# Dimensions for the book module



## alaios (Jun 17, 2016)

Hi all,
one of my loved printing labs gives me the option to print directly from my loved lightroom only if I export my pdf files with the correct dimensions.

This is the link they gave me with those dimensions
WhiteWall - Online Fotolabor
where they also have the in design templates.

Can someone help me understand how I can give those dimensions to lightroom so to make sure that my exported pdf files would make my printing lab happy?
Regards
Alex


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## Johan Elzenga (Jun 17, 2016)

I don't see the resolution anywhere, but assuming that they print at 300 pixels per inch, the calculation is as follows:

If the pdf height needs to be 302 millimeter, that's 302/25.4 inch = 11.89 inch. Assuming they indeed use 300 pixels per inch, then your file needs to be 11.89 x 300 = 3567 pixels in height. Using the same calculation for the width gives 2551 pixels.

You can make an export preset for those dimensions, but that only works for exporting individual images. AFAIK, there is no option in Lightroom to export complete book pages at custom sizes however.


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## alaios (Jun 17, 2016)

I am sorry you have to press first the blue button
Masse und Details anzteigen
which gives in millimiteres the book dimensions


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## Johan Elzenga (Jun 17, 2016)

alaios said:


> I am sorry you have to press first the blue button
> Masse und Details anzteigen
> which gives in millimiteres the book dimensions



I know, that's how I got the 302 millimeters.


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## alaios (Jun 17, 2016)

I am sorry but for me the above is very technical to understand :| and thus I did not understand that you found correctly the numbers at first.

I found an article on how to push lightroom export book with specific size
A method to create completely customized photo ... |Adobe Community

never tried and does not look easy. I really do not understand why printing from lightroom to more labs is not available... I need more options for my clients of what blurb gives.

Hmmm stuck


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## Johan Elzenga (Jun 17, 2016)

I assume Blurb supplied Adobe with the page designs and perhaps Blurb even wrote the entire module, so the deal was that it would be a Blurb exclusive.


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## johnbeardy (Jun 17, 2016)

JohanElzenga said:


> I assume Blurb supplied Adobe with the page designs and perhaps Blurb even wrote the entire module, so the deal was that it would be a Blurb exclusive.



No, it's more a matter of other vendors not stepping up to the plate. Blurb did not write the module, but were chosen by Adobe for the initial rollout because their market coincides pretty well with Lightroom's in a number of ways. The module's underlying architecture would allow other sizes to be defined, though it is a technically-demanding process.

While I've successfully produced 30-40 books using it, in my opinion a number of aspects of the Book module were misconceived. Custom page sizes is obviously one of them.


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## johnbeardy (Jun 17, 2016)

By the way, I would suggest you try using Print to do the book. Its custom package allows you to move photos around quite freely, and you can play with page sizes. In my view, Book would have been better if it had been designed as Print's custom packages on steroids.


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## Johan Elzenga (Jun 17, 2016)

johnbeardy said:


> By the way, I would suggest you try using Print to do the book. Its custom package allows you to move photos around quite freely, and you can play with page sizes. In my view, Book would have been better if it had been designed as Print's custom packages on steroids.



An interesting idea, providing that you are making a book that only contains images. The option to add text is very limited in the print module. Quite frankly, I would use other software than Lightroom to make a book. Even when I make a Blurb book. I prefer to use their software, or InDesign.


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## johnbeardy (Jun 17, 2016)

The lack of text is a downside, but we're talking weddings here, I think, and having the photos "live" may outweigh it. I have produced many books in InDesign too, but mainly for non-Blurb vendors. Where there's any iteration (eg changing the photos) it's a relatively inefficient workflow unless you can write scripts, either in Lr and/or in InDesign.


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## alaios (Jun 18, 2016)

JohanElzenga said:


> An interesting idea, providing that you are making a book that only contains images. The option to add text is very limited in the print module. Quite frankly, I would use other software than Lightroom to make a book. Even when I make a Blurb book. I prefer to use their software, or InDesign.


I think I can survive with no text... (if Clients need text though that is another story). Which other software have you used to make books?
I have downloaded the software for making offline books from whitewall, blurb, saal-digital.. and all these allow very slow workflow of making books. Fundy designer looks to be making books much more enjoying procedure although it has a 300 euros price tag!!

