Manual

Introduction to PBD v2

By Kjell Post, info@pixbookdesign.com


1. About PBD

Pixopolis Book Designer (PBD) is a set of actions with Javascript code for Adobe Photoshop® that enables you to design photo books in a quick and efficient manner.

This manual describes version 2 of PBD and all other versions 2.x that might appear later to fix potential bugs.

Note: all of the Pixopolis digitally printed books are supported in PBD. For the new Pixopolis book made from real photo paper we suggest, in the meantime, that you use ProAlbum-Designer.

2. System requirements

Note: if you are using Windows Vista or Win 7 you must first right-click on the Photoshop icon and select Run as administrator before you run the installation script (as described below). You only need to run as administrator during the installation process.

This manual and distribution is intended for Adobe Photoshop CS3, CS4 and CS5. It doesn’t matter whether you are using Mac OS X, Windows XP, Vista or Win 7. You need to have a certain amount of Photoshop experience since the whole point of PBD is that all of the Photoshop commands are available at any time during the layout process.

After ordering PBD, you should have a zip file with the current version. Make sure the zip file is unpacked before you proceed.  We will refer to this folder as your PBD folder. Your PBD folder should contain a small number of jsx files and look something like the following screendump:

3. Installation

  • Start up Photoshop.

Note: If you are using Windows Vista or Win 7, you must start Photoshop as administrator: right-click on the Photoshop icon and select “Run as administrator”.

  • In Photoshop, do File > Scripts > Browse… and choose install.jsx in your PBD folder.
  • You will be presented with the following window:

  • Uninstall is only necessary if you need to uninstall PBD, including previous versions. Unless you have been experimenting with earlier releases of PBD, ProAlbum-Designer or BBD, this step is not necessary.
  • Now send me an email with the Signature (the 8 characters, use copy&paste to avoid mistakes). I will reply with an activation code as soon as I can, usually the same day.

If you move to a new machine or update Photoshop, you need to register again to obtain a new activation code. It doesn’t cost anything and I will be happy to help you.

  • If you wish, you can click on Stop and re-run the script later when you have the activation code.
  • Once you have received your activation code you can continue with the installation by clicking on the Install button.
  • You will be asked to enter your activation code, as shown below:

  • After a few seconds, and if everything goes well, something like this should appear:

  • If there are any error messages, please review them and contact me if you don’t understand them. If you can, include a screen dump or tell me exactly what the error message was. You can run install.jsx as many times as you want.
  • If all goes well, the install program copied all the scripts to Photoshop’s script folder. It also generated an action file for your system and stored it in your PBD folder.
  • Before you load the action file you need to restart both Photoshop and Bridge. When you start Bridge again it will ask you if you want to activate the scripts: answer Yes.
  • The last step is to load the action file, either by double clicking on it, or, if that doesn’t work, go the Actions Palette, open its fly-out menu, choose Load Actions and navigate to the action file.
  • Finally, choose Button mode in the same fly-out menu and you should have a set of colorful buttons like at the beginning of this document.
  • Congratulations, you have now successfully installed PBD – now let’s start using it!


4. Book pages

A book is produced one page spread at a time.  A spread is a double page. Pixopolis prints books in many different formats (Square, Hardcover, etc) and there are functions to create blank spreads  and covers for each type of book.  You can of course also start with your own blank document, for instance a 10×15 cm, 300 dpi thank-you card.

Bear in mind that when pages are submitted to Pixopolis for printing, the first left page is not used, neither is thelast right page. If you use Pixopolis’ pixGEN (and we recommend that you do) you will be able to load your pages into pixGEN and see the book before you order it.

Create a blank page spread by clicking on New page. PBD will generate a blank page spread for the book that you have specified in your Preference setting (more on Preference settings later). To simplify the layout process I would recommend that you work in fullscreen mode: tap the F-button until the window frames disappear.  In fullscreen mode it is considerably easier to handle the control points that Photoshop places around objects when they are being transformed.

On a blank page spread, guidelines are used to show where the gutter is as well as the bleed allowance.  In practice, the outermost 35 pixels may be cropped so please take care in not placing something “interesting” along or beyond the outer guidelines. Either keep a safe distance from the bleed or let the pictures bleed off the page in a fairly monotone color.
Now start Bridge and select the images you want to appear on the page spread.  Right-click and choose Add image(s) to book and the images should appear on the blank spread.  (If you do not have this menu, first look in Bridge’s preferences under Startup Scripts and make sure BookDesigner-Add is checked. If it is, and it is still not working, please contact me.)
If you get an error message saying that This functionality may not be available in this version of Photoshop when you try to add an image from Bridge, you are most likely in a certain Photoshop mode that prevents the import, e.g., working with the quick mask or a layer mask.

