quality I’ve seen yet. The texture and the print of the pages and photos were stunning.

I received the book in less than a week and was too excited, so I gave KSOLE his gift a little early. I also suck at keeping my mouth shut when it comes to surprises, so I saved myself the trouble of trying to hide it from him as well. Needless to say, he loved it and was so amazed by the quality. He loves the finished product so much that he plans on making a few more books using Blurb on his own. If only I could figure out what to get him next year.

My boyfriend loves the book and has shown it to so many people who have complimented us on the print quality! I would love to create another book featuring all my latest travels, especially since I got to go to Asia, Canada, and Cook Islands recently—all gorgeous places that we have such good shots for.

A portion of this post originally appeared on By Lisa Linh.

The post Gifts for the Photographers You Love appeared first on Blurb Blog.

We asked 5 designers, who have worked in both print and digital, to talk about their design framework.

DESIGNERS & EXPERTISE

Debsue, UX Design

Jarrod, Graphic Design and branding

Alex, Design, Branding, and Advertising

Sylvie, Graphic Design, Watercolor, and Stationery

Stacey, Graphic Design, Design Theory, and Drawing

1. What are some design principles that you live by?

Debsue:
– One idea per page
– Establish a hierarchy—What’s most important and how do you show that.
– A little color goes a long way
“When I first start a project, I usually have more than I need cluttering up my book. I spend about 20% of my time, simplifying layouts, culling pages and working on the flow of the book after I think it’s complete.”

Alex & Sylvie: Live and die by The Grid.

Sylvie: The way I think about this is to imagine the page divided into evenly sized boxes and then I try to make sure that all the photos and text boxes align with these imaginary boxes. The brain appreciates straight lines, symmetry and a sense of order and using a grid definitely helps with all those things.

2. What do you look for when you’re deciding what content goes on a page? How do you connect images, what makes them go together, etc?

Debsue: I need to see all the photos that go together at once, so that I can figure out what works together and what does not. I look at the shapes, colors and textures at once to see if they will look good in a spread. Sometimes my favorite images don’t look good when seen next to something else, so I must move the page to the right place based on my own aesthetic. Sometimes that means the photo will get a two-page spread, sometimes that means the photo needs to start or end the series—so it can be on its own—and sometimes that means it gets cut. It’s like spreading out all the puzzle pieces on the table before starting to put it back together.

Jarrod: I choose images that connect to one another to tell a cohesive, visual story. Tones, color, and subject matter should all relate.

Sylvie: Contrast is also something I always think about. Are all the photos in the spread the same color value—all dark or all light? Do you have a good mix of textures on one page? Ex: If one photo is very complex and dense, try to pair it with something that feels more simple and clean. This will help the page from seeming overly busy.

3. What guidelines do you use to balance images and text? How do you get pictures and text to work together? Are there placement guidelines? Sizing? Proportions?

Debsue: In part, the size of the book can dictate the size of items within it. If you decide you want 80 pt. text on a small book, it can look sophomoric but that size would look great in a 12×12-inch book. And 80 pt. text can look great in a small book, it depends on the words and the items around it.

Sylvie: Another trick you can try when things feel a little ‘off’ and you can’t quite figure out why: zoom out so you can see the whole spread on one page, squint your eyes and literally back away from your computer screen. This will help you look at the text and photo elements on the page as abstract shapes, which can help you figure out if there is an imbalance in the overall layout instead of focusing on specific details.

Stacey: I get the pictures and text to work together by having a clear understanding the hierarchy and the grid. It is important to make sure that the images and content align with the grid and that there is rhythm, symmetry, and repetition to the layout. There are grid systems that you can download. I tend to repurpose some of the grids I have created and then find out where the golden ratio is in relation to design comp.

Alex:  My three favorite grids: the fibonacci grid, the vertical rhythm grid, and the multi-column grid.

4. How many images go on a page? How do you know?

Debsue: I stick to ‘one idea per page’, but that can mean using 5 or more images when I am showing a process or when I can’t decide which images are the best.

Sylvie: Using just one image on a page can be a powerful statement. Using two, three, or four images per page is also great because they will usually fit nicely into your grid. Keep things simple.

Jarrod: It’s all about balance—using positive and negative space in a way that allows multiple images to live together without feeling crowded.

5. What would you say to people new to layouts and design to steer clear of that rough, “amateur” look?

Alex: Overdoing it is the most common mistake. Adding extra motifs, extra colors, extra shapes, too many photos, too many font sizes. Sticking to two fonts, at two sizes, and two photos per spread (at least as you design your first book) is a great way to ensure your book will look nothing less than elegant and spectacular.

Debsue: Make a simple color palette before you start your book. Choose one main color and one or two accent colors that you use sparingly or not at all.

Jarrod: If you’re not a designer, you can still have good layouts from a template. Blurb’s templates are customizable and there are some really great ones out there that can help you achieve the look you want.

Sylvie: Make sure you’re giving each spread some room to breathe. Some people try to cram so much content onto each page and end up with pages that feel cluttered and overwhelming, making it hard to appreciate the beautiful images within. When mixing images and text, make sure there is ample spacing between each element. It’s also very helpful to consolidate your fonts. Try to pick just one font for your entire book and keep the text the same size throughout. If you are feeling adventurous, pick one font for headlines and another for longer form copy. There is rarely a case for using more.

