Requires iPhoto ‘08 & Photoshop
BOOK THEMES AND GIFT IDEAS
Today, people everywhere create photo books for special occasions; for births, to show off their recent vacation photos, etc. While those may not be new themes to you, hopefully some of the books suggested below will be.
Recipe Books
Love to cook? Make a gift of your recipes. Make it inviting by including photos of the food or at least one of the ingredients on each page. Your book doesn’t have to be a balanced collection. It could include just desserts, just appetizers, or only main courses that cook up in 30 minutes. When you’re publishing your own cookbook, you get to make all the decisions.
Portfolio Books
Are you an artist? Take advantage of the photo book as a means of creating your own portfolio to share with potential clients. Print the book with your best piece on the cover, and your business card information on the back. Maybe even you’re signature? Don’t forget an “Artist’s Statement” page where you describe the influences for your art and your vision.
Creativity Books
Crafters and seamstresses can create a portfolio of their own. Even if you aren’t promoting your work for business purposes, photograph your creations and arrange them on book pages until you have enough to print. Think of the joy these books will bring to you and family members for years to come.
Family Tree Books
Combine family histories, census records, military records, and more on the pages of a photo book. Scan fragile, important documents along with aging photos, to complete your family’s genealogy. Print out copies of the book for relatives and copies to be given to children when they reach an appropriate age.
Sweetheart Books
Special birthday or anniversary approaching? Write a poem for the one you love. Feature one line of the poem on each book page then include a photo of the two of you to accompany it.
The books you can create with Apple’s iPhoto program are varied. The designs or layouts of the books offered, although fairly adequate in number, do present some restrictions. If you don't have the latest version of the program, your limitations are even greater. You are given only so many fonts, frames, caption boxes, etc. It’s almost criminal to limit creative people, so we found a simple solution to the iPhoto book restrictions. Create all our book pages in Photoshop.
Begin with an 8”x6” blank Photoshop page and fill it with the endless options available in the program; screened images, special fonts, filtered effects. Take full advantage of the huge selection of tools and allow your creativity to flourish.
When the page is complete, save it as a psd in case you need to come back to it later with changes. Also save it as a .jpg.
Drag the .jpg into an iPhoto album. Once the album is filled with the number of pages you want, select the album and click on "Book".
Choose the book’s “Crayon” theme. It will allow you to have a blank layout on all pages, which is perfect for dropping in your Photoshop pages. This isn’t possible in most other book themes. The back cover layout is the only part of the book that is not flexible.
In minutes you can complete your book because the work has already been done. After you've dragged your .jpgs onto the blank book pages, order the book.
You have the choice of different size books: hard or soft covers, and spiral or self bound. Choose the option that best suits your pages and theme.
THINGS TO WATCH
The finished, printed iPhoto book sometimes cuts very close to the edges if you design to the full borders of the Photoshop 8"x6" page, especially when type is involved. So be sure to factor in generous margins.
iPHOTO BOOKS
How To Bypass The Restrictions
& Get As Creative As You Like
CUSTOM BOOKS
FOR CHILDREN
While you can easily find companies on the internet who create custom books for children, they are generally limited to using only the child’s name. They can’t possibly compare to your individual and personalized ideas, or the cost savings of making the book yourself.
Thrill your little one with a story at bedtime that includes their face or name on the page! Your custom book can be a story you invent or a classic that you scan and change to include your child. Create the book for pure enjoyment or to teach the child how to deal with something they are experiencing in their life. By designing the book pages yourself in Photoshop, you have unlimited choices for fonts, layouts, and special effects. Create full book size pages, save them as jpegs, then bring them into an iPhoto book and just drop onto the pages. Use the “crayon” theme with “blank” layout and you won’t be restricted to a specific page design.
Why not take your child’s artwork off the refrigerator, scan it and add it to the pages of the book? It’s your book, include anything you choose.
- COMPUTER CREATIONS -
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