Some of you have been wondering about the difference between our SmileBooks photo books on silver halide photo paper and those printed on digital print paper and I hope this post will help answer your questions.

Our standard books are printed on 135lb digital print paper and are perfect bound. This means that the pages are printed on industrial printing presses, e.g. HP Indigo’s, Kodak NexPresses or Xerox I-Gen’s and are then cut on 4 sides and glued into the hard or soft image wrap cover.

Digital Print Paper

 Our books on silver halide photo paper with a lustre finish come in 3 sizes; 8×8, 11×8 and 12×12, with image wrap hard covers and a lay-flat binding. There is no seam in the middle of a double page spread so these books are ideal for full bleed spreads.

Silver Halide Paper

 We’ve also often had Facebook fans asking how to change from one type of paper to the other while working on a project or how to select the books on photo paper/lay-flat bindings from the get go. The following screenshots should help!

In order to select a photo book on photo paper/lay-flat binding from the main menu in the software, simply click on the last tab as shown below (see orange box). 

Selecting a book on photo paper/lay-flat binding from the main menu

However,  if you’ve already started a project on digital print paper, which means you initially selected one  first 3 tabs on the photo book selection screen (see orange box)…

Selecting photo books on digital print paper from the main menu

 …the photo book in the editor will have a dark seam dividing the 2 pages of the photo book spread and the paper type will be set to “Digital printing” (see orange box)…

Digital print paper editor

…while the paper type in the lower left hand portion of the screen will be set to “Digital Printing”  which comes with perfect binding. You can change this by simply selecting “Photo Paper” in the pulldown menu.

You will be alerted that the maxiumum amount of pages will be reduced in this option. This is because these pages are considerably thicker than digital printing paper pages and 82 pages are the maximum numer of pages on photo paper we can bind at this time…

 

Notice regarding max. number of pages

 …click on “Yes” to convert your photo book into one on silver halide photo paper with a lay-flat binding (see orange box).

Silver halide photo paper editor

If you have any further questions, please leave a comment below! 

The new software will be released today (at last!) and here’s a heads up on what some of the major changes are. In order to update your old software, just click on the “Update” button when you run the software.

The first thing you’ll notice is that we now offer a range of Greeting Cards and Calendars. In addition, we have a new 8×6 Compact SmileBooks Photo Book and you will now also be able to order the 16.5×12 Panorama Professional SmileBook with an image wrap hard cover! We’ve changed the name of the 8×8 photo book from Mini to Medium, so don’t let that confuse you.

The following photo books will now have a maximum of 154 pages in their image wrap hard cover on digital print paper options: 8×11 Classic, 11×8 Panorama, 12×12 Deluxe, 11×14 Portrait Professional and the 16.5×12 Panorama Professional SmileBook.

For all SmileBooks photo books printed on silver halide photo paper (those with a lay-flat binding), the maximum page number of 82 stays the same.

Some of the tools and functionalities have been moved or have a new look so i’ve included some “before” and “after” screenshots help get you started:

Here’s the photo book editor in the old software with the shopping cart and save functions (1) and the preview, zoom, page and rotation functions (2).

Version 4.5.9 - Preview mode & Save/Shopping Cart functions

 In the screenshot of the new software, you’ll notice that the shopping cart icon has been replaced with an “Order now!” button and the save functions have moved to the top of the screen along with the button for activating the SmileBooks Assistant (1a). The whole preview mode, zoom, page and rotation section (2a) has moved.

Version 4.6.5 - Preview mode & Save/Shopping Cart functions

In the old software, in order to add frames/borders around your photos, you’d click on the button (3) to activate the tool:

Version 4.5.9 - Border/Frame tool

Version 4.6.5 - Border/Frame tool

The text tool (4) has moved from…

Version 4.5.9 - Text tool

 …to here…

Version 4.6.5 - Text tool

 You can still set images to full bleed on either one page or across both pages with a right mouse click under “More image options”.