Stacey: I love the amateur look. I find it refreshing, especially when it is genuine. I don’t want it to change, if anything I want to see more ‘amateur’ whatever that means anyway.

Thanks to our designers for sharing their expertise with us. Now it’s your turn! Get started on your project with one of our free professionally-designed templates. 

The post What Makes a Great Layout? Design Pros Weigh In appeared first on Blurb Blog.

I fell in love in the darkroom. I remember the day very distinctly. I was home from college between semesters and I was about to take my first photography class, so I was getting a crash course in photography in the darkroom from a high school senior who was on the yearbook staff. I remember exposing a blank piece of paper and sliding it gently into the developer under the orange glow of the darkroom safelight and watching.

Suddenly, it appeared… slowly, like someone had spilled ink across a page. The ink began to spread in the form of an image—the image I had only seen in reverse on the negative. It was sorcery! I fell in love. I changed my major, my career path, and my hobbies all in 60 seconds!

I still have that print.

There is something very special about holding a physical print, as opposed to someone’s phone. For one, a printed photograph doesn’t ring or alert you to an email with yet another task to be shoved into an already crowded day. No, a print is quiet and intimate, and when you share a print, it is in person. Not via text message. It inspires a face-to-face conversation or a handwritten note. There is something personal about a print, something that connects. When digital photography arose in the early years of my career, I embraced it with open arms, knowing that it would open so many possibilities. And it certainly has lived up to its promises. Photographers have far more powerful tools to capture, organize, edit, and share their images. But, while I remember the darkroom with a nostalgic fondness, I am grateful that I can edit my images at a comfortable desk. Given a choice, would I go back to the darkroom? Never.

One of the great advancements of the digital photo age is the digital printing process that includes inkjet printers, photo lab prints and the digital printing press and all of them are affordable and yield incredible quality imagery. And yet, we have lost sight of the power of the printed photograph. Too many professional photographers hand clients a disk of images and leave them to print the images on their own. Too many photo enthusiasts spend their summer vacations taking thousands of beautiful photos only to come home and sequester them in the depths of their computer to be seen at random on a screen saver, or maybe not at all. It is disrespectful to our images and a disservice to our family, our friends, and our clients not to make our beautiful digital images into physical photographs. Yes, we can share them on social media, and there is value to sharing images like this, but if that is the only way your clients and your friends experience your photographs, you have denied them the rich full sensory experience of art.

I make sure every single client leaves my studio with a printed product. Every single guest in my home has the opportunity to see my work on my walls and in books on my coffee tables. I do this because I believe my work is worth more than a glance and a “like” on Facebook; I believe that my work is worth experiencing. I create beautiful proof books that thrill my wedding clients and exciting books to wow my high school seniors because I know that one of the richest ways to experience a photograph is in print.

Every single guest in my home has the opportunity to see my work on my walls and in books on my coffee tables.

My wedding proof books (made in Lightroom in minutes and printed through Blurb) are simple to make, affordable, and my clients are thrilled every time. In fact, I have earned a good percentage of my new clients simply because mothers love to display their proof book at home, at work, on airplanes, and anywhere they go. Let me explain the basics of an effective proof book:

1) A proof book cannot be sold at too high a price, so it must be easy to make at an affordable price.

While a proof book is one of the most important things I hand to my clients, I know it can’t cost very much, and it certainly can’t take all my time. This makes the Blurb Module in Lightroom critical. Lightroom’s Book Module allows me to make the proof books quickly, and Blurb makes it possible to provide a book at an affordable price.

2) A proof book must be useful, which means it must have numbers that correspond to every image on the client’s disk and web site.

This is a simple and obvious point, but remember that it is the purpose of the proof book to be useful and lead people to make decisions about their images. Make the numbers easy to review by using simple numbers like 0001, not _W567R1046.jpg and make sure to design a clean and simple proof book so people can focus on the images.

3) A great proof book must also educate the client and help them choose the very best images in the collection.

A proof book that only contains a grid of images is useful, but doesn’t help educate the client to make choices. Remember that a client looking at images is often times overwhelmed by the number of images. I add full-page images that give the client a place to rest every fourth or fifth page and show them which images are particularly interesting. As a client moves through the pages of a proof book, they should be able to see the story unfold through the full-page images while they are selecting images from the grip of four images per page with numbers that identify the file name of the images.

4) A great proof book is printed at the highest quality on great paper so that the client’s viewing experience is second-to-none.

Again, Lightroom does a great job at compiling the images in an attractive way, and Blurb prints and binds a beautiful book, so when I deliver a proof book to my clients, they feel like they have been given something far better than a proof book. In fact, it is hard to think of my proofing book as a proof book, that description just doesn’t do it justice.

There is nothing that matches the experience of an exceptional photographic book. You deserve to experience it, your friends need to experience it, and your clients have earned the right to experience it. So, what are you waiting for? You have a thousand photos in your computer right now that should be magically appearing on paper… go make it happen.

