On Going Book Publishing Questions.

[Av8Chuck]

I would like to print a coffee table book with approximately 250 pages. This is not my first Coffee table book, just the first trying to use LR which seems to be quite restrictive. It only appears to layout books with fixed or predetermined sizes?

Can you output a book for printing somewhere besides Blurb?
Is there anyway to print from the Book module?
Is there any way to export a book layout created in LR to InDesign?

I'm sure I'll have a ton more questions so hopefully people will answer and ask more questions regarding the book module. Also if anyone has any suggestions to good software for laying out coffee table books please let me know. I really like LR but it seems to be pretty weak in this area so I'm not wedded to it. All the printers I've spoken to use InDesign but I have never used it and was hoping to find a drag and drop interface like LR for the initial layout and then do any serious design in Illustrator and finishing in InDesign.

Any help would be greatly appreciated.

 

[Av8Chuck]

I guess I could conclude a couple of things from the lack of replies:

1. I don't know how to phrase questions well
2. LR users don't use the book module very much
3. If #2 is correct its probably because that module isn't very useful
4. No one knows the answers to these questions

C'mon Man [for those that watch the NFL Network] I'll give you a signed copy of one of my limited edition prints. you know 1 of 1,000,000.. [thats' a joke for those that don't watch the NFL Network].

Anyway, I could use some help with the book module.

Thanks

P.S I don't really do limited addition prints

 

[johnbeardy]

5. There was someone who thought about answering but left it until after the weekend?

Can you output a book for printing somewhere besides Blurb? - Only by exporting a PDF or JPEGs, and then you run into the size issues.

Is there any way to print from the Book module? - Export a PDF and print that

Is there any way to export a book layout created in LR to InDesign? - No, the underpinnings are totally different.

I like Book and have done quite a few books due to the module being in LR, even though it is quite limited and very fiddly. The ability to fine tune images within LR is a huge benefit. It helps if your design preferences are for conservative/minimalist layouts, but you can use the page backgrounds to introduce more offbeat elements.

It's best suited to Blurb and you have to accept certain limitations such as being unable to soft-proof via their CMYK profile (for what it is worth with multiple presses and different papers). From a small amount of trial and error, I soft proof to sRGB and pay great attention to the shadows.

John

 

[Av8Chuck]

Thanks John, I hope you had a great weekend.

I have mixed feelings about this and I'm not sure if my hesitation to use the Book module is because of my limited understanding of it or the actual limitations of the module.

I really like how you can layout a two page spread and then change or tweak the pictures to match. Sometimes the right picture for the layout isn't the best picture of the object, so I like how I can sit with the customer and move the pictures around, changing the scale and the crop for example to get a different look. However aside from the size restrictions, which I'm curious is that a Blurb restriction or LR restriction - I don't understand why there's any restriction on the size of the book, I might like to print on paper stock and bindings that aren't available through Blurb and all of the printers I've spoken with that print high end single run books use InDesign.

A concern I have is that I spend the time with the customer getting the layout right, output a jpeg of each page and then input those images to layout the book in InDesign, add to that the CMYK conversion, by the time it makes it to the printer its not going to be very good quality. I'd feel a lot better about this if I could export the pages as TIFFs rather the JPEGs.

Its also strange that you can't either take the layout your working on into the Print module or print directly from the Book module. A benefit to this is it would be extremely helpful to be able to print the two page spreads and mock up a book as part of the approval process. I tried exporting a PDF and then opening it in my iPad but the image quality was very poor so I have not tried printing it yet. If you export JPEGS you get every individual page so that would require more work to mock up the book.

I realize there isn't a question in all of this, I'm just explaining my workflow a bit in hopes that others who have been in this situation might have a better solution and maybe my concern for exporting JPEGs for the printer aren't well founded, although I find it a bit odd that in such a high end photography tool Adobe treats exporting to a book in much the same way as most other companies do as if the pictures were all shot with an iPhone to be consumed online or a tablet.

 

[johnbeardy]

Whether the size restriction is a LR or a Blurb restriction isn't too important, but Adobe supplied built-in Blurb sizes because they are pretty-well worldwide and cover a similar mid-market range to Lightroom. However, the underlying architecture does permit other vendors to offer their own page sizes - sadly none have stepped up to the plate. Individuals with the right skills could conceivably create their own, and one or two are out there, but it's a pretty horrid method and in my view reflects some poor design decisions - eg templates which define cells rather than Print's custom pages which allow you a free form layout. Type, on the other hand, is done quite well and shows the hand of InDesign developers on the module's design. So it's been a mixed bag since it arrived in LR4 and a few rough edges were addressed in LR5. Overall, you have to see how creative you can be within this straitjacket, which is possible, but there just isn't much headroom and at some point a complex project has to make a complete jump to InDesign.

The JPEG route (in Book Settings) exports the page layouts as individual JPEGs. The idea is you then send these directly to the print vendor, though you would need to resize them somehow. For instance reimport, crop, export at 100% quality. Alternatively, a batch process in Photoshop/Bridge would do the job, but of course it's not as direct as one would want. A similar idea could be to take advantage of InDesign's scripting. So one would layout in LR, export JPEGs, then add them to pages in InDesign. Scripting could help position the images, centrally on larger pages or to allow any extra white space to fall off the bottom of the page. It's still only JPEGs/sRGB but you'd be able to soft proof (against a Blurb profile that's supposed to cover all their printers and all their papers....). I've never thought it worthwhile as most of my InDesign jobs have been one-offs.

John

 

[Av8Chuck]

Thanks John. I'm just now coming to the realization that the way to go is probably to learn InDesign. My head's going to explode..

 

[johnbeardy]

Before that, I'd recommend you spend time with Book and print at least one book using Blurb's top end paper - you can certainly produce impressive books through them.

Another option for you might be to acquire Aperture and use it purely for books, because it has more vendors and sizes. I know of people who do this, and I do something very similar by exporting JPEGs from LR and using Aperture's slideshow tool.

John

 

[Av8Chuck]

I did my first book with Aperture, not nearly as restrictive as LR, but I think the workflow to use both might be a bit too convoluted, if I tried this I'd probably just use Aperture for the whole project and omit LR I'll check it out but probably the best thing to do is to learn InDesign.

I'm doing a book like this: http://archtopguitars.info/Image.asp?ImageID=1131912&apid=1&gpid=1&ipid=1&AKey=9B7SAD5Q

11x14 with heavy paper stock and lay flat binding, I don't think Blurb can accommodate this.