Image Format and Resolution for Picture Books
If you are thinking about creating a picture book with your photos take a little time to prepare your images to meet the printer's specifications. The format is normally JPEG in the sRGB color space. If you don't understand sRGB, don't worry about it, but you should be sure that the image file is in JPEG or other format that the printer may accept.
Resolution is very important. On the computer screen anything above 72 ppi (pixels per inch) to 100 ppi looks great. This will not be the case when the images are printed. Consider the printed size of the image. Is it a full page or a 3x4 inch image on a page. The appropriate resolution for the size of the image as it will appear in the book is usually somewhere on the printer's website. In the case of MyPublisher, the resolution that I prefer is 300 ppi. For the hard cover book that is approximately 11 x 8.5 inches, I want to make sure that the pixel dimensions for a full bleed image is 3300x2550 pixels. This is for a full bleed image (it fills the entire page). For smaller images on a page, you can size in order to achieve 300 ppi for whatever dimension the image will appear on the page.
The image above was taken in Vic, Norway which is on the Sognefjord, the largest fjord in Norway. I like the look of the bow of this old wooden boat.
I love your photos. How do you like the quality of MyPublisher books? Have you tried others, like Blurb or Aperture or Mpix?
ReplyDeleteI know MyPublisher has some great sales via Costco, but I've not tried them yet.
I've seen the books from Blurb and Ritz/Wolf. Neither came up to the quality of MyPublisher or iBook. The Ritz book was the lowest quality in a side by side comparison of photo books done by students in one of my classes. I believe that MyPublisher and iBook are printed in the same facility and utilize an Indigo Press which closely simulates higher quality, color offset printing. I have not seen any books produced through Aperture but assume it is the same as iBook. The parent company of Mpix, Miller's Professional Imaging, is the lab that I use for my printed photo work. They are the best pro lab in my opinion. I'm sure that their books are top quality; although, I have never used them for book production. I think that I would use them if I was in the wedding photography business; I'm not, thankfully!
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