To learn more about organizing, editing, and sharing your images from Jared Platt, go to his site.

The post Jared Platt: Your Photos are Worth More Than a Facebook “like” appeared first on Blurb Blog.

We caught up with Dan to talk about his project.

How did you decide which content to use for each format?

I’m actually using the same content for all formats. I may change this slightly at some point, but I love the fact a simple change in size and materials can make each version seem so unique.

Were there any surprises in terms of formats working in ways you didn’t expect?

I was surprised to find that it was easier to design the smaller publication first, then upsize to the larger format. The text was what triggered this. The first issue I did backward, meaning I designed magazine first then downsized. The problem is the text has nowhere to go, so you end up having to add pages, etc. This is way more complicated. So, I’d start with a trade book, where the upside is the text has plenty of space.

How have MagCloud’s formats influenced the development of ESSAY?

One look at the poster and I KNEW I needed a poster for each issue, something to post on the wall in my imaginary office. Like a track record of what I’ve been able to publish. When I’ve got a dozen issues this wall of cover posters will look great. The flyer is the perfect leave behind, mailer, etc. So inexpensive and simple, to the point. The digest format is one of my favorites because it’s the only small landscape product in the entire Blurb and MagCloud empire. 97% of all images made are landscape, so this format is a gem. Tabloid was perhaps the biggest surprise. Never in my life did I have any interest in a wire-o bound publication. That is, until now. It’s huge. Reminds me of the old oversized magazines from yesteryear. Thick paper, almost like looking at a bound set of photographic prints. I plan on experimenting much more with at least three of these formats.

All the MagCloud formats are perfect support mechanisms for the Blurb series. I can see myself using the MagCloud pieces for shows, marketing materials and sneak peek publications I can hand out when I’m teaching.

Find out more about the creative process behind ESSAY.

You can also order your own copy of ESSAY.

Feeling inspired? Create, print, share, and sell your own publication with MagCloud.

Check out the MagCloud formats for yourself!

The post Making use of Blurb and MagCloud formats appeared first on Blurb Blog.

One of the coolest features of BookWright is the Shapes Tool. It means that your images can assume alternative geometric forms, and you can add geometric graphic elements to your pages—perfect for folks like me who love shapes and want to give their books extra flair. You can create circles, squares, triangles, and lines all within BookWright! To showcase just how powerful the tool is, I decided to put it to the test by creating a book exclusively made out of shapes. Giving a strong nod to Modernism’s giants: László Moholy-Nagy, Josef Albers, and Piet Mondrian, I started to play. And as they say on the Internet, the results surprised me.

Before creating the book, which I cleverly named 4 Shapes: A Circle, a Square, and a Triangle Walk Into a Bar, it was time to revisit the basics. I asked fellow designers what their favorite shapes were and why. Conveniently enough, no shape was left behind as each of the 4 designers interviewed quickly adopted their favorite and defended its value.

Sylvie Lee sided with the circle: “Squares and triangles feel more rigid and restricting. A circle can roll or float away, become bigger or smaller. The circle is the most organic shape.”

Grace Domecus sided with the square: “I like organization and grids, squares fit naturally into both. They have crisp corners, work at a variety of sizes and can be used to measure things.”

Jarrod Bryan sided with the triangle: “I like the multi-symbolism behind the triangle and it’s a great graphic element. Geometrically, it’s very interesting. Also, there’s a connection with pyramids and aliens.”

Stacey Toth sided with the line: “I hate shapes because they are confined, just like our existence. I like the line because it goes on forever.”

Sure, technically speaking all shapes are tiny dots united in a two-dimensional plane to create the visible world, but all of these explanations resonated with me, and I took them with me as my book developed.

How to Use the Shapes Tool in BookWright

1. Select Add/Insert in the top menu

2. Select Draw Shapes from the drop-down menu

3. Select the shape you want to add to your page

4. Use the cursor to draw and resize the shape on your page

5. Click within the shape container to access the format menu. From here you can change the orientation, add color, and alter the border.

6. To fill the shape with a photograph, simply drag and drop your chosen photo from the photo gallery

Bonus tips:

1. You can drag and drop your photos inside any shape, even into circles and triangles
2. There’s no need to fill every page with something. Emptiness is just as important as content.
3. Changing a shape’s corner radius can create unexpected derivative shapes, even creatures
4. Lines are the perfect content dividers. Consider them before whipping out the square.
5. Shapes hiding behind other shapes can create far more complex scenes: like a rectangle with a circle behind can imply a sunset.
6. To create diamonds, simply turn your squares to a 45-degree angle
7. You can copy and paste groups of shapes and move them strategically as a way to easily create patterns
8. Limiting the color palette to a few colors can hold your theme together
9. Letters are shapes too!

Anyway, don’t take my word for it. Check out my 4 Shapes Book and hopefully, you’ll be inspired to play with shapes in your own book, just like I was. I promise it will be the most fun you’ll have today.

The post BookWright: The Shapes Tool appeared first on Blurb Blog.

Want to take your photos off your phone and put them onto the pages of a book? We can help! Blurb for iPhone & iPad makes it easy to create a Mini Square 5×5 softcover and a Small Square 7×7 hardcover photo book. Your iPhone is great at organizing your photos, so your first few mobile books will be a cinch.