You can import all images that Photoshop understands: JPEG, GIF, Photoshop’s own PSD files, etc.  But I would recommend that you only import finished JPEG files since PBD isn’t suitable for, e.g., RAW conversion or black-and-white conversions, even if it is possible.  Spending too much time working on the individual images will be lost work if you must re-design the spread from scratch.

When images appear on the blank spread they are converted to smart objects, a feature introduced in Photoshop CS2. Smart objects enables you to shrink and enlarge images back and forth without quality loss.  Even if the spread is saved and later loaded, your images have not lost any quality.

Before we proceed with the layout functions we need to mention color spaces. In PBD all templates are in the sRGB color space. Your images may be stored in another color space, for instance the larger Adobe RGB. Depending on your Photoshop settings you may or may not get conversion questions when importing files from Bridge. Refer to the Photoshop menu Edit>Color Settings… but make sure this conversion keeps you in sRGB.

At the moment, the print quality of Pixopolis’ books is a bit better when pages are converted to the CMYK-profile FOGRA 27. But to reduce any confusion I recommend that you save all your pages in sRGB and then later, when the book is finished, convert them to FOGRA 27 using the CMYKify command. The PBD FAQ describes this in more detail. This way you have two copies of the book: one in sRGB (for the screen) and one in FOGRA 27 (for Pixopolis).

If you want complete control over colors, contrast, etc, I recommend soft proofing your sRGB images before they are imported to ensure that the final FOGRA 27 conversion happens without surprises. Unless you are doing a book on Hawaii sunsets or similarly saturated images, soft proofing is probably overkill. There is however a tutorial in the PBD menu above.

5. Actions

Now let us return to the actual design job!  The most important thing to do is to press V (Move Tool) and check the Auto Select Layer in the upper left corner. Photoshop will now automatically select the layer corresponding to the image you click on.  This makes it possible to drag images around.  Simply click on an image before you perform an operation on it.

For instance, if you would like to scale or rotate an image, you first click on it.  (You will see that the corresponding layer in the layers palette is selected.)  Now press Cmd-T (Ctrl-T in Windows) and control points will be laid out for rotating or scaling the image.  Remember to hold the shift key down to maintain the aspect ratio.  If the image you are scaling is much larger than the page, some of the control points will appear outside the spread.  Press Cmd-0 (Ctrl-0 in Windows) to zoom out far enough. In these situations it is very useful to work in fullscreen mode.

At any time you can go back to Bridge, select a few more images and add them to your current spread.

Another important feature of Photoshop is the ability to select several images. There are several ways to do this, they all assume you have the Move Tool active.

  • Click on the first image. Then hold down the Shift key and click on the remaining images, or:
  • Click on the first image’s layer in the layers palette. Then hold down Cmd (Ctrl on a PC) and click on the other layers, or:
  • Use the mouse to drag a selection around the images you want to select. This works well if the images you want to select are already grouped together.

To de-select images, simply click somewhere in the background.

Now let us go through the actions in the Actions palette and see what they do.

About PBD

Tells you which version you are running and if your copy is up to date. If you are reporting a problem with PBD, press this button to see which version you are running.

Preferences

This is a feature which allows you to customize PBD and work faster.

Let us go through the various preference settings. Each setting has a tool-tip description which you can see by hovering with the mouse over the corresponding item.

Book: When starting on a new book project, choose the kind of book you are working on here. This setting will be used when creating a new spread.

Instruction layer: By default, a layer can be generated where you will be given descriptions on critical areas. This layer is initally hidden (and locked) so if you want to see it, just turn it on in the layer’s palette.

When a spread/cover is saved, the instruction layer is turned off so it doesn’t appear in the exported JPEG image by mistake.

Page folder: This is the folder where you store your book spreads. When you save a spread, PBD will go to this folder. If this preference is not set, PBD will by default go to your home folder. This feature may not work in Windows.

Overlay folder: This is the folder where your overlays are stored. When you run Add overlay, PBD will automatically go to this folder.

Trim overlay contents: The Add overlay action has been modified to crop an image if it doesn’t exactly fit the overlay it is being fitted to. You can however disable this behaviour by un-checking this preference setting.

