In this exercise we look at making a photo book using an online provider. I chose Blurb as I have used them previously during the course..

However I have always just used a straight forward template and played around with it a little. This time I wanted to start with a blank page and build the book from scratch.

I had also only ever created a photobook using my Ipad so this time I wanted to complete it on my PC so downloaded the software to get started. After reading the description as I waited for the download I thought this was going to be like having a clean sheet of paper. I was a little disapointed to start the process choosing page numbers and types of cover.

I started to upload my photos to the software. On the third one the software launched a pop up box and adviced me the photos were too large and I needed to make them smaller. Even giving me the dimensions recommended for the size of book I had chosen. This saved me lots of time as I stopped at that point and amended the photos .

After adjusting the dimensions using batch process in Adobe Bridge I continued to upload them to the book.

The software seemed difficult to use at first, but once I had completed five or six pages the layout became pressing F1 helped a few niggles.

Having placed the photographs on the pages I could easily move them around within the book just by dragging and dropping the pages.

Next I played with text, writing pieces for the inside of the dust cover and adding captions to each photograph.

Finally I used the auto align setting in edit to move everything so the words and pictures aligned correctly. It took me a few moments to find the spell checker and I couldn’t change the dictionary to English however that could just be because I didn’t find the setting.

Uploading was straightforward taking around 15 minutes. I checked it again and placed the order another nice touch was the email that arrived this afternoon giving me 40% off the total price of the book.

I chose to pay the £2.50 for a PDF copy which I will include below.

Overall it wasn’t a difficult process and was surprising how much I could change once I had set up the parameters of the book.