Collections

The Photos app on your iPhone or iPad automatically groups together photos by when and where they were taken in Collections. You can easily browse and select which photos from Collections you’d like to include in your book. Spent the summer at Lake Tahoe? Add that collection. Or maybe you want to pick and choose from a few 2016 holidays. You can do that too!

Favorites

Are you in the habit of hearting your favorite photos as you take them? If so, you’re one step ahead of the game. You can find this album of Favorites and select them to include in your book. This makes putting your best shots into a book that much easier.

Instagram

We all broadcast the highlights of our lives on our Instagram accounts, making it a simple way to curate a photo book. Instagram shows up as an album on your iPhone, giving you quick access to photos you have already curated and filtered.

Selfies

Know that album of photos featuring your beautiful face? Or where the pranksters that are your partner, friend, or kid like to surprise you? This album is easy to find and pull photos from to fill your photo book. Eat your heart out Kim Kardashian.

Photo Editing Apps

Many of your favorite photo apps (VSCO, Priime, Litely, Flickr) create albums on your phone when you edit and save photos. You can easily select your edited photos from these albums to make your next book.

Have any more ideas of where to find photos on your phone and breathe new life into them? Share with us below in the comments!

The post Three Books You Can Make on Your Phone appeared first on Blurb Blog.

To name a few, we have added tons more page layout options to BookWright. For Photo Books, Trade Books, and Magazines, we now have over 125 layouts per trim size to help you design the perfect book for you. We also have multiple Cover Layouts per cover type. Whether it’s a Dust Jacket, ImageWrap or Softcover book, there are several options to get you going in the right direction. And if you are someone who has used BookSmart in the past and are looking to upgrade to BookWright, you will find many of the same layouts that you are used to.

For inspiration, check out our blog for layout design tips and ideas.

Want to find all the latest layouts? Navigate to the cover or pages section of your book and select the Layouts tab. Easy as that!

We actively interview and solicit feedback from our community of book-makers. By doing so, we are able to make updates to the tool that our customers want. Enter the ability rotate your images and text to any angle that you want in BookWright. You’ll no longer be restricted to 90-degree rotations. Like what you see? Stay tuned! We will be releasing more community requested features like this in the near future!

As part of our support for rotating your content, we now allow users to place images and text off of the book page. This will allow you to rotate and place content in such a way that doesn’t prevent you from placing it too far from the edge of the page.

In addition, this will allow you to ensure that your images go all the way to the edge of the page for full bleed designs. When books are printed the outside content is trimmed off of your book, hanging an image off the page will ensure that your book will not end up with a white line on the edge of your page.

Any new features you’ve been wanting to see in BookWright? Tell us in the comments below. We’d love to hear from you!

Are you ready to make a photo book? Download BookWright to get started today!

The post BookWright features roundup: layouts appeared first on Blurb Blog.

In short, my phone, with the Blurb app isn’t just for photos. It’s for all the stuff I create on the go. Stuff like drawings I’ve made on my phone, scans of my Polaroids, digital collages—all this stuff that I generally make, share online, and then forget about.

A lot of my friends are actually good artists, and now I’m making them make books of their digital work. It’s so easy now, there is no excuse. In fact, a lot of these apps create their own albums in iOS Photos, you can easily just pull right from those!

While this isn’t unique to Blurb’s mobile app, there are some things that are. For instance, if you’re already a Blurb customer, your mobile books will be right there in your dashboard with your other books. You can share your books with your friends and fans right from the app as soon as you’ve made them. Plus, we have a new mobile exclusive Mini Square 5×5 in. book size.

So, artists, go ahead and download Blurb for iPhone & iPad! It could be the easiest art book you’ve ever made.

The post Blurb for iPhone and iPad: Thinking Beyond Photos appeared first on Blurb Blog.

So when I joined Blurb earlier this summer, I was so happy to hear that Blurb throws a Halloween Happy Hour for employees every year, which includes a highly prestigious costume contest. And what better way to document the party than with a fun photo book of all the costumes and spooky shenanigans? Now that we have the Blurb’s mobile app for iPhone and iPad, it’s even easier to make a book—and in less than 30 minutes.

Let me show you how:

Step 1: Take pictures and have fun!

Step 2: Create a new (or shared) folder of your party favorites.

Step 3: Open Blurb for iPhone and iPad mobile app and pick your format.

Step 4: Select the images from your photos folder

Step 5: Order your book. Poof, you’re done!

It’s that easy! We’ll be ordering a book for everyone who entered our costume contest, as well as one for our front lobby. But the best part is that I can share the photo book online with the entire office. So if anyone else wants a copy, I just go back into Blurb for iPhone and iPad mobile app and reorder the book as many times as I need. So whether it’s a keepsake for yourself, a hostess gift, or a little something to say thank you, Blurb’s mobile app has the perfect party solution for you!

What event or holiday will you be documenting with a Blurb mobile book? Tell us in the comments below.

The post How To Make a Halloween Book in One Day appeared first on Blurb Blog.

