We see hundreds of wickedly creative drop-dead gorgeous photo books every day at Inkubook. Lately we’ve noticed by the number of personalized wedding guest books being made that wedding season must be coming soon. One wedding guest book that really caught our attention was one created by the blogger of Budget Savvy Bride.
With permission from her talented Franklin, TN-based photographer Evin Photography, the Budget Savvy Bride used several gorgeous photos from her engagement shoot to create a custom-designed wedding guest book on Inkubook. The finished book was amazing. This bride-to-be definitely has style. She opted for a non-lined design allowing her guests to write messages freely throughout the book. Flip through her Inkubook photo book widget below to get some ideas for your own wedding guest book or pass it along to a friend on Facebook or MySpace who might be getting married this year. Just click the “Get Widget” button and follow the directions.
At Inkubook, we’ve created background schemes to complement many different calendar and life events (such as weddings, babys’ births, and different seasons), and Halloween is no exception. While none of our backgrounds is so terrifying that your hair will turn white with fright, all of them are awfully cute and seasonable.
The Kughens get busy decorating pumpkins.
As you can see, I’ve used the Candy Corn and Happy Jack o’ Lantern backgrounds with photos from this year’s pumpkin decorating. I think they make the perfect backdrop for our pumpkin construction process. Here’s a peek at the full collection of Halloween backgrounds:
One of my favorite things about the Inkubook background collections is that you don’t have to use only the backgrounds that are in the theme you pick when you first start your book. For example, my husband and I will be making a book to give to our mothers for Christmas. It’ll cover the past 12 months, starting with Christmas of last year, so of course we’ll want to use a variety of backgrounds that coordinate with each type of photo we have. Seashells and flip-flops for our trip to Florida, Meow and Woof for our cat and dog, and, of course, the aforementioned backgrounds for Halloween.
If it comes as a surprise to you that you can add more backgrounds to your Backgrounds gallery, here’s a brief tutorial. (This also gives me an opportunity to mention that we gave our editor a little makeover at the end of last week. Things are better organized and easier to find than before, so make sure to check it out.)
The tabs at the top of the updated editor,
with the Backgrounds tab highlighted. Notice
the blue Get More Backgrounds button.
When you’re ready to browse for backgrounds that aren’t in the collection that goes with the theme you chose when you started your book, make sure you’re on the Backgrounds tab (now located at the top of your editor screen) and click the blue Get More Backgrounds button. A screen with the full array of backgrounds will open. You can browse them all and decide which you want to include in your book. Click the one you want then click Apply. The background will be applied to the active page in your book and it’ll be added to your Backgrounds gallery. (Before long it’ll be possible to choose and add several backgrounds at once.)
Use our feedback form or leave a comment on this post to let us know what kind of backgrounds you’d like to see us add, and we’ll send you a t-shirt to thank you for your suggestion.
I am frequently awed by the magnificent works of art that people are able to turn out through digital or traditional scrapbooking. I mean, I can barely draw a rectangle using a software application or put a stamp on an envelope without it being crooked or upside down. So I can pretty much forget about creating a beautiful scrapbook page. I am, of course, envious of the people who are artistic and use Inkubook to collect their LOs.
This is a gorgeous layout, but some of the text on the
right page gets a little lost in the gutter.
Making a photo book of scrapbook layouts is one of the most popular uses of Inkubook, so even though I’m jealous I can put my envy aside in the interest of helping to bring more beauty into the world.
It’s not uncommon for someone who’s working on a layout book to ask our support department the following question: “How do I need to size my layout so that it fills the full page?” Consequently, we’ve prepared a PDF that will hopefully fill in some of the blanks. This PDF addresses such things as
What is the size of the page before it’s trimmed?
How much of the page is trimmed off?
If I have text on my page, how do I avoid having it run into the gutter?
I could go into all of those details here, but the PDF describes it much more concisely than I ever would, and it includes four very nice diagrams that show all the trim lines. It’ll be better if you just check it out.
If you’re still having difficulty knowing how to size your image after looking at the PDF, our support team is standing by to answer additional questions. You can access our live chat support service through our Support page, or you can email support@inkubook.com.
Preview: a feature of Inkubook that’s so helpful and yet so often overlooked. Poor Preview. Let’s make him happy by giving him some love.
The Preview button as it looks today and as it will look later this week.
In case you’ve never noticed our friend Preview, I’ve placed a picture of him to the right. Why are there two? Well, the little blue guy is what Preview looks like today. Later this week he’s going to get a makeover along with the rest of his family, and he’s going to be a bigger, bolder, more yellow version of himself. Perhaps he won’t be so overlooked then.