Orientation warnings: When Add overlay detects that a vertical image is being fitted into a horizontal hole (or vice versa) a warning will be given, as long as this preference setting is checked.

Border width: This is how many pixels thick a border will be when you add a black or white border to your images (see White border, Black border, etc).

Document name: This is the prefix given to a document when you start a New spread.

Initial width/height: When images are added they are by default 1200×1200 pixels wide/high. You can make them smaller or bigger by changing this preference.

Image placement: Images can either be placed randomly across the spread or in a big stack in the middle of the spread.

New page, New cover

Creates a blank spread or cover. For book covers, you must specify the number of pages as this may affect the cover’s size. You may find it easier to design the cover last, when you know how many spreads you have.

If you want to lock the guidelines, choose View>Lock Guides. Remember fullscreen mode (F) to simplify the layout.

Save page, Save cover

Run these actions when a book page spread or cover is finished and ready to be saved. You will be asked to save page/cover in Photoshop’s own PSD-format, so rename the file before you put it in the right folder, e.g., Cover.PSD or Page-013.PSD. PBD will also create high-quality JPEG-versions of the page/cover – this is used when ordering the book. The PSD file is used when you need to go back and make changes.

It is recommended that pages are saved with consecutive numbers, for instance Page-001.PSD, Page-002.PSD, etc. For page spreads, PBD will save two JPEG-files in the same folder, for instance Page-001L.jpg and Page-001R.jpg. These JPEG-files are the left and right part of each spread and are used to order the book, normally by loading them into pixGEN.

Fg color background, Bg color background

Sets the background to whatever the current foreground/background color is in Photoshop. If you want a white or black background it is probably easier to use the next actions.

White background, Black background

Sets the background to white or black. This is particulary useful with full page bleeds that have been made transparent (see the Opaque action). For instance, if the background is white and the bottom layer is set to 50% transparency, you will have a nice background that doesn’t take away too much detail from the images lying on top. We use this occasionally with detail shots of glasses, food, dresses, flowers and other decorations.

Fit

This action will enlarge the selected image as much as possible while keeping it within the document. If the original image is somewhere on the left page, Fit will fill the left page. Conversely, if you first push the image to the right page and run Fit, the image will now fill the right page.

Fill spread

It is quite common to create full page bleeds. Normally the proportions of the image does not coincide with that of the page spread. With the Fill spread action the whole page spread will be covered by the image, which is assumed to be horizontal. Parts of the image may be outside the spread afterwards. Please note that the image is not cropped but can be moved around afterwards using the Move Tool (V) and pressing the arrow keys to nudge the image one pixel at a time.  Hold the shift key down and you will be moving 10 pixels for each arrow key click. Use the Send backward action to reveal images that have been obscured by this operation.

Fill left page, Fill right page

These actions will fill either the entire left page or the entire right page with the current image, which is assumed to be a vertical image. Unlike Fit, parts of the image may be outside the page. By default, a filled image is aligned along the bottom part of the page. You can move the image around afterwards, of course.

Enlarge, Shrink

Enlarges (133%) or shrinks (75%) the selected image(s).  The percentages have been chosen as to cancel each other when used consecutively. Even if the Transform tool (Cmd-T or Ctrl-T in Windows) is also useful for scaling images, it is faster and more precise to enlarge/shrink several images by the same amount.

Note that several images can be enlarged/shrunk together by first holding down the shift key while selecting images (or their layers) and then running either Enlarge or Shrink.

Match up, Match down

When doing layout, it is often important to make two images the same size. Trying to do resizing by hand is tedious and error prone. These operations assume that you have two (2) selected images.  In Match up, the smaller image will be as large as the larger of the two.  In Match down, the larger image will be as small as the smaller of the two.

PBD looks at the relative positioning of the two images so that, e.g., if the two images are above each other, their widths will be equal afterwards. Conversely, when the two images are next to eachother, their heights will be equal afterwards. Therefore, you need to rougly place the images before you run Match up/down. Matching does not currently work so well when borders have been added so you may want to add borders and dropshadows afterwards, when the images have the right size.

Check DPI

This action uses the resolution of each image and its current size to determine whether the image has been enlarged too much. The corresponding layer is colored according to the number of pixels per inch: green (sufficient), yellow (caution) or red (bad). Currently the threshold for green is 200 dpi.

