By David Gewirtz
We continue our 2007 photo calendar project by preparing the images for publication. As you'll recall from last week's article (at http://www.connectedphotographer.com/issues/issue200611/00001886001.html), we selected 13 images to be used for each month, plus a cover.
In this article, we'll learn about proper image formatting and create the cover image.
Using the template
Let's start by talking a little about printing. Printed images generally require a higher resolution than images destined for display on the Web. As mentioned last week, CafePress recommends creating an 11.5" x 9" image at 200dpi. That means each of our pictures needs to be at least 2,300 x 1,800 pixels. The images I've chosen are all somewhat bigger than that.
Whether you use CafePress or another photo service provider, you'll need to be sure you both find out the specs for the images, and convert your images to those specs. CafePress provides a template (at http://www.cafepress.com/content/si/temp_11.5x9_print.zip) that you can use to size your image.
As you can see in Figure A, the template also provides another benefit. It shows you where your "safety zone" is.
FIGURE A
The template provides a "safety zone". (click for larger image)
The idea of a safety zone is this is the area where you're guaranteed to have your image show up. Anything outside the safety zone could be trimmed or cropped out of the image as part of the production process. The easiest way to do this is open the template, save the file with a new name, and then place your image on top of the template in a new layer.
You could choose to use the Image Size dialog to do your resizing, but I found it far easier to simply drop my image as a layer on top of the template and resize the image (constraining it with the shift key), until the image fit the template as best as possible, making sure to completely cover the template with the image.
Once you've placed your image, you'll need to save it. CafePress recommends using the PNG file format, but I found that the CafePress servers didn't work right with PNG and I eventually found myself saving the files as TIFF images, and uploading the (much larger) TIFF data files. Not fun, but it worked.
Just repeat this process for your 12 inside images.
Creating the cover
Next up, you'll want to create an interesting cover. I used one of my favorite images, a picture from my back yard that I'd tweaked with a tungsten filter (see http://www.connectedphotographer.com/issues/issue200604/00001749001.html). As you can see in Figure B, the safety zone becomes particularly important when you're placing text.
FIGURE B
The safety zone tells you where to keep your text. (click for larger image)
I used the text tool to create four separate layers, each with a chunk of text. By moving the text around, I was able to create an attractive presentation.
Be aware that this stage is where your calendar either becomes quite professional in its presentation or spectacularly amateurish. Typography is an art I can't teach you in this article, but here are some hints:
- Leading is the distance between lines. Tighten your lines up as much as possible, so they look clean.
- Kerning is the distance between letters. You won't need to kern all your letters, but you'll notice the right side of the A fits well under the left side of the V in DAVID. I kerned these two letters so they looked nice.
- Choose a professional font that's not bitmap only. You want to use a font that stands out and can be represented at the dpi recommended by your photo service provider.
- Use color and effects judiciously. You'll notice I didn't use any shadow effects or any real color. I just used white text on a darker blue background, but I moved the text over an area of darker blue so it'd stand out.
- Don't forget things like calendar year and copyright.
- Make sure the font you choose avoids letters with thin lines. The thinner the line, the more it'll fade into the background. The type I used here had nice, thick lines.
Finally, you don't need to use a separate image for you your cover. I did, because I felt it gave the calendar more value.
Next week, we'll upload the images to CafePress and show you how the whole calendar came together.