Anyway, the reason Preview is so helpful is because when you use it, you get to see your book in a format that more closely resembles an actual printed book. It’s still not quite like holding a book in your hands because Preview is a two-dimensional picture rather than a three-dimensional thing, but it’s pretty close. All the picture and text container boxes are stripped out. We’ve added a little shading that simulates what the roll of the pages will look like when you have the book open in front of you. The gallery panels are moved out of the way so all your focus can be on the book.
Let’s look at an example of how Preview helped me decide I needed to make a change in one of my books. Below is a spread from a book about my dog Pete (aka Pistol Pete) and my cat Milo (aka The Catnip Kid). I’ve used backgrounds from the Pets collection, and I chose a nice beige color for the text because it seemed like it would complement the backgrounds nicely. Looks pretty decent in the Editor view, don’t you think?
In the Editor, I can easily read all my captions…
If I were to buy this book without checking it out in Preview, I’d be a little disappointed when it arrived at my house. While the beige text does coordinate nicely with the colors in the backgrounds, it doesn’t show up so well in the caption under the picture of Milo in the basket because it’s basically the same color as the beige stripe. I hadn’t noticed this when I was editing the book because of the gray background of the text boxes. Now using Preview I can see that the caption looks like it says “And he’s an exp h .” Look at the shot of the spread in Preview to see what I mean.
…but in Preview part of one caption fades into the background.
Now that I know what my text actually looks like, I can go back to the Editor to play with different colors of my captions to find something that works a little better on my backgrounds.
Eager though you might be to order your book and have it in your hot little hands, make sure to use Preview to give it a double-check before clicking Buy. You might find that you’re able to make your book even better than it already is.
Some time ago I confessed that I have a secret desire to learn to take really impressive pictures that would look wonderful in a photo book. So when I saw Bob Ross’s Inkubook Serene Moments: The Photography of Bob Ross, I was more than a little jealous.
Bob has been a serious amateur photographer for about 40 years, and now that he’s retired and doesn’t have the demands of raising a young family he has more time available to devote to photography. Before he retired he spent a lot of time traveling by car on business trips, and he found that his love of photography gave him a greater appreciation for his surroundings than he otherwise would have had. Now he takes pictures on a monthly basis, and he sees it as some people see fishing: It’s great when he comes home with something nice, but it’s just as great when he doesn’t.
Bob was kind enough to share some tips that he feels contribute to his ability to take fantastic photos, so we’re sharing them with you today. This weekend, get out in the fresh air to try your hand with some of these suggestions. The change of seasons is a perfect opportunity to take photos of your surroundings. After all, practice makes perfect!
Photography Tips 1. Use a tripod whenever possible.
2. If your camera accepts filters, use a polarizing filter. It reduces glare and increases the color saturation, as well as darkens blue skies. Caution: Look through the viewfinder and rotate the polarizer to see the effect you want or it could have the opposite effect from what you’re seeking.
3. The first hour after dawn and the last hour before sunset are the best times for shooting. The low light models objects better and increases color saturation. Sun directly overhead is the poorest light, but if you like the scene and it’s midday, shoot it anyway. An overcast day is also great for fall photography.
4. Backlighting of fall leaves is wonderful. Backlighting is where the sun is coming from behind the object you’re shooting and lighting up translucent objects such as leaves. Be careful, however, to avoid the sun shining directly on the front of the camera lens.
5. When composing the scene, try to place objects of the greatest interest (such as a lone tree in a field or a church steeple set against a hillside) anywhere other than dead center in the picture. Moving objects of interest to the upper right, lower right, upper left, or lower left is more attractive placement than having them in the center. Try it. You’ll see the difference.
6. If there is a horizon in your picture, it is best to NOT place it right in the center. Move it up if you’re emphasizing the foreground or down if you want to emphasize the sky. Having the horizon in the center is static unless you’re shooting something with a reflection of itself in a pond or lake.
7. Close-ups are always a good idea. A few leaves on the ground or berries are appealing subjects for close-ups if your camera allows.
Tips for Digital Processing Most digital cameras default to a setting that yields softer and less colorful pictures. That’s because so many shots are taken of people. When working with nature photography, you overcome this by using the software that came with your camera to process the photos on your PC. Experiment with increasing color saturation, contrast, and sharpness. Always sharpen a photo LAST, after having made all other changes. You’ll find that you can double the impact of a digital photo by careful use of the adjustment options that come with the software. After you’ve made your adjustments, you’ll want to click on File then Save As. Rename the picture, and when you finally save it you’ll be making a clone of the original with all your changes while saving the original so that you can go back to it if you don’t like the results or want to experiment more.