The number of pixels for an image is baked into its layer name when PBD imports the image from Bridge. Most JPEG images yield such information but if the number of pixels can not be obtained you have no way of checking the quality of that particular image.

The layer color is not continuously updated—you need to run Check DPI to update the color indicators. Also, Check DPI does not go into overlays to check on the insets. If you wish to check an overlay, you first need to double click on its smart object thumbnail in the layers palette to open the overlay in a separate document. You can then run Check DPI in that document.

Optimal enlarge

If an image has been marked red or yellow by the Check DPI action the question immediatly arises, “how large can I make the image?”  With the Optimal enlarge action, the image is scaled down (or up) to a 200 dpi setting, i.e., as large as possible without showing signs of pixels.  The 200 dpi threshold is course a little arbitrary and the image can probably be slightly larger without looking bad.

Tilt left, Tilt right

These actions will turn the selected image(s) 5º left or right. You can do other angles with the Free Transform tool (Cmd-T on a Mac, Ctrl-T in Windows). Notice that this action can by performed on several images at once.

Opaque

Makes the image transparent. Use the number keys to quickly set the transparency, for instance 0 for 100%, 2 for 20%, 33 for 33% etc. This action is mostly used when the image on top of the Background layer is a full page bleed.

Delete image

Removes the image(s) currently selected. Since CS4 you can now use the Delete key as a shortcut, even if you are not working with the Move tool.

Bring to front, Send backwards

These commands move the current image up or down through the layer stack. You can also grab a layer in the layer palette and drag it wherever you want it to be.

Add overlay

An overlay is like a bevel mat, i.e., a placeholder for one or more images.  We plan to extend the number of overlays in future versions of PBD but there are already a few to choose from at PBD’s Overlay page.

To use the action, first select the images that will appear in the overlay by clicking on the first image and then Shift-clicking on the remaining images. When you click on Add overlay you will be prompted for an overlay file – these are PSD files that you keep in a special folder which you can register in your Preference settings.

PBD will then drop the overlay on the spread, move the selected images into the corresponding holes and finally bundle the overlay and the images into one smart object. The overlay object can be moved, scaled, rotated and treated like any other image.

You can edit an overlay by double-clicking on its smart object thumbnail in the layers palette (see right). A new document with the overlay and its contents will open up. In CS4 you can remove the link between each image and its mask and move and scale the image around inside the hole.

When you save and close this document, the changes will be reflected on the original spread.

PBD employs some shortcuts as well. Let us say that you have three images selected and you choose an overlay with only one hole. PBD will then apply this overlay to each of the three images. This allows you to quickly add a nice frame to all your images on a page.

If the orientation of one or more images does not match the corresponding hole in the overlay, you will receive an error message if you have checked the preference setting Orientation warnings.

The Add overlay action creates quite a number of steps in the history list and you may not be able to go back to the state before you started the action, depending on your Photoshop settings. For this reason you may want to create a snapshot (see the History palette menu) before running this action.

Revolve

This action will move the currently selected images around so that image 1 moves to image 2’s location, image 2 moves to image 3’s location, etc, and finally, the last image moves to image 1’s original location.

This is particulary useful for moving images around in an overlay. For instance, double-click on the overlay’s smart object thumbnail in the layers palette, select two images, run Revolve and the two images will swap places.

No border, No dropshadow, etc

These actions gives you a black or white border, and/or a drop shadow on the currently selected image(s).

It is unfortunately difficult (impossible?) to have a Photoshop action add an effect (such as a drop shadow or border) to an existing layer effect.  That is why PBD’s action palette looks a bit like a pizza menu where there are n toppings and 2^n pizzas to choose from.

You can change the border thickness through the preference setting Border width.

CMYK, CMYK+Sharpen

These two actions are not intended to be used from the actions palette, i.e., while doing the layout. Instead, they are to be used when batch converting specific pages to Pixopolis’ preferred color profile Fogra27. If you want to convert every page, you are probably better off using the CMYKify action below: use the batch method when you are converting specific pages to Fogra27.

Fogra27 does not have to be the CMYK working space, but you of course need to install the Fogra27 profile. You can read more on PBD’s Fogra27 page in the menu above.

The CMYK+Sharpen gives you an opportunity to sharpen the pages while converting them to Fogra27. The operation uses Smart Sharpen filter with the conservative amount of 100 and a radius of 1.

CMYKify

This action opens up a dialogue to convert a folder of pages to the Fogra27 CMYK profile, without having to use Photoshop’s Batch command. This is very useful if you want to convert every page of your book to Fogra27.

