The book-making process - some things I've learnt

Having spent quite a lot of the weekend putting together a book from my 36 bicycles pictures I've learnt quite a few practical things that may be of use to others (especially the SoFoBoMoers). This is all to do with the mechanics of the process rather than the design aspects:

First, my mental arithmetic is as bad as ever. I'm working an 11"x8.5" landscape format with 1" border and 0.5" gutter. Image width is thus 11-2.5 = 8.5". I resized all the pictures to 9.5" wide. Next time I'll take more care and write it down.

On that border size, for this format that is probably the smallest border (i.e. largest picture) that I could go with. Each image actually ends up looking quite large on the page.

The paper mock-up I mentioned in my last post was invaluable, especially when I missed a shot from the sequence in the software. Having my desired sequence handy was useful. Next time I will also try and print the filenames for indexing.

Indexing the computer files into a dedicated folder makes life simpler. I had the order I wanted on paper but had to search around through the files to find the right one as I added them to the book design. This took far too much time and could have been quicker. I will probably run 3 versions of each for the book, with separate folders. 1 version for the online/dedicated software (such as Blurb & Bobbooks use), 1 for a low-res online pdf version (with sRGB colour space) and 1 for the high-res print pdf (with AdobeRGB). That gives me distribution possibilities and is minimal effort to generate.

As for pdf generation, I'm finding it useful to run up copies at key stages: initial layout, image sequence, final completion. This helps me with the editing and quality checking as I go along and reduces mistakes in the final output.

Composing text in a separate file then adding to the software will make it easier. Word processors are far faster at raw text generation, spell-checking and the like. That will also give me independent versions of all the book components. I find Scribus a bit clunky for this bit and it then had me confusing layout and content generation. For me, the best workflow is to create all the content then put it together & lay it all out. Content and design are 2 separate issues.

As to Scribus, I may have to write a separate post but I like it quite lot. I find it quite intuitive to work with, it doesn't get in the way of simple tasks and the interface is quite simple. All of that hides a huge amount of power but for a photobook I don't need all the power, just the ability to get at key features quickly. I find it's enabling me to do that. All that from free software. Microsoft could learn a lot about interface from these guys - I'm not constantly being hassled by the software to do things the way it thinks best, it just does what I want with minimal fuss.