I do not know inDesign and I am not sure how fast I can learn making books with it. Software cost is again an issue though.


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## Johan Elzenga (Jun 18, 2016)

alaios said:


> I think I can survive with no text... (if Clients need text though that is another story). Which other software have you used to make books?
> I have downloaded the software for making offline books from whitewall, blurb, saal-digital.. and all these allow very slow workflow of making books. Fundy designer looks to be making books much more enjoying procedure although it has a 300 euros price tag!!
> 
> I do not know inDesign and I am not sure how fast I can learn making books with it. Software cost is again an issue though.



As I already mentioned, I've used the software from Blurb, and I have used InDesign. The Blurb software is easy to learn and it's free. It is not that fast, but I don't think it is slower than the book module in Lightroom. Its main advantage is that you can really edit the page layout, something you cannot do in Lightroom. The disadvantage is that you have to export your images from Lightroom first, and if you edit an image after you've already used it in the book, you have to export it again and replace it. In the book module you don't have to do that.

InDesign is not free (it's part of the full Creative Cloud suite, so it may be effectively 'free' if you already have that subscription anyway) and not so easy to learn, but it is extremely powerful. It is the software that professional designers use. You can do anything with it, but it is clearly overkill if you simply want to make a book with just a few images per page and hardly any text.


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## alaios (Jun 18, 2016)

JohanElzenga said:


> As I already mentioned, I've used the software from Blurb, and I have used InDesign. The Blurb software is easy to learn and it's free. It is not that fast, but I don't think it is slower than the book module in Lightroom. Its main advantage is that you can really edit the page layout, something you cannot do in Lightroom. The disadvantage is that you have to export your images from Lightroom first, and if you edit an image after you've already used it in the book, you have to export it again and replace it. In the book module you don't have to do that.
> 
> InDesign is not free (it's part of the full Creative Cloud suite, so it may be effectively 'free' if you already have that subscription anyway) and not so easy to learn, but it is extremely powerful. It is the software that professional designers use. You can do anything with it, but it is clearly overkill if you simply want to make a book with just a few images per page and hardly any text.



Yes it looks like an overkill. I agree, fundy designer looks to be closer to my needs in terms of design speed I need although is not free either and also destroys my workflow around lightroom


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## Jo Dale (Jun 28, 2016)

I've just been reading this thread to shed light on my book situation. I used Aperture for years before it became defunct & my new Nikon was incompatible. Apart from the photo editing/organizing etc, I used it to create yearbooks for my child's school. I created an A5 template with photos & text (21x15cm) & export as PDF to a local printers. Having had to switch to Lightroom, and immensely loving it for many reasons, the lack of book flexibility I am not impressed with. Last year, realising this upon my first book attempt with LR, I exported the photos as jpeg's & imported back into Aperture & simply dropped into my template. As I did have colour issues with my workflow of exporting via Aperture last year, I'm wondering if there have been any advances since this post was started 2 years ago flexibility? At a glance I can't say there has.

I am toying with either changing the size of the book as per the templates in LR (standard landscape is rather large though & not keen on the small square) - albeit I read above that flexibility is still restricted so Blurb software better (so I might as well stick with Aperture) - or signing up for Indesign where I can re-create my template as I have designed it, which I would have to teach myself pretty sharpish. I can get a months trail at least....and hope that I can pay as you go as I only need it for one month of the year!


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## alaios (Jun 30, 2016)

I am also thinking for programs apart indesign like fundy designer or smart albums


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## Gnits (Jun 30, 2016)

Serif Affinity are working on a new app called Publish, which I am looking forward to.
So sad that Lr book module is crippled in so many ways.
InDesign is functional but a dinasour. I hate using it, but it works, but have to create intermediate files and handling changes is a pain. I have written scripts to automate the workflow between Lr and InDesign. Not a trivial exercise.
The Blurb app is better than the Lr in most ways, but again, a pity to have to create intermediate files.

Unfinished business, in my view, by Adobe.  I have formal requests for features logged on the official Adobe feature request forum that have been ignored for at least 4 years.


