I suppose my friends from Photosop Creative create and order photo books from PrestoPhoto like me. I'd like to share my experience with you re the creation methods, file upload and delivery.

Creation : It involves a lot of time in organizing and planning. I do use the organizer intensively. I am not yet proficient enough with Lightroom and the organizer is perfect for me. Planning is like writing a scenario for a movie. Once I have chosen the size of the final book, I create my own templates. I may work on individual pages, or double pages.

File upload :
That's an important matter. With my last book (80 pages 12" x 12") I wanted to compare standard file upload and ftp upload, as well as zipped jpegs versus PDF upload.
To get optimal results with the advised 300 ppi for a 12" x 12", I used to export my flattened PSD files to jpg compression 10, and to create a unique zip file.

In the meantime, I did test the PDF way. Since Elements does not create multipage pdfs, after trying several free software without much satisfaction, I bought a Foxit licence : really worth the price.
The problem is that the total size is four times bigger than the zipped jpegs version !

Also, I tried several Internet high speed connection : no luck, there is always a limit of 100 Mb/s, so it was not better with the optic fiber super high speed connection... As a result, after a 4 hours and a half upload of a pdf failed, I resorted to sending a zip, which was done in little more than one hour.

A word about manufacturing time and delivery : it is about the same as with local suppliers. The standard international shipment rate is extraordinarily cheap, and the delivery time was about 10 days instead of the announced 4 / 6 weeks !

I am curious to know about your own experience in those matters

Hi, Michel!

If you had trouble uploading or FTPing the file, you could also use a Dropbox account to send large files - https://www.dropbox.com/

Here's a short how-to - http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=pNEDgfq1 ... r_embedded

I hope this helps!

Hi, Michel!

If you had trouble uploading or FTPing the file, you could also use a Dropbox account to send large files - https://www.dropbox.com/

Here's a short how-to - http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=pNEDgfq1 ... r_embedded

I hope this helps!

Thanks Amy !
I discovered this dropbox option when uploading and thought it was good to try for another project.
Ftp uploading certainly is a good solution when you get used to it, but I am sure I did something wrong last time.

For those who prefer to upload pdf files, I think it may be useful to describe my procedure with PSE and foxit.
Once I had finished my 80 pages, they were in a specific 'album' in PSE6 Organizer. The pages got descriptive file names, not numeric file names. I sorted them manually in the album.
To create the 80 pages pdf, I simply selected all the files in the album and used the organizer printing option 'individual prints' with Foxit as the printer :

ImprFoxit1.jpg

(190.68 KiB) Not downloaded yet

The organizer 'printed' then all 80 pictures in a single PDF.

Really simple.

Michel, it's been several years since I made my only book. I have several ideas for more books; however, I'm not past the planning stage at this time. As for the book I made it was done 100% with CS3. At first I had trouble working the text around the pictures, but after a few pages that became fairly easy.

The way I put mine together is different from the way you did yours. I wanted mine to tell about a surfing event that covered 25 years (1972 to 1997). Here's the way I worked it out. I wrote my story and then inserted pictures that were somewhat similar to the story on that page/chapter. After I finished my book I had 83 pages, numbered 01 to 83. Every page was saved as a jpg and uploaded to PrestoPhoto. I printed three different sizes: 8.5 x 8.5 - 10 x 10 - 12 x 12. I felt that the 8.5 x 8.5 book was slightly too small whereas the 12 x 12 book was slightly too large. On the other hand, the 10 x 10 book was, in my opinion, the perfect size.

If anyone would like to see what I put together open the link below. I think it's an interesting read, of course, it might only be interesting to me and/or to those who joined me in that adventure.

http://www.prestophoto.com/photos/gallery/48523/48524

Russ,
I can't access your images, are they password protected ?