General Suggestions Consider these scenes for your fall photography: waterfalls, decrepit old barns with colorful trees beside them, lovely old homes, or any kind of water such as a stream, a pond, or a lake. You can photograph property without permission from a public position, but always ask permission before going onto private property.
Here we are at the end of our journey: Part IV of the ”Making Photo Books: Planning Your Approach” series. For those of you who have been with me since the beginning of the series, give yourself a pat on the back. For those of you who are just joining me, you might want to revisit the other parts in this series about forming a plan to make a book:
Part II is about making a simple outline and starting to organize your photos
Part III discusses making scans of odds and ends to include in your book and how best to name your photo files
In many photo books, getting the photos ready is the task that takes the bulk of the time. After all, photos tend to be the centerpiece of photo books. But sometimes there are a few other loose ends to tie up before you really launch into making a book. Sometimes, it helps to…
6. Type the Stories
For the most part, I type my text directly into the Inkubook text editor. That way, I know which photos I’ve placed on which pages and I can easily refer to them or customize my narration according to what’s on the page. I can also judge more accurately how much space I have in the layout where the text belongs.
There are times, though, when I prefer to type something in Word and upload it. Recipes for my cookbook, for example, might be easier to type out before I put them in the book, or I might just upload recipes I already have stored on my hard drive. Or if I plan to have some pages in the book that are text and only text, typing them in advance allows me to take advantage of some of the tools that Word has that the Inkubook text editor doesn’t, such as spell check. While the Inkubook text editor is a handy tool, it doesn’t have some conveniences of more robust word processors.
There’s just one other thing I need to do, and that’s…
7. Plan to Send Invitations
My hard work is mostly done. I’ve done my brainstorming, my planning, and my organization. I’m ready to ask someone else to do some work, and one of the terrific things about Inkubook is that it’s really easy to ask other people to contribute to books without the hassle of sending them a file to read through and update. That process always ends in tragedy. (OK, maybe “tragedy” is a bit melodramatic, but it’s never simple.) Shuttling a file around from one person to another usually holds up my progress because I have to wait for person A to finish what he’s doing before I can work on the project myself; otherwise, I’ll end up with multiple versions of the files.
It’s one of my favorite photos from 1981, but you can probably
see why my family might prefer something more recent.
I’m the short one on the left.
After I’ve sent my Inkubook invitations everyone can work simultaneously in one centralized location. In the case of my cookbook, many of the recipes I plan to feature were given to me by my mother and sister, so I’ll be sending them invitations. The fact that we can all upload to one location without overriding each other means my pokey mother (I love you, Mom!) can work at her own pace while my super-efficient sister works at hers and there’s no conflict between the two. I’ll be asking them to include a picture of themselves (largely because I’m sure they’d rather have me use current pictures of their own choosing rather than some of my favorites from 1981) as well as any recipes they’d like to have added to the book. When I’m done putting the cookbook together, I can ask them to preview the book to make sure I don’t have any awful errors in the text. (I’ve learned the hard way that three tablespoons of salt used in place of three tablespoons of sugar can be very, very bad.)
So there you have it. I’ve now shared my seven steps to planning and crafting an Inkubook. I like to tweak systems to make them better as I get more practice, so I’m still really interested in how you all do things, so please feel free to email suggestions to ckughen at inkubook dot com. Maybe we’ll get enough ideas to continue the series!
So in Part I and Part II of “Making Photo Books: Planning Your Approach” I talked a little about deciding what type and style of Inkubook to make, and I gave some suggestions for how to get started on organizing your content. In this part I’m going to share a few ideas about things you can include in your book that you might not have already thought about and give you one more nugget of wisdom about preparing your files for uploading. If you’re not already on the edge of your seat, you should be, because first I’m going to suggest that you…
4. Make Scans of Miscellaneous Artwork, Memoribilia, and Documents
A scan of the recipe card for my grandmother’s coffee cake.
We talk a lot about “photo books” at Inkubook, but that doesn’t mean that every image you use in your book has to be a photo that you took with a digital camera. Most of us have odds and ends lying around that would be easy to scan and appropriate to use in a book. For example, when my husband and I make books about our family, we regularly scan artwork from school, letters to Santa, and official documents (like our marriage certificate). In the cookbook I’m working on, I might include a scan of the original recipe card for my grandmother’s coffee cake. That way it’ll be preserved forever even though the recipe has been transcribed to a nice, new book. Scans can add extra dimension to your photo book and can help round out the story you’re telling.