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## Johan Elzenga (Jun 30, 2016)

Unfortunately, there is a lot like that. I understand that the Lightroom team cannot add every single feature that people might suggest. That's only logical. But the Lightroom team is far too 'develop-centric'. Their entire focus, or at least 90% of their focus, is on the develop module. The other Lightroom modules are hardly ever updated, or get mediocre new features such as a 'Ken Burns effect' in the slideshow module that is completely random and cannot be controlled by the user (making it completely useless), music in the slideshow module that cannot be synchronized with slide transitions (you can only sync the entire slideshow to the length of the chosen music), 'custom lay-outs' in the book module that aren't custom layout at all, etcetera. Some bugs, like Lightroom defaulting to the first image when you toggle between two folders or collections and back, have been present since day one and still have not been fixed. I'm afraid there's not a lot we can do about it, except using other software for books and slideshows.


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## Gnits (Jun 30, 2016)

JohanElzenga said:


> Unfortunately, there is a lot like that. I understand that the Lightroom team cannot add every single feature that people might suggest. That's only logical. But the Lightroom team is far too 'develop-centric'. Their entire focus, or at least 90% of their focus, is on the develop module. The other Lightroom modules are hardly ever updated, or get mediocre new features such as a 'Ken Burns effect' in the slideshow module that is completely random and cannot be controlled by the user (making it completely useless), music in the slideshow module that cannot be synchronized with slide transitions (you can only sync the entire slideshow to the length of the chosen music), 'custom lay-outs' in the book module that aren't custom layout at all, etcetera. Some bugs, like Lightroom defaulting to the first image when you toggle between two folders or collections and back, have been present since day one and still have not been fixed. I'm afraid there's not a lot we can do about it, except using other software for books and slideshows.



I agree with all of this 100%.



JohanElzenga said:


> Some bugs, like Lightroom defaulting to the first image when you toggle between two folders or collections and back, have been present since day one and still have not been fixed.



I thought I was the only person in the world who found this specific lack of basic usability such a painful painful experience, especially when the respective folders may contain 100's of images.  I never regarded this as a bug, just the behaviour of an app which lacks the input of people who use it every day.

The classic focus on development is Lr Mobile.  Adobe deal with the complex  development features but do not provide the basic ability to edit a few fields such as Title and Caption, a function ideally suited to the ipad device and could be used by photographers stuck on trains, planes and in airports. No need to calibrate the screen.  So frustrating.


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## Johan Elzenga (Jul 1, 2016)

Gnits said:


> I thought I was the only person in the world who found this specific lack of basic usability such a painful painful experience, especially when the respective folders may contain 100's of images.  I never regarded this as a bug, just the behaviour of an app which lacks the input of people who use it every day.



Bug or feature, I happen to know that this problem is on a list of 'things to fix'. I also know it was moved higher on that list after I officially reported it as a bug a long time ago. But apparently nobody in the Lightroom team is responsible for actually getting the things on that list fixed...



> The classic focus on development is Lr Mobile.  Adobe deal with the complex  development features but do not provide the basic ability to edit a few fields such as Title and Caption, a function ideally suited to the ipad device and could be used by photographers stuck on trains, planes and in airports. No need to calibrate the screen.  So frustrating.



Yes, this is another example. You can do amazing things in Lightroom Mobile when it comes to image editting. Really impressive stuff. But when you're in a plane with your iPad, it would make more sense to spend that time adding keywords, captions and titles than making edits on an (uncalibrated) iPad. This used to be possible with Photosmith, but unfortunately that is no longer supported. I'm also surprised that they haven't even enabled collection _sets_ in Lightroom Mobile. I have less than 1000 images in LrM (because of these linitations I only use it a bit to show my portfolio) but the list of collections is already becoming 'rather unstructured' because there is no hierarchy.

There are too many software engineers, and too few photographers (if any) working at Adobe.


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## Gnits (Jul 1, 2016)

Thank you for the feedback.  I sense  we are on the same page.

I do not know if Adobe realise how much damage they are doing to their reputation. In a previous role I used Adobe enterprise software to print mission critical documents in approx 100 high volume, noisy and dusty production plants, over very thin wide area network and recommended its use in a global context.  I would not dare consider Adobe now and rate Adobe at the very bottom of the totem selection pole.... ie use Adobe products if desperate.  My view, which I have repeated before, is that Adobe do a super job getting the first 80% and then take 10 years to deal with the next 10%, so the important little things never get the attention they deserve.

The biggest issue is that posting requests or suggestions on official Adobe forums amplifies this frustration,  as really good and fairly simply suggestions are ignored for years and years and years.


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