Here are some highlights:

1. Make a book in minutes. Pull photos directly from iOS collections and albums into your book, where autoflow places them into pages. Order directly from your phone and have it shipped with Blurb’s standard shipping. (Select Priority shipping for extra fast delivery.)
2. Customize it. Choose from three different page layouts, two sizes, and two cover types. Books in the mobile app can handle square, landscape, and portrait style photos, so there are plenty of options to put your shots on display.
3. Add captions to photos. Don’t lose track of where you where or what made you laugh. You can add captions and comments to each page.
4. Exclusive Mini Square 5×5 in. size: We love our Mini Square photo book. It works great for both gifts and mementos as you print the pics from a great day out. This size is only available through the mobile app.
5. Gorgeous quality. The Small Square 7×7 in. photo book features a matte, ImageWrap cover that is sleek and contemporary, and the Mini Square 5X5 in. photo book also has a matte cover, only in softcover. Both sizes have Premium Lustre photo paper that shows off vibrant colors and feels good to the touch with an eggshell finish. It’s hard to believe books that look and feel like this came from a mobile device!

In fact, it’s so fast and easy to make a photo book in the mobile app, you can multi-task. Making a book doesn’t mean you have to be sitting at a desk, working on it for weeks. You can do it anywhere you have your phone in-hand! (Please, not while driving or operating heavy machinery).

Make a book in minutes:

• On your commute home
• When you’re frustrated by Candy Crush
• When you’re winding down in bed
• When waiting for that friend who is hopelessly late
• While watching Netflix
• In line at the Post Office
• While waiting for take-out
• During a family dentist visit

It’s time to get those photos off your phone and into your hands, beautifully bound and printed. Download Blurb for iPhone and iPad to get started.

The post Now Make a Book From Your iPad or iPhone appeared first on Blurb Blog.

You can now create a single image design across the entire cover from front to back. Previously this was only available via our free plug-in for Adobe InDesign and PDF Uploader, so we’ve been eager to bring to our BookWright, our free-to-download book design tool.

You can stretch image and text containers from cover to cover, so now you get a seamless design for your Photo Books, Trade books, and Magazines. It’s so easy that it doesn’t really need instructions, but here’s how it works:

1. When you’re done designing the pages of your book, click “Covers” in the upper left corner of BookWright.*
2. Drag an image right onto the page—or draw an image container where you want it and drag your image onto it.
3. Add text as appropriate.
4. Et voila.

Remember, if you’re designing multiple cover types or a print book and an ebook, you can easily duplicate that design across all the covers. Just double check that everything’s in the right place, since different covers have different trim sizes.

This is just one of the top-requested BookWright features we’re releasing this fall. Check this space in the coming weeks for even more.

*Why do the pages first? Increasing or decreasing your page numbers—or changing the paper type—can affect the width of your book’s spine. So if you’ve designed your cover first—like I do—your image may not be large enough, or content may have shifted. Just check to make sure everything looks right before you upload.

The post Design Across the Cover with Blurb BookWright appeared first on Blurb Blog.

PDF to Book takes any multi-page PDF and lets you upload it to Blurb for easy book creation. This is handy if you’ve used a layout tool other than Adobe InDesign. (If you’ve used InDesign, you’ll generally have the best luck with our plug-in for Adobe InDesign). After all, virtually any program from QuarkXpress to Microsoft Word can output a PDF. Company whitepapers are often in PDF too, so you can readily make books of material your company has already produced. Of course, your PDF still has to be in print-resolution (300 DPI).

So, now that we’ve got that covered, here are the highlights of PDF to Book 3.2!

New in Version 3.2:

Improved preflight: No more guesswork trial and error of what book formats your PDF is suitable for. Just upload your file(s) and select from the available options.

Improved upload: Geo-specific uploading with better connectivity to ensure successful uploads.

Book Spine text: You can now create a spine and choose a color for it when uploading a Single-File PDF, with the option to add and color text to these spines when page minimums are met.

We hope this update reduces the friction in the book-making process and allows you to bring more books to life. If you have any feedback or suggestions on the update, let us know in the comments.

The post Introducing PDF to Book Updates appeared first on Blurb Blog.

Adobe Evangelist and photographer Terry White has created a step-by-step video to help you create an amazing travel photo book using the Book module in Lightroom.

Terry includes tips for making Collections, ordering your photos, using autoflow, and selecting your trim size. He then helps you fine-tune your layouts and add text so you’re ready to publish. Your favorite photo tool and your creativity make it easy to publish your book.

Blurb is integrated with Lightroom so you can use the best image editing features to organize and polish your vacation photos and make a beautiful book without interrupting your workflow. It’s the best of both worlds.

And now, take a look:

Have a tip for making a travel photo book in Adobe Photoshop Lightroom? Share it in the comments below!

The post How to Make a Travel Photo Book Using Lightroom appeared first on Blurb Blog.

We take care of that, too. We have a tool that will enable your file to work with the trim sizes of any of our formats.

Simply upload your PDF to the Blurb PDF Uploader!

Here’s how easy it is to self-publish your book.