A huge change is that you’ll now be able to switch from digital printing paper to silver halide photo paper! This option applies to 8×8 Medium, 8×11 Classic, 11×8 Panorama and 12×12 Deluxe SmileBooks. This feature can be found in product information area (5) along with the cover type options and the page number selection tool. We’ve also added price information to this section and if you click on the “Change size” button, you’ll be able to change an 8×8 into a 12×12, a 8×11 into a 11×14 or a 11×8 into a 8×6 photo book and visa versa. This function is ideal for anyone wanting to make a large photo book to keep and a smaller version to give away as a gift.

Version 4.6.5 - Product information area

In a rush to get the new version out today, you’ll notice that the book sizes in the “Change size” function are still in cm’s. Some of the book names are incorrect as well. If you try to change 12×12 or 8×8 photo books, you’ll notice that the Medium book is called Square. For 16.5×12, 11×8 or 8×6 size changes, you’ll notice that the Panorama is called a Classic. We’ll get this fixed in the next few days.

Version 4.6.5 - Change size window with incorrect product names

The photos in these screenshots were taken from my vacation to Venice 2 week’s ago. Once i’ve finished making my SmileBook, i’ll share it with you and show you how to use the new share function.

If you need any more information, leave a comment and i’ll be more than happy to help!

On Monday i’ll be showing you all the new features in the SmileBooks Assistant. There’s a fantastic new section on style selection which will help you make themed photo books with a few easy clicks!

  You can use our range of cliparts to add scrapbooking elements to your SmileBooks. I like to make my own photo corners and have found an easy way to do it and make sure all the cliparts are the same size too:

Select a clipart and drag it onto the page 4 times.

Press the control key and click on all 4 cliparts, then click on one frame and, keeping the control key pressed, click on the remaining frames. The yellow „active image“ frame should now surround all your image fields.

This ensures that all image fields end up being exactly the same size once you click one of the corner red squares in order to scale the cliparts. 

Position and rotate the cliparts in each corner and you’re finished! Rotate bottom left corner 45°, top left corner 135°, top right corner 225° and bottom right corner 315°.

This effect is easy to produce and has a great impact. Simply select a page layout which has as many frames aligned to the edge of the page that you need for your effect. In this example I took a layout intended for 6 images, where 3 images were aligned to the top of the page.

Delete the unwanted frames on the page.

Then click on one frame and, keeping the control key pressed, click on the remaining frames. The yellow „active image“ frame should now surround all your image fields. This ensures that all image fields end up being exactly the same size.

In this example, I now clicked onto the red square at the bottom of the frame and pulled it to the bottom of the page, elongating the image fields.

Now take your image and drag it into each of the image fields.

Move each image around in it‘s frame until you get the effect you are looking for. Sometimes you need to use the zoom tool (4th from the right on the tool bar). Just remember to enlarge each image the same number of times.

If you move the entire image field by mistake (this can happen if your mouse moves onto the frame surrounding the image), just let go of the mouse and click on the „undo last action “button. It‘s the 3rd from the left on the tool bar.

If you‘re tired of page after page of square or rectangular photos, you might want to try out the Image Mask function. To get to it you‘ll have to click on the „Layout“ tab in the left hand side of the editor. Then click on the tab „Image Masks“. You‘ll see a pull-down menu with different categories of shapes. You can choose from a huge range of shapes, oval, round, hearts, clouds, film strips, puzzle pieces, frames, etc. There are over 120 shapes and effects to choose from. Make sure you download the entire range by clicking the „Download more“ button under the pull-down menu. The files sizes are very small so it won‘t take long to download them all.

A typo on the spine of your SmileBook can ruin an otherwise perfect project. To make it easier to read the text on your computer screen, simply do the following. Type in your text on the spine, go to the bottom of the screen and move the slider of the zoom bar to the far right. This will magnify the text and you‘ll easily be able to make any corrections. Move the slider back to the left to continue creating your SmileBook.