How to Create a Cover for a Proof Book in Photoshop

Creating your own photo book is easy using on-line printing sites

You can create your own high-quality and professional photo book using "print on demand" printing specialists, and many of the online sites provide an easy-to-use program or system to help you design your book. You can create your own design for the cover rather than use the available templates by designing the cover in Photoshop and uploading it to the printing site.

Instructions

1. Download the page template from your chosen printing site. A template will identify the size of the image for upload, the trimmed size, a safe text area that shows how close text should be to the edge of the image, any bleed area where the picture extends beyond the printed size, and the required resolution of the image in pixels per inch.

2. Download the color profile for the printer used by your online supplier. The color profile is used to judge what the final image will look like when printed by your supplier.

3. Load the color profile into Photoshop by copying it into the folder containing the existing profiles. Open Photoshop and create a new document with image size equal to the "upload size" and resolution equal to the required pixels per inch. Set rulers to indicate the trim size of the image.

4. Create your design for the cover using normal Photoshop tools and your favorite images. Make sure that the important elements of the design are within the "trim" rulers on the screen. If there is text, make sure that this is in the safe zone described in the template document.

5. Click "View>Proof Setup>Custom" and select the downloaded printer profile in the "Device to Simulate" drop-down. Select "Perceptual" under "Rendering Intent" and select the "Simulate Paper Color" check box. Click OK. The screen will now display an emulation of what the final image will look like when printed on your book.

6. Use the Photoshop tools of Curves, Levels and Hue/Saturation to make the displayed image look as good as possible. Usually, you have to increase contrast and add more depth to the blacks to get the best printed image.

7. Save the final image in the format required by your printer -- this will be either a high-quality JPEG or a PDF file. Upload the image to the printing site and complete your photo book project.

Tips & Warnings

• Use a simple design with large, clear text to enhance your book cover.

• Print a local copy on similar paper to confirm that your settings will create a pleasing image.

• Don't draw lines on the image showing where the crop and safe text lines are, as they will print out on the final cover.

• Save a copy of your image as a "PSD" file with all layers included so that you can edit it later if necessary.

References

• Planet Photoshop: Adding Bleed and Trim marks
• Spoon Graphics: Setting up Crop Marks