Look:

Previously, Blurb required a very exacting PDF that was sometimes a bit of a pain to create. But we have made great improvements to our PDF Uploader that allows PDF files from any application including MS Word or Apple Pages.

There are still a few requirements that will ensure that your book will look great and be exactly what you want.
• All fonts must be embedded in the PDF
• The dimensions of the PDF to be somewhat close to the book-size you select.

The greatest improvement to the PDF Uploader is the ability to re-size your PDF to fit a particular book-trim. For instance, you can upload a Letter-Size PDF, and have the ability to produce either of our two Magazine options as well as an 8×10 book. Your PDF will be quickly analyzed and you get an option for Blurb to auto-correct your file.

The PDF will automatically be re-sized to fit whichever of these sizes you want to make. You will also see a finished preview of your modified book prior to order, so you can be assured exactly what the book will look like.

Just go to the Book Types page and choose a book size that closely matches the PDF you have ready to go. If you decide you want to modify your PDF to fit another book-trim that isn’t close to what you currently have, simply go to the Book Specifications Calculator where you can get the exact dimensions for your desired book size.

So, if you have a PDF or want to create one with any application that you prefer, go to the PDF Uploader and get your book published quickly and easily!

Have you used our PDF uploader? Have tips or tricks that helped? Why did you choose to use a PDF?

Talk about it in the comments below!

The post Have a PDF? Just upload and publish! appeared first on Blurb Blog.

Is the process for making a magazine in BookWright similar to that of making a book?

Getting started with design and photo importing in BookWright is the same process as when you start any other print format—but there are some differences to keep in mind before you get started:

1. The magazine format has the option of printing images and or text on the inside of the front and back cover. We think this is a nice design addition that is exclusive to this print format. You’ll find it in the “Covers” section of BookWright.
2. To keep printing costs as low as possible, Blurb requires that all magazine page counts be divisible by four—so keep that in mind when setting up the content for the pages portion of your book. You can always add blank sheets at the end to make your magazine fit this page count. But don’t worry—BookWright will let you know on upload if your magazine’s page count is incorrect.
3. The magazine’s spine is relatively small, even at larger page number counts, so it might be best to use an image, background color, or texture on the spine in place of text. Given the limited space that is available and the variation of the printing process, you are more likely to get a final product you are happy with if you stay away from using text.

Please explain the advantages of the WYSIWYG soft proofing feature in BookWright.

BookWright has soft proofing built in. If you have ever visited our color management page, you know how complicated this can be—yet it’s an important part of your book design process. We’ve taken Blurb’s ICC Profile for color management and integrated it directly into BookWright to help save you time and make it available for everyone—regardless of technical ability.

As you drop images into your book, we automatically apply the color profile to help manage colors more closely. (However, this can also be disabled in your Preferences view, if you wish to work without it.) If you are designing an ebook, BookWright will disable the profile automatically so you see the true colors, since digital files do not, obviously, need to be calibrated for print.

How do you turn a print magazine file into an ebook file in BookWright?

When you design a magazine in BookWright, you are designing both the print and ebook formats at the same time. To order the ebook, the only extra thing you have to do is design its specific cover. So no matter where you start, whether it’s with print in mind or with ebook in mind, you can always just add a new cover design to have print, ebook, or both.

What makes the magazine format such a good fit for the iPad?

Magazine is a Portrait shape, so when you view the ebook in iBooks the contents of the ebook will fill up the entire screen in both Portrait and Landscape view of the iPad. It fits perfectly, automatically.

What’s a good way you see people using magazines made with BookWright?

Since it is compact, lightweight, and at a low price point, some of our customers are leveraging the magazine format as a way to create a portfolio of their work that they can hand out to prospective clients, friends, at job interviews, or just to individuals they are looking to impress with their work.
Because of their wider shape, book sizes like Large Landscape or Standard Landscape (which are available in ebook) tend to leave empty space on the iPad screen. The difference is noticeable, so keep this if you want an iPad-optimized experience for your ebook.

How does using BookWright compare to designing a book in Adobe® InDesign®?

Our long-term goal for BookWright is to offer an approachable book creation tool that does not require classes or tutorials to learn how to design a great book. Learning to use InDesign can be an undertaking that most users are uncomfortable committing the required amount of time to, so we want to provide a faster way to both design a book, as well as offer flexibility in book design. It’s possible to do more InDesign than will ever be available in BookWright, but we do feel BookWright provides a nice blend of ease of use and functionality—without the need for vast training or personal time invested.

What’s a good way you see people using magazines made with BookWright?

Since it is compact, lightweight, and at a low price point, some of our customers are leveraging the magazine format as a way to create a portfolio of their work that they can hand out to prospective clients, friends, at job interviews, or just to individuals they are looking to impress with their work.

The post Making Magazines with BookWright: An Interview with Trevor Ehle appeared first on Blurb Blog.

Periodicals represent some of the earliest forms of print-on-demand publications. Newspapers and magazines have always been responsive to their audience in terms of time and content. This aligns perfectly with the needs of Blurb’s authors and creators who currently reach their readers through books—but may want to communicate more frequently with their audience. With Blurb magazines, you can have an ongoing dialog with your audience.