After I’ve made the scans, I make sure to place the files (or copies of them) in the same folder where the other images for my book are stored. In case you’ve forgotten, the reason I do this is because it saves me a little time and confusion if I don’t have to search my hard drive to cherry pick the files for my book. Whenever I’ve had to search a number of different folders to find the photos I need, I inevitably find myself returning to the same folder over and over again because I can’t remember that I’ve already checked there. It’s like when I have to drive around the block three times before I can finally get to the entrance of the parking garage, and that frustrates me. Better to just have everything collected in one place so that it’s ready to go.
After the scans are made and collected in the designated Inkubook folder, there’s just one last thing I like to do in relation to organizing my image files, and that’s…
5. Give the Photos Descriptive Names
As fancy as digital cameras might be, they don’t go the extra mile toward putting specific names on photos. Wouldn’t it be nice if the camera could identify your subject and give the picture a snazzy name instead of using IMG_0304? We can dream that it will happen one day, but for the time being, I often try to rename my photos with something descriptive.
Renaming your photos is especially helpful if you’re not copying all the files into one specific folder. Beyond that, if you use any page layouts that include caption boxes, you can save yourself some editing after your book is assembled. In layouts that use caption boxes (usually a small text box that’s very close to the photo box), the caption boxes are automatically populated with the filename of the photo. Sometimes I choose to not use the captions at all, in which case I just delete the text in the caption boxes. But when I am using captions, I don’t have to redo them all in the editor when I’ve already given the file a caption-like name. [Revision: A recent update to Inkubook changed this feature. Now caption boxes aren't automatically filled in with your filenames. Because I like words more than I like random letters and numbers, I'll probably still give my photo files descriptive names.]
The next part is the last in this series (for now). I’m very interested in hearing what suggestions you have because I’m always looking for ways I can do things more efficiently. Please share your ideas by sending a comment through our Feedback form!
Here at Inkubook, “We want to improve” is our middle name. Sure, it’s virtually impossible to fit on a standardized form, but getting better is important to us so we live with the inconvenience.
Getting better at what we do means taking the feedback we receive seriously. One thing that has come up often, both in responses to surveys we’ve done and in conversations you’ve had with our support staff, is that the full-page bleed layouts necessary to upload your very own scrapbook designs aren’t easily found. We plan to rectify that as best we can as soon as we can by making sure that the full-page bleed layout is available by default in the Layouts gallery. In the meantime, though, we’d like to give you some tips that might help you find it when you’re looking for it.
Currently the full-page layout for the 8.5″ x 8.5″ book is not in the Layouts gallery when you start a book. But we do have one. You just need to add it to your gallery so that you can place it on your pages. Here’s what you need to do:
Make sure you’re on a page of the book (not one of the covers) and click the Layouts tab.
Click More at the left end of the gallery. This will show you all the available layout options for this size book, and it looks like this:
The full-page bleed layout that you’re looking for (one without any other photo or text continers) is in the second row, second from the left. See the picture below for the exact location. We’ve included a shockingly pink arrow and callout so you can’t miss it.
Click the layout then click Apply. It’ll be added to your Layouts gallery and will be placed on the active page.
Here’s where to find the full-page bleed layout in the 8.5″ x 8.5″ book.
In the 11″ x 8.5″ landscape book and the 8.5″ x 11″ portrait book, the full-page bleed layouts are a little easier to locate because they’re already in your Layouts gallery. There are two pictures below to show you exactly what you’re looking for.
This is where the full-page bleed layout is in gallery of the landscape book…
…and this is the location in the gallery of your portrait book.
You are now properly armed with the information you need to put your digital LOs (or scans of your traditional scrapbook pages) into a drop-dead gorgeous book.
Just so you know, one of the other bits of feedback we’ve received is the suggestion that we should create a feature that allows you to apply the same layout to every page. We think that’s a great idea. We don’t want anyone to get repetitive stress injury from having to drag the same layout onto every page of a book. This is a feature that we definitely plan to implement. In the meantime, we hope you’ll bear with us as we work through the list of all the things we want to do.
We’re standing by to hear more of your feedback, so please use our Feedback form to send us a note. Otherwise, we encourage you to get started on your book. If you make one that you’re really proud of and you’d like to share it with us, use the Invite Friends feature to send an invitation to ckughen at Inkubook dot com. If you give us permission to use it, your book might end up in one of our sample galleries!
