The last photobook, I printed was Shutterfly 10x10. I love the size and I did the lay flat option. Overall, I was happy to get it done during the unlimited free pages. But, Many of the pages were cut with some of the border elements off the page, or in a couple of cases it seemed like part of a previous pages is slightly showing on the current page. For those of you that do print photobooks, how have you dealt with that? I've thought of reducing the layouts slights and putting on a white background, or experimenting with flattening and adding a stroke outline. Or choosing a page option that has a border for the pages in the shutterfly options.
I print Shutterfly 12x12 lay flat and only during the unlimited free pages sale. When I scrap, I keep in mind there will be some edges cut off so I don't scrap journaling or photos that close to the edge. If I'm using a template that does that, I end up shrinking the template before use and adding a page frame that would end up getting cut off instead.
I love Blurb! But I always wait for a 50% off sale (normally Black Friday). I make my pages with a border so that nothing gets cut off.
My books are pretty much all on a white background and I will resize them to add a bigger white area around the edge (usually using an action). If I do happen to have a colored background, I will usually resize everything except the background paper to make sure embellishments are not too close to the edge.
I’m curious about the action, your own creation or found elsewhere? I think I had one a loooooong time ago. And any tips for how big to make the border? I guess I’ve got some experimenting to do.
Not sure I can help. I also love Blurb. When using their software for placement, you can use their full page template or their template option with a white border. When assembling the book, their software has guides on the edges to signify areas that have the potential for being trimmed.
I had that happen on a 10” Shutterfly book, so I took a picture of the incorrect pages which I uploaded to customer service and after two more tries, they got it correct. I didn’t even have to send them the incorrectly printed books. I’m not sure if you can talk to a human anymore. I figured the cut off parts were probably my fault, but the pages that had a slight bit of one page printed on the top of the next page, was definitely their fault. Good luck.
I haven't done this for a while for Shutterfly but it looks like my action shrinks the page to 97.5%.
I had a 10x10 book that had the pages cut wrong throughout the whole book. They did a reprint for me and it looked great. It was a present for my cousin so I gave them the good one and I've got the bad one since they didn't want it back. It was evident that they print the photos in one long strip (all odd pages together and all even pages together) then cut them to put them in the books. So when going to cut the strip, it must not have been aligned correctly. As for elements and journaling, I learned a long time ago to not put anything near the edge of my layout unless I didn't care if it got cut off. I usually keep the important stuff at least 100 to 125 pixels from the edges. (I don't like a border around my layouts). Years ago Shutterfly had design templates that you could download that showed you what the print area would be. Don't know if they still have them. Even though a 10x10 is 3000x3000, the actual print area is about 2985x2985.
I'm like Dawn, I created an action in Photoshop that reduces everything except the background by 97%. I don't do it on every page, just the more full pages where there is stuff right up to the edges. That has worked really well for me on my Shutterfly books.