Thanks to BookWright magazine templates, magazine editors can focus on their content and not get bogged down in magazine layout design. Magazines have a very specific, industry-standard structure to them, from the front-of-book, which includes the table of contents, masthead, and editor’s letter, through editorial features to the back-of-book pages.

All of these layouts are available for download and for use in BookWright. They contain every page you need, from cover to cover, and even come with various styles that include preselected font and color palettes.

At Blurb, we love every little element related to publication design—and the magazine templates are a great place to showcase our obsession with professional techniques. We’ve included initial caps, pull quotes, rules, dingbats, and flourishes. Every page is rich with these devices, so all you have to do is drop in your photos, headlines, quotes, and copy—and you’ll instantly have a magazine that rivals the quality of a top newsstand publication.

Of course, our templates are just a starting point. You can intermix the template pages with the individual layouts that are also included within BookWright and experiment with your own color palette. If you’re thinking about making an online version of your magazine, BookWright lets you create one file and get stunning results in both print and PDF. It couldn’t be easier.

We hope that these templates will inspire you to dive into the world of magazine publication. Are you a vintage toy enthusiast? Salsa dancing-obsessed? Want to showcase international graffiti? You may have a global audience of people who share your passion and are just waiting to connect with like-minded folks through your magazine.

Claire’s passion for publication design exploded while she was studying Graphic Design in San Francisco in the 90s. Her love of pop culture, typography, and photography collided in the layouts of Fred Woodwards’ Rolling Stone spreads. She’d gaze at them for hours, each one so beautifully designed, with the most unique fonts and flourishes. It gave her a deep appreciation for the rich history of graphics and the never-ending potential of the blank page.

Get started with your magazine today!

The post Periodical Power: Free Magazine Templates for BookWright appeared first on Blurb Blog.

1- “My images printed too dark!”

The reason for this is usually a simple one: Viewing images on a monitor which is backlit, not calibrated, and probably set too bright for print work, (versus an image printed on paper which is not backlit) and probably darker than the white color of your monitor. The solution is to invest in a monitor calibration kit that includes a colorimeter, which is around $100. Search the web for “color calibration monitor” to find products that will work with your setup. A Calibration Kit provides a setting that you can turn on and off when you are working specifically for print.

2- “My images don’t look the same as they did on my monitor!”

This is another common observation among photographers, especially if they’ve never done a print project. This is mainly due to viewing images in the RGB color-space on their monitor. Printed images are in a CMYK color-space on paper. The printed CMYK color-space is smaller than the RGB color-space.

Images in RGB will have colors “clipped” so that they fit into the CMYK color-space when printed. A helpful step in preparing images for CMYK print is to use the Softproofing functionality of Lightroom with the U.S. Sheetfed Coated v2 Profile. By soft proofing the images within Lightroom, you will get a good representation of color changes that may occur when printing, and you can make necessary adjustments to optimize the images for print.

3- “My images don’t look as sharp as I wanted.”

This comment usually stems from comparing images printed with CMYK dots to continuous–tone photo prints done at a lab. When images are printed on a press, the images are broken down into a high-resolution screen pattern, which slightly softens images. This is why “Sharpening” is part of the process when preparing images for print. There have been many articles written on how to sharpen your images for print, and they can be complex. The great thing about uploading your book, through Lightroom, directly to Blurb, is that images are automatically sharpened for optimized printing. You don’t need to worry about figuring out the proper sharpening process.

4 – “I wish I could have seen what my images would like before I placed a big order.”

You spend a lot of time and effort creating a wonderful book, and it should be exactly what you want. A reasonable solution to this is creating a test book. Start by selecting some images from your intended big project. Next create a small square (7×7) softcover book with the paper type you hope to use. Place the images you’ve chosen at the same size of the big book, possibly with different adjustments. This will give you an accurate “proof” of your images, and you can make any final adjustments before placing the ‘real’ order.

5- “I had a bit of trouble uploading my book.”

This isn’t image-related, but can arise due to internet connectivity issues. Uploading a book to Blurb can result in a large file. To alleviate any interruptions, we always recommend a hard-wired connection, if possible, as opposed to a Wi-Fi connection.

Over to You

If you’ve never created a photo book with Blurb, explore our book sizes and papers.

To get started, click on the Book Module, choose a book size, paper type, and cover for your book. Choose a layout and get busy building your own special book, which you can share with others and even sell to your fans in the Blurb Bookstore! You can also find help and answers on how to make a good photo book.

We are excited to have such an elegant way of making a book with Blurb completely integrated within Lightroom, and hope you give it a try. When that book arrives and you share it with others, you will be so surprised and happy with how impactful your images will look in a professionally printed book.

The post Five Tips to Improve Your Photo Book Images in Lightroom appeared first on Blurb Blog.

First, download the Blurb Plugin for Adobe InDesign for your version of InDesign and install it. Once correctly installed, you will find the plugin at the bottom of the File Menu, which keeps track of all your Blurb projects. Here are some things to know as you are creating your marvelous books with InDesign.

Do not modify the templates created for your project.
Do not adjust anything with the dimensions of the document once you create an initial template from the plugin. The print-on-demand workflow is very specific, and any changes to document size will cause either a problem or unsatisfying results with your book.

