Designing Photo Books in Adobe Photoshop
You can create your photo book page and cover designs in Photoshop using the templates provided below then save the completed layouts as JPEGs or TIFFs for import into the Momento Pro software in one easy action.
Photoshop templates are not available for Flush Mount Albums.
Download the Momento Pro Photoshop Photo Book Page and Cover Templates
Read these instructions carefully and refer to the Colour Management page before starting your layouts. We recommend that you print this page for reference.
Designing your pages
Important notes:
- Each page or double page spread should be designed in a separate Photoshop file. Use of a single file with each page on its own layer is not recommended
- The templates provided are setup in Adobe RGB and your designs will only appear correctly if have embedded colour profiles in your image files
- Single page templates cannot be used if you have any spanned images - you must use the double-page templates for designs with spans.
2. Run Photoshop and open the downloaded Momento Pro template file for the desired shape and size
- Pages can only be designed as Majestic (A2), Grand (A3) or Regular (A4)
- Smaller sizes can be ordered from those sizes and are scaled down at print
3. Ensure the guides are visible - Cmd+H / Ctrl+H to show & hide
4. There are different coloured guides to assist you when designing so ensure to design according to these and keep ALL important content within these areas
- Cyan – Binding Centre
- Magenta – Outer Safe Areas
- Orange – Binding Safe Area for Lay-flat and Fine-art paper stocks
- Green – Binding Safe Area for standard Photobooks
5. If using the double-page templates, your page design will start from page 2 (the first left-side page)
- To create page 1, use the single (right-hand side) page template for your first page
- Similarly, you can use the single (left-hand side) page template if you wish to end your book on an even page number
6. We recommend always using images with an embedded colour space of Adobe RGB as all projects will be exported and sent to print using Adobe RGB
- We recommend that you also use our ICC profiles available on the Colour Management page (updated as of June 2012) to soft-proof your images in Photoshop, using the paper profile that you are going to be selecting upon ordering
7. When you have completed your page designs, delete the Instructions layer from the document
8. Save each page as High Quality JPEGs or TIFFs into a single designated folder on your computer and that the files are named incrementally
- eg; page0001, page0002, page0003 ... page0100 etc.
- Note: each file number should begin with a 0 (zero) so that the Momento Pro software imports these in the correct order
9. Check your JPEG/TIFF files to ensure there are no errors and make sure that the colours appear correct. If an image's colour doesn't look correct, then open this image by itself in Photoshop and check what the colour space for that image is – if there is no profile attached, then you will almost certainly see colour problems until you resave the image with a profile (AdobeRGB).
Designing your covers
Because the spine dimensions of your cover will depend on the size and thickness of your completed book, we recommend that you design your book and box covers in the Momento Pro software. You can either design the cover from scratch or drag in completed designs from Photoshop.
If the Momento Pro software doesn't have the features you require for your cover design, you can design a PDF in Photoshop using the downloaded templates. A book that needs a cover attached must not be ordered until you have been notified that this task has been completed. This usually takes 1-3 business days and file preparation fees apply if submitting a PDF cover.
The Cover templates have been setup so you can design your cover as a Dust-jacket, a Printed Hardcover or a Printed Presentation box.
1. Open the Cover template file of the desired shape and size to match your page designs
- Note: you must design and supply a separate PDF for each size cover that you plan to order.
3. Use the Spine width grid below, or on the cover template, to find the correct spine width for your project, dependant on paper stock.
4. Now, set the 4 guides (across the top of the document) to indicate the cover folds to match the calculated spine width.
- Use the ‘Zoom tool’ to zoom in to about 400% and at each of the 4 locations marked across the top of the document, drag the existing guide to the correct measurement.
- Magenta dashed lines: Safe Area; because folds and cuts aren't exact, keep your important content in the Safe Area
- Blue lines: Folds; indicate where the cover will be folded. You must adjust these (described above)
- Pink block: Dust-Jacket area; extend images to the edge of this area for print-to-edge
- Light Green block: Printed Hardcover area; extend images to the edge of this area for print-to-edge
- Note: if you are designing a Dust-Jacket and Printed Hardcover in the same layout, ensure both the pink and light green areas are filled
7. Images must be flattened. No image transparency or effects should be included in your PDF
8. Any fonts must be embedded in the PDF
9. Save your file as a High Quality PDF. Images and the final PDF must be saved as Adobe RGB. Do not use CMYK
- Note: choosing the incorrect colour space or profile will result in inaccurate printed colours
Check your export: Check for any errors as well as any potential colour issues. When viewing the exported file in Acrobat (Pro or Reader), the colours should look ‘correct’ (though can sometimes appear slightly desaturated with Adobe’s default settings). If an image's colour doesn't look correct, then open this image by itself in Photoshop and check what the colour space for that image is – if there is no profile attached, then you will almost certainly see colour problems until you resave the image with a profile (AdobeRGB)
Uploading and Ordering
2. Complete the online Questionnaire. This must be completed before Prepress can commence work on your file
3. Wait until you are contacted by Momento Pro Customer Service before ordering
- Note: ordering before your cover has been added by our prepress team will result in your book being produced with a blank cover design