AdoramaPix Forums/FAQ/Photo Books & Calendars
Entire book printed "high" and poorly trimmed
Scot Goodman
asked this on August 06, 2010 01:37 pm
This is paraphrased from an email I sent to customer service. I'd thought I'd copy it hear in case anyone had anything to contribute. Except for this issue, I liked the book very much - but the problem described below presents a serious issue: My 76 page 6x9 book printed “high,” i.e., from cover to cover the upper 1/4 inch of each layout was lost, cutting off fingers, heads, etc., and portions of borders. At the bottom, several of the pages are cut with rough edges (imagine a heavy board cut with scissors that aren’t sharp) and a thin white line at the bottom is visible in about 1/3 of the pages, with about another 1/4 of additional space visible at the bottom than at the top. I had used the grid and other tools to place many photos in the center or along measure borders top and bottom - yet this is not what printed. Borders and the tops of images were cut off. What this means to me is that the grid and layout tools are not accurate and I can’t count on them to show me what is actually getting printed. So, my question is, is this within a normal tolerance range, or was the book poorly printed? If this is normal, it isn't good. I’d suggest making some room to show what might get trimmed in the book building application - but even so, if I center an image, it should have printed centered, not a 1/4 high. Have other experienced a similar problem? Is it a normal tolerance one should expect and deal with when setting up the layouts, or is it something that shouldn't happen given how the book building tool is set up (i.e. a centered image should be centered)?
Comments
Hi Scot,
You will find half of the answer here: http://forums.adoramapix.com/entries/208382-what-is-the-bleed-area?page=1#post_343056
The second half (the quality of the trimming) is a quality control issue; please contact customer service.
Regards
Pako
Sorry, that came out really hard to read. I'll try again...
I’ve learned a few things: Leave a 1/8” trim line around the edges *inside* the printing area. Don’t create thin borders. Lighter background colors hide potential trimming problems. Black backgrounds make differences in trim easily visible (but sure looks good). Moisture is not good for the books (I now include a little note inside the book to store in a cool dry place, or will in the future include this copy in credits). Adorama is trying very hard with good customer service.
In this time and age I see that somethings never change, people think that machine prints are printed in a large paper and there is someone cutting this photos right at the edge so nothing will be crop. I though that people already knew that this is not how is done, that machines do the entire proccess.
People are so criticall about full frame, if you new you wanted more room why did you shot it so close? why not take a step back or zoom out a bit? why? what is the problem with having the subject 1/2" from the edge? insted of 1/4"?
save yourelf some agravation next time and give yourself some room.
Ps:this comment is not directed to anyone in particular, is just a general comment.
You've confused a few things. Framing in camera and "framing" in a layout are two different things. Most of my images have room to crop and bleed edges. When shooting sports, once in awhile someone's hand, foot, etc., gets close to the edge and I don't have much room - but that's the way it goes with sports (I shoot thousands of images a week). But certainly when shooting landscapes one can exert considerable control over framing. However, what I wrote about was that the layout had shifted significantly, without indication in the book building application that I was exceeding working within the printable area - this isn't about machines, or people - it's about quality control and meaningful applications. Take a look at BLURB's Booksmart book building application, you'll see they indicate a trim line - of which I observe when using their layout. Adorama's book building application show's a printing area, and a non printing area. My book, the one I cited above, did not print way inside the printing area. I'm merely suggesting that Adorama indicate a trim area.
To compensate for this I've noted a few things I learned which I've already posted elsewhere. One, Adorama's customer service, and desire to improve their product is pretty good. Two, hopefully at some point Adorama might add a trim line like BLURB's, but until then, I now place an imaginary trim line about 1/8" INSIDE the printing area of my layouts when using the Adorama book building application (the problem I had above was that about 1/4" of my layouts and images were cut off on one side). I try not to use thin borders. If possible, I try a lighter background (tends to hide shifts along the edges). When I use full bleed, like I have been for the last 15 years, I expect some of the image to get trimmed.
Finally, one significant issue was the the book printed with a white line at the bottom. If you buy a print, that's usually fine, you can hide that behind a frame, take some scissors to it and trim it off. Not so easy with a 76 page bound book, that I paid $75 for.
Hey scot "You've confused a few things. Framing in camera and "framing" in a layout are two different things." When it comes to printing is the same thing, the machine can't tell the difference. when i do my books i do not add any thin borders and any lines i keep it 1/2" from the edge so i don't have to worry about it. Some times people try to make their books lookes beautiful by adding things to it remember that you are marketting your photos and if you have beautiful photos all those things are not needed, so i just keep it simple.
Playing around with the book building tool I did see a trim line (a grayed out/highlighted area) around the border of the layout window - however, correct me if I'm wrong, I could only see it if I moved a text box into the layout and clicked on the text box to make it active (not to be confused with the layout outline which turns black if you roll your cursor over it). Otherwise the trim area (about 1/8" all the way around) remains hidden. I'd suggest leaving it visible all the time. In defense of my original problem - the original book still lost image area outside of this region. Adorama has been quick to fix it.
I just received two 76 page wedding albums and had the exact same problem. I'm very very dissapointed and will be contacting Adorama customer service tomorrow to see about a fix or a refund. If there is always that big of an adjustment to how the books will be printed then they need to adjust their layout program to reflect that. I've ordered several books from other sources and have not had this problem as their design program clearly shows the areas that may be cropped. I printed two copies of the same book and the color, alignment and trim was different for each. I was attracted to the flexibility of the design program and the double page layouts without a gutter, but I have to say that the result is so poor that I will not be using this company again.
they shpuld leave a bleed like they do with process printing, which means if your image goes all he way to the edges of the page they should let you have a slightly larger image, usually; 1/8" for each side so when the page is trimmed there is still room for 1/8" of error on either side .