Last week, Jason Kottkepointed to a blog post by renowned movie critic Roger Ebert. The post, in and of itself, is fascinating as it describes how to “read” a movie by freezing a frame and then discussing the various aspects of the shot. Of course analyzing a single frame of a film is no different than analyzing a still photograph. For that reason, the post provides tremendous insight into how to compose shots. In particular, the following paragraph is so rich in information that it could be the curriculum for an entire course on photography.
In simplistic terms: Right is more positive, left more negative. Movement to the right seems more favorable; to the left, less so. The future seems to live on the right, the past on the left. The top is dominant over the bottom. The foreground is stronger than the background. Symmetrical compositions seem at rest. Diagonals in a composition seem to “move” in the direction of the sharpest angle they form, even though of course they may not move at all. Therefore, a composition could lead us into a background that becomes dominant over a foreground. Tilt shots of course put everything on a diagonal, implying the world is out of balance. I have the impression that more tilts are down to the right than to the left, perhaps suggesting the characters are sliding perilously into their futures. Left tilts to me suggest helplessness, sadness, resignation. Few tilts feel positive. Movement is dominant over things that are still. A POV above a character’s eyeline reduces him; below the eyeline, enhances him. Extreme high angle shots make characters into pawns; low angles make them into gods. Brighter areas tend to be dominant over darker areas, but far from always: Within the context, you can seek the “dominant contrast,” which is the area we are drawn toward. Sometimes it will be darker, further back, lower, and so on. It can be as effective to go against intrinsic weightings as to follow them.
Holy cow, that is a lot of information! To get a better understanding, let’s break it down into a quick cheat sheet:
The downward angle makes poor Diva seem insignificant
Direction
Right is Good, Left is Bad
Up is Strong, Down is Weak
Foreground is Strong, Background is Weak
Movement
Right is Future, Left is Past
Symmetry implies no movement
Diagonals move toward the sharpest angle
Tilt
Tilts imply chaos
Tilt to the right is sliding into the future
Tilt to the left indicates sadness
Point of View
Shooting from above reduces the subject
Upward shots empower the subject
The subtle messages buried in the composition of a photograph can often be tough to grasp. You can tell by the words used by Ebert that in as much as we would like to break this down into a science, it is ultimately how an image makes you feel that is the best clue to its meaning.
In Part I of “Making Photo Books: Planning Your Approach,” I started at the beginning, which is making the decision about what type and style of book you’re going to make. Those are often somewhat easy decisions. Now you get to start on what I consider to be the good part, which is actually organizing the content of your book. When I make an Inkubook, I first…
2. Make an Outline
The outline for my cookbook.
Whoa, take it easy. I can sense that your eyes just widened in horror. There’s no need to panic. I’m not talking about the kind of outline your eighth-grade teacher made you do for your paper about genetic traits in fruit flies. I’m talking about a simple breakdown of the order of your book. For example, I’m working on a cookbook so that I have the recipes I use frequently in one location. I’m tired of searching through a pile of loose papers every time I want to make some delicious French toast. So I’ve made an outline of how I want to organize the content of the cookbook. There’s a photo of my outline in this post.
Before you dismiss this idea as totally over-the-top, über-organized planning, give it a little consideration. It’s easy to rearrange and add pages to your Inkubook, but it’s even easier to erase and rearrange with your pencil or in a word-processing document. A small amount of up-front planning can help you have a better book in the end. And if you happen to have some nostalgic feelings about those eighth-grade papers, The OWL at Purdue has an excellent resource on developing outlines.
With the outline out of the way, I’m ready to…
3. Sort Through and Separate Photos
Because I know what my book is about and the rough order the content will be in, I also have some idea of what photos will be in it. So I take a little time to find them and put them all in one folder. You see, my husband takes care of most of the photo management in our house, and he’s every bit as organized as I am. (We’re truly a match made in heaven.) His system of filing photo files is so elaborate that it can sometimes take me quite some time to figure out what’s where. By giving some thought to what pictures I need, I can find them and copy them all to one Inkubook folder so that I need to browse to only one place when I upload my photos, which makes that step incredibly quick and easy.
Doing this preparation doesn’t mean that in the middle of making a book I don’t sometimes think, “Oh, crikey! I forgot that picture of the dog in the life vest,” but it does minimize the amount of time I have to spend searching for photos when I’m in the midst of the excitment of making the book. Collecting the photos ahead of time keeps me from losing my groove, if you know what I’m saying.
In Part III of “Making Photo Books: Planning Your Approach,” I’ll suggest a couple more tips for collecting and organizing your photos. In the meantime, leave a comment to tell me if you have any special tricks for organizing your photo books.
