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Creating a Book Template in Adobe Photoshop
Read on for information on creating a book template in Adobe Photoshop.
For years, PrintNinja has been the premier offset printer for independent creators, self-publishers, and small businesses. We specialize in high-quality printing services at prices that only offset printing can bring you.
One of the most intimidating steps during the printing process is properly setting up files for the press. However, this process is easier that it appears. Over the years we’ve been printing books, games, and more, we have seen projects of all layouts and formats. We’ve created the instructions below to make sure your files are setup to print exactly how you envision them.
How to Create a Template In Adobe Photoshop
- In Photoshop, select File > New.
- Make sure to include the page number in the file name as you will need to create a different file for each page.
- For the page size enter your final trim size plus 0.125” bleed on all four sides, or 0.25” to the total page size. For example, if you are printing a 6.625” x 10.25” comic, you would enter 6.875” x 10.5”. You may also choose to design your pages as two page spreads, in which case you would first double your page width before adding .125” bleed on all four sides (so 13.5” x 10.5” for the 6.625” x 10.25” comic size).Be sure to keep all crucial text and artwork at least .25” away from the edges of the document.
For HARDCOVER projects, we recommend keeping all crucial text and artwork at least .125” from the bound sides of the page.
For SOFTCOVER projects, we recommend keeping all crucial text and artwork at least .40” from the bound sides of the page.
For SPIRAL/WIRE BOUND projects, we recommend keeping all crucial text and artwork at least .45” from the bound sides of the page to avoid the hole punches for the wire/spiral coil interfering with the artwork and readability. - Ensure that the image resolution is 300 pixels per inch.
- Choose CMYK as your color mode.
- In the Advanced section select Don’t Color Manage This Document and Square Pixels.
- Click OK to create your page, then repeat the process as many times as you need to cover all of your pages.
Exporting Your Book Template as a PDF in Photoshop – Individual Files
- When your pages are all designed and you are ready to export your pages as a print-ready PDF, select File > Automate > PDF Presentation
- If you have all of your book pages open, select Add Open Files. Otherwise, click Browse to add them to your PDF.
- Save the file as a Multi-Page Document and unselect everything in the Include section.
- Click Save to continue.
- At the top choose High Quality Print as your preset, though we will be making some changes.
- In the Compression tab turn off all compression settings to avoid unnecessary quality loss. The only time to select these options is if your images have a very high resolution. 300 pixels/dots per inch is ideal for print, but we will accept up to 400 ppi/dpi. Anything above that cannot be accurately reproduced by offset printing presses, so choose Bicubic Sampling To 300 ppi for images above 400ppi if you find yourself in this position.
- In the Output tab choose No Color Conversion and Don’t Include Profile.
- Click Save PDF to save your print-ready PDF.
Exporting Your Book Template as a PDF in Photoshop – Layers
- Highlight all your merged layers by clicking the top layer, holding Shift, and clicking the bottom layer.
- Navigate to File > Export > Layers to Files. Assign a file name prefix, select a destination for your files, deselect “Include ICC Profile”, set the quality to the highest level, and encoding to ZIP, then let Photoshop do its magic by saving each layer as a PDF.
- You can close your Photoshop project now, as all the necessary files are exported.
- In Photoshop, select File > Automate > PDF Presentation
- Click Browse to add them to your PDF.
- Save the file as a Multi-Page Document and unselect everything in the Include section.
- Click Save to continue.
- At the top choose High Quality Print as your preset, though we will be making some changes.
- In the Compression tab turn off all compression settings to avoid unnecessary quality loss. The only time to select these options is if your images have a very high resolution. 300 pixels/dots per inch is ideal for print, but we will accept up to 400 ppi/dpi. Anything above that cannot be accurately reproduced by offset printing presses, so choose Bicubic Sampling To 300 ppi for images above 400ppi if you find yourself in this position.
- In the Output tab choose No Color Conversion and Don’t Include Profile.
- Click Save PDF to save your print-ready PDF.
Be mindful of….
If you find you get an error and cannot export a PSD file to PDF using Photoshop, some common reasons why you might be facing this problem include:
- Unsupported content or effects in the Photoshop file
- Extremely large file size containing high-res images incompatible with PDF size limits.
- Outdated software version
- Permission or security settings
- Memory issues with your PC/MAC
- Software glitches or bugs in Photoshop after a recent update, etc.
So, please take stock of the above and make adjustments as needed.
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