Simply click on “Choose…” and specify the folder where your pages (and cover) are stored (Input folder) and an empty folder where your converted pages (and cover) should end up (Output folder).

All JPEG-images in the input folder will be converted. CMYKify will never overwrite any files without asking you first.

You may also want to sharpen each page/cover as they are converted. I have experimented with setting amount=100 and radius=1 but I know other people who have tried amount=150 without noticeable artifacts.

300 dpi

PBD occasionally needs to change the document’s dpi to 72 in order to temporarily circumvent a bug in Photoshop. If a PBD operation has been aborted, or if the user is going back to the wrong state in the history palette, the document may be in 72 dpi. Simply run this action to restore the document’s dpi to 300 – the page content is not affected.

6. Importing files into pixGEN

There are two different ways to import your finished JPEG-files into pixGEN. If you have been careful and have your files numbered PagenL.jpg and PagenR.jpg (where n is the page number) you can use the following workflow to quickly import your files:

  • Start pixGEN and click on the photobook in the middle to continue to the assistant.
  • Choose book format, e.g., Hardcover. The design theme should be set to not use a design template.
  • Press Continue.
  • Press Continue again.
  • You are now in the “select and arrange images” section.
  • Choose the folder where your pages (in JPEG-format) are stored. Select all Page*.jpg and transfer them over to the “chosen” column. Do not include the cover.
  • Press Continue.
  • Turn off page numbering (it won’t look good with page bleeds).
  • Press Process.
  • Press Continue.
  • Drag the cover image from the right column and drop it on the book surface.
  • Preview the book to make sure everyting looks right.
  • Finally order the book.

If you for some reason haven’t numbered your pages correctly the above method will not work. You can then manually insert the images into pixGEN:

  • Start pixGEN and click on the photobook in the middle to continue to the assistant.
  • Choose book format, e.g., Hardcover.
  • Cancel the assistant.
  • Choose the folder where your pages (in JPEG-format) are stored.
  • Drag and drop the cover and all the pages, one by one.

Preview the book before ordering.

7. Design advice for Pixopolis’ books

This section contains some practical advice on what to consider when working with the different types of book that Pixopolis provides. I would also recommend that you visit Pixopolis’ homepage to read more about the book you intend to use.

7.1 Hardcover, Square and Pocket

The Hardover, Square and Pocket (horizontal/vertical) books are similar in design, apart from their measurements. These books look good with page bleeds since there is no gap in the middle. In particular, pages 8/9, 16/17, 24/25, etc, are especially suited to page bleeds – these pages spread well and the thread is visible.

Page spreads have a 35 pixel margin along the perimeter, as indicated by the guidelines. These margins may be cropped by the machine and care should be taken so no important details are placed there.

The spine’s width depends on the number of pages in your book. It’s a great idea to use one picture to wrap around the cover, avoiding the problem with positioning the join between a front and back picture.

Bear in mind that the outermost 188 pixels of the cover is wrapped around and not visible.

Hardcover Square

7.2 Light

The Light book is easy to work with since there is no real cover – the cover picture and the pages are simply stapled together. As with the previous books you need to remember that (roughly) the outermost 35 pixels around the pages will be cropped. This goes for the cover as well. Since there is no spine you will be better off using one picture for the cover. Using two pictures for the cover is risky since the join may not end up exactly where the cover is folded.

Light

7.3 Helix

The Helix book is spiral bound. Since there is a 15 mm gap between the left and right pages I would not advice the use of page bleeds where something “important” is in the middle.

The guidelines for the middle of the page spread consists of two pairs of vertical lines wherein the holes are placed.

Similar to the other books, the outermost 35 pixels on each page will be cropped, as indicated by the guidelines.

The spine is 15 mm thick regardless of the number of pages. The outer part of the cover (16 mm) is folded around the edge and not visible.
Helix

7.4 Giant and Square XL

Giant and Square XL are books that use four chrome screws to clamp the pages together. Square XL can at the moment only be orderd through the German version of pixGEN and delivery time is slightly longer.

Detailed cover pictures should be avoided since the cover is plotted and not printed.

If full page bleeds are used, do not place text, faces, or anything “important” in the middle.

The print shop adds the bit of white paper that disappears down in the gutter, as indicated by the picture on the right.

Parts of the cover are wrapped around the edge so that approximately 16 mm around the edges are not visible on the cover.

Giant Square XL