Do not use the registration color swatch in your design.
Adobe should have removed this default color swatch from the swatch menu years ago, but it still is there and should never be used with Blurb books. It causes too much ink to be printed and can actually make your submission rejected by our print devices. If you would like to use a rich black in your design, please create a new rich black swatch consisting of the following mix:
Cyan – 60%, Magenta – 50%, Yellow – 50%, Black – 100%.

Do not use spot colors in your design.
Spot colors do not always convert to expected results when printed. Convert your spot colors to CMYK, then you can be assured of colors reproducing correctly.

Do not use overly complex vector imagery.
One of the things that I have seen cause issues in the past here at Blurb, is using very complicated vector imagery, usually created in CAD applications or complex Adobe Illustrator files. Rasterizing these images in Photoshop will resolve this. If you are unsure whether your images may be too complex, a simple test of exporting the InDesign document containing the images using the Blurb PDF Export preset and then viewing in Adobe Acrobat/Reader. If you notice a delay as Acrobat/Reader draws these images on your screen, it is a good bet that when trying to render these images at a much higher resolution on a printer, could cause an issue.

Create your cover template after your inside page design is complete.
Though inside page dimensions will always remain constant, the cover document will change depending on the paper type and page count of your book. Different paper types have different thicknesses, and obviously, a book with more pages will have a different spine width. Once you have decided on paper type and you know your final page count, then return to the plugin, and create your cover template.

Note the instruction layer.
Be aware of the safety, trim, and bleed lines on the Instruction layer of your template. Keep all important text or elements within the safety area. Be sure to extend any images you want to go to the edge of the trim all the way out to the bleed line.

Order a proof copy.
If you intend to order a large quantity of books, we recommend ordering first a single copy to review. Many things can be missed while reviewing online, and a single proof copy to review is insurance that everything will print as you intend.
It may add a little time to your workflow, but the assurance that a large order is going to print correctly is peace of mind.

Upload your project directly through the Blurb InDesign plugin.
Though Blurb offers a PDF upload for projects, use the plugin to upload your book to Blurb. We have created specific preflight and correction features that are only available when you upload directly within the plugin. You will get better results and fewer obstacles/surprises by uploading within the plugin.

Learn more about Adobe InDesign and the Blurb plugin.

The post Ten tips to make a Blurb book with Adobe InDesign appeared first on Blurb Blog.

I work in Lightroom because it offers the flexibility to manage and edit my photographs and provides quick access to Blurb’s book templates via the Book module. Everything is in one place in Lightroom. Which is why Lightroom might be the answer for you too.

Here are five tips to take advantage of the best Lightroom features and complete and upload your photo book project quickly and easily.

1. The Ruthless Edit and Collection

After downloading your photos to Lightroom, go through them in the Library module. Reject the photos of your delicious Menu del Dia lunch that were poorly light and 22 of the 24 shots of cows wearing gigantic cow bells that seemed so quaint, and now look, well boring. After you’ve narrowed your choices and culled the very best 50 images, look at them. What do you see? What themes emerge? Have a theme in mind to narrow the image choices further and tag them for a Lightroom Collection. Our trip was about food, surfing, and art, which comes together well in places like Bilbao and San Sebastián and reflects the interests of my husband, our surf-mad son, and me.

2. Library Module

Spend time in the Lightroom Library module to select and sequence your image collection in the right order to tell your story and then add captions as file names. Doing this work up front will save you time and make the book making process easier. Once I have a general sequence for the book and captions ready, I proceed to the Develop module to complete the adjustments and sharpen the final 30 images in my collection. You will notice that I did not develop the other 989 images. That’s for another day.

3. Book Module

Click the Book module from your collection and your images will automatically import. Make sure you set the Book preferences. This is the place to automatically zoom your photos in the layout and to select in Text options, text boxes to fill with title metadata, so the captions that you set up in the Library module will import. In Book Settings in the upper right hand corner of the interface you can select your book Size, Cover, and Paper Type. This menu will also calculate the price of your book as you work so you know exactly how much your masterpiece will cost.

Below the Book Settings you can select your layout page style in Auto Layout. Select your text style in the Text Style Preset. Finally, hit the Clear Layout button and hit the Auto Layout button to follow the new settings in your new layout. Within the Page menu on the right side of the interface, there is a small arrow with a pull down menu that will allow you to modify individual pages. I find this handy if I want to adjust certain pages or change particular image sizes.

4. Cover Selection

I typically pick my cover and back cover images last. After working with and refining the interior layout, I make the final selections. This is my opportunity to tell the story with one image (front cover) and the prologue (back cover).

5. Save and Send Book to Blurb

At the top of the Lightroom workspace, make sure to click Create Saved Book and save your book within your Collections set. Finally after proofing your book one last time, you’re ready to hit the Send Book to Blurb button at the bottom right hand corner of your workspace. With your Summer 2015 book complete, you can start thinking about your next trip!

Learn more about using Lightroom to make photo books here. 

The post 5 Tips to Publish a Great Summer Photo Book Using Adobe Photoshop Lightroom appeared first on Blurb Blog.