Photoshop has a great automated feature that generates contact sheet pages. We have a new layout in BookSmart that works perfectly with it. Here’s how to create contact sheets in Photoshop and turn them into a polished book:
Start by gathering your images on your computer in a new folder called Contact Sheets. Before we go [...]
Author Archives: Bryan
How to use Photoshop to turn your contact sheets into a book
April 7, 2008 – 6:56 pm
Adding an ISBN to your book? Blurb barcode explained
March 17, 2008 – 11:16 am
As some of you know, a number of our books have a production barcode on the back cover. While this barcode can affect all trim sizes in both hardcover and softcover, it does not appear on all books. Some of our printers use these to track our books, while others use different methods.
Unfortunately, we can’t [...]
Importing PDFs: Export your layout from Adobe CS3 into BookSmart
September 4, 2007 – 11:25 am
The following directions are no longer recommended or supported by Blurb, as we have seen inconsistent printed results with JPGs that have been exported directly from InDesign using this method.
Because text-intensive designs are particularly likely to be impacted, to ensure your custom designs print optimally and that custom text is cleanly reproduced, please follow these [...]
How to import your custom design into BookSmart
May 3, 2007 – 5:36 pm
Below is a helpful path for those who prefer to design pages in other applications and then wish to import them into BookSmart. By starting your designs at the correct size outside of BookSmart and saving your pages out as images, you can preserve your custom layouts from your design software of choice: Adobe [...]
Look no further for full-bleed page specs
April 24, 2007 – 5:27 pm
Here’s some helpful information for you BookSmart users who want detailed page and trim specs for pages designed outside of and imported into BookSmart. I originally posted this as an FAQ, but have added a graphic for full effect. Take away what is helpful and let me know what other hints I can give you [...]
Create a full-bleed spread across 2 pages
November 15, 2006 – 5:03 pm
I am Bryan Burkhart, Creative Director at Blurb. As we continue to develop BookSmart and the book templates within, we discover some smart workarounds along the way … via a couple screen grabs, I will show you how to create a two page image spread with one image.
I have successfully created two page full bleed [...]
