Articles : Tutorials - Digital

Shutterfly Photo Books

How to create your own Shutterfly photo book

When you first venture onto the Shutterfly website to create a photo book, it can be a bit scarey and confusing, but hopefully with these step-by-step instructions, it will make it easier!

1. Upload all of the images you want to include to your Shutterfly account. Make sure they are all in the same album. If you are doing a digital scrapbook album, you will need to make sure they have all been resized appropriately. (We will talk about sizing images for digital pages later).

2. Go into the store and click on the general button for Photo Books. For a general photo book, select the one which you choose to use. There are several specially-made pre-designed albums available, including several by Jessica Sprague, which are under the “Shop By Occasion” box. To print your own designs, select the “Print Your Digital Scrapbook” button.

3. When you click the Print your Digital Scrapbook button, another window will appear, allowing you to choose a 12x12 Memory Book, the 8x8 Story Book, the 8.5x11 Classic Book and the 5x7 Casual Book. For this class, we will be focusing on the 12x12 and the 8x8 books. My album was created as an 8x8. I love this size and it’s awesome for a gift book.

4. When you click on the size book you wish to create, a new page will open. You will have the opportunity to download specs and templates, which will help you make sure that your pages are the right size for your album.

5. If you are creating a Story Book, you will select the appropriate one you are creating on the Products page. You will have control over covers, templates, backgrounds and shadowing, within the limits of those offered.

6. Whichever you choose to do, click on the GET STARTED button. To begin with, we will focus on those creating photo albums, not digital scrapbooks. After clicking the “GET STARTED” button, the following window will pop up. You will be able to select the style of your backgrounds (you can use a different background on different pages!)

7. Click on the page you wish to create. Then, you will be able to customize that page by selecting what Layout you would like…

8. You can also choose the kind of edge you would like on each photo…

9. And the kind of background “paper” you would like for each page…

10. If you are creating your own Digital Scrapbook album, you want to select the layout that is all photo…

11. Before you can place photos or digital pages onto the pages of your book, you need to get those photos from your gallery. Select the “GET PICTURES” button at the bottom of the page.

12. Your Photo Book, featuring all the albums you have created, will open up. Select the album you wish to use – I am using my Honeymoon album…

13. And then click on the “ADD” the Entire Album button…

14. Photos and Pages can be placed where you want them simply by dragging that image to the appropriate location and dropping it where you want it.

15. Pages can be reorderd, by removing the page from the book – click the page, drag back down to the image bar at the bottom. Also, images that have been used (are already placed in the book) will appear with a green tick (check mark) in the image bar.

16. Once you have completed the inside of your album, it is time to create your cover. You can digitally create your own cover, or you can use the pre-designed layouts, background and edges for your cover.

17. If you are creating your own cover, you will need to click on the photo only layout. You will also need to use the templates or follow the specs to carefully create the front and back covers, and the spine. These then need to be uploaded to the album in your gallery.

FOR DIGITAL SCRAPBOOKERS

Template sizes – The Photoshop templates that you download from Shutterfly do make it very easy, especially if you make your pages with that template in mind. However, if your pages have already been created, you will need to resize your pages accordingly.

12x12 Albums

• 12x12 PAGES – these must be resized from 12”x12” to 11.95”x11.95”. This is the bleed area. What is printed is actually 11.75”x11.75”. Therefore, if you have parts that hang off the page, especially writing, they may be cut off. You may actually want to resize your print to 11.77”x11.77”, and then center it on a canvas that is 11.95”x11.95”, to prevent too much being cut off, and also prevent having a white border around your page.
• FRONT COVER – Your printed page will be 11.5” wide by 12” tall. However, There needs to be a bleed area. Your printed page must be justified to the right, and there must be a bleed area of 0.85” to the top, 0.85” to the bottom, and 0.85” to the left. To make this easier. Create your page as 11.6” wide by 12.1” tall, and then place it on the 12.35”x13.7” canvas, justified to the right.
• BACK COVER – This is just like the front cover, but it is justified to the left. Like wise, you might want to create your page as 11.6” wide by 12.1” tall, and then place it on the 12.35”x13.7” canvas.
• SPINE – The simplest way to do this is to create a canvas that is 1.438” wide and 12.2” long. (You may want to create this horizontally, and then rotate it, to make it easier to create any writing you want on the spine). Once it is completed, open a new canvas that is 1.438” by 13.7”, so that you have your bleed area.

8x8 Albums

• 8x8 PAGES - these must be resized from 8”x8” to 7.95”x7.95”. Again, this is the bleed area. What is actually printed is 8.75”x8.75”. Likewise, you may actually want to resize your page to 8.77”x8.77” and then center it on a canvas that is 8.95”x8.85”.
• FRONT COVER - Create your page as an 8.2”x7.7”, merge layers and then place on a new canvas that is 8.35”x9.7”, with your image justified to the right.
• BACK COVER – Create your page as an 8.2”x7.7”, merge layers and then place on a new canvas that is 8.35”x9.7”, with your image justified to the left.
• SPINE - Create your image as 1.438”x8.2”, merge layers and then center it on a new canvas that is 1.438”x9.7”

About the author ...
Sara Westhead (Keling) resides in West Yorkshire, England, with her husband of 8 years, Andrew, and their two boys, Tommy, aged 6, and Jonathan, 3. Sara started digi-scrapping in January 2006, and relies on her background in advertising and graphic design. She was a formerly a journalist in Bermuda, but is now a stay-at-home-mom working to change the world!

Submitted by Keling