Getting started: Making a photo book

You can use this tutorial with Adobe® Photoshop® Elements versions 7 and 8.

Discover an elegant way to share your photos with family and friends. Create a photo book in Adobe® Photoshop® Elements that you can print yourself or have professionally printed.

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Requirements

To complete this tutorial, install the following software:

Adobe Photoshop Elements 7 or later

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Preparing photos for the photo book

After adding photos to the Photoshop Elements Organizer, you can add them to a photo book. It is a good idea to make any desired edits or enhancements to your images before adding them to a photo book. For example, you can adjust color, tone, and lighting, or apply cropping.

Before creating the photo book, it is also a good idea to place the photos in a new album. You cannot set the order of photos in the Organizer, and sorting lots of photos in the small space of the Project Bin can be challenging.

Creating an album lets you arrange photos before creating the photo book.

1. Start Photoshop Elements 7.
2. Open the Organizer workspace and view the thumbnails for the photos you want to include in the photo book.
3. Select every photo you want to add to the photo book.

   Click the first photo, hold down the Shift key, and click the last photo. You can also Ctrl+click to select non-contiguous photos.

4. With all of the photos selected, click the plus sign in the Albums palette of the Task pane, and choose New Album.
5. Give the new album a name.
6. Deselect Backup/Synchronize.

   Backup/Synchronize is related to Photoshop.com, which you learn about in another tutorial.

7. Click Done.

Now that you have added the photos to a new album, you have more control over their order. If you want to, you can rearrange them by dragging them in the Photo Browser.

Creating the photo book

The option for creating a photo book is located on the Share tab of the taskbar in the Organizer workspace.

1. Make sure that you are viewing the new album, and the photos are still selected in the Photo Browser on the left.
2. Click the Create tab at the top of the Task pane.
3. Click Photo Book.

   Photoshop Elements opens a new project in the Editor workspace, as shown in Figure 1. On the right, you see instructions for how to make a photo book. It tells you that the first step is to select a photo for the title page. The title page photo is the first one in the Project Bin. So if you want to change the title page photo, drag a different photo to the far left in the Project Bin.

   

   (View full size +)

   Figure 1: Photo book project workspace

4. Set the title page photo using the Project Bin. The title page photo automatically updates on the right.

   Note: Although you can reorder photos in the Project Bin, there is not much space. To see the rest of the photos, you can scroll the Project Bin. You can also make the Project Bin bigger but that cuts into the editing space above.

5. Click Next.

   The next step is to choose a layout for the book, as shown in Figure 2. The layout governs the number of photos and the position of photos on each page in the book. The default is to let Photoshop Elements do the layout randomly.

   

   Figure 2: Photo book layout options

6. Click the Choose Photo Layout option.
7. Select a Left Page Layout (all left pages).
8. Select a Right Page Layout (all right pages).
9. Click Next.

   The next step is to choose a theme for the photo book. A theme is a combination of background and frames used throughout the book to coordinate the pages.

10. Select a theme. A preview of the theme opens on the left.
11. Close the preview window.
12. Make sure that Auto-fill With Project Bin Photos is selected.

    Photoshop Elements takes all of the photos in the Project Bin and puts them into the book. If you have captions prepared for the photos, you can include those captions on the individual pages. You can also set the number of pages in the book from 20 to 80 pages.

13. Click Create.

    Photoshop Elements generates a photo book, resizing the photos and creating the pages. It then shows the preview with the title page first, as shown in Figure 3. A Control bar appears below the preview.

    

    Figure 3: Photo book preview

14. Click through the pages of the book using the arrows in the Control bar below the preview.

Changing the photo book

You can edit the photo book by doing things like resizing photos, moving them around or even replacing them.

1. To resize a photo, position the pointer over a corner anchor point, then drag. Click the Commit button (green check mark) to commit the change.
2. To rotate a photo, position the pointer over a corner of the photo. When it changes to a curved double-pointed arrow, drag to rotate the image. Click the Commit button (green check mark) to commit the change.
3. To delete a photo from a page, select it and press delete.

   To add photos, you simply drag them into the book from the Project Bin. By default the Project Bin shows the pages in the photo book. To add new photos, change views in the Project Bin.

4. Open the menu directly above the Project Bin and choose Show File From Organizer.

   Now the Project Bin shows the photos you have open from the Organizer.

5. Drag a photo from the Project Bin and drop it directly in the frame of a photo that is already in the photo book. When you release the mouse button, the new photo replaces the old one, and a slider appears, as shown in Figure 4.

   

   Figure 4: Slider used to size the new photo inside the frame

6. Use the slider to adjust the size of the new photo.
7. Click the Commit button (green check mark).

Making changes from the Content palette

In addition to adding new photos, you can change the book by selecting new options in the Content palette on the right. For example, you can change the background or picture frame, add text and graphics, or changing the entire theme of the page. Be careful about doing that on the inside pages because you want them all to have a consistent look. But it makes sense to do that on the first page.

1. Click the menu at the top of the Project Bin, and select Show Open Files.

   The Project Bin now shows the pages in the photo book.

2. Click the first thumbnail in the Project Bin. This page is the title page.
3. To access new themes, open the menu at the top of the Content panel, and select Themes, as shown in Figure 5.

   

   Figure 5: Content palette

   Note: You can also choose to display Backgrounds, Frames, Graphics, Shapes, and Text options.

4. With Themes selected, pick a new theme for the title page, and click Apply.

   A message warns that applying this theme replaces the current theme.

5. Click OK.

   The title page has a new theme, as shown in Figure 6, but the other pages remain the same.

   

   Figure 6: New theme applied to the title page of a photo book

Adding pages

Be careful when building a book that you select enough photos to fill all the pages that you are going to include in your book. If you add pages, you can do that by clicking the Add Pages button (green plus sign) in the Control bar below the book preview.

Printing the photo book

When you are done editing the draft of the book, you will either print the book or order a professionally printed copy. The Order button on the Control bar takes you to a form. Fill out the form and pay a fee to order a commercially printed and bound copy of the photo book.

If you would rather print the book yourself, you can click the Print button. Printing on your own has some challenges. It requires two-sided photo paper. You also need paper that is large enough for the entire book, which is 10.25 x 9 inches. Otherwise, you have to scale the content to fit in your printer, and you end up with a much smaller book. Professional printing is the way to go.

Saving the photo book

When creating a photo book, save early and often.

1. To save the book, choose File > Save.

   The Save As dialog box appears. The photo book is saved as a special format, Photo Project Format (*.PSE), as shown in Figure 7. You want to save in this format so that you can open the book later in the Editor's Full Edit workspace to edit its individual pages.

   

   Figure 7: Photo Project Format in the Save As dialog box

2. Open the folder where you want to save the photo book.
3. Enter a name for the book in the File Name field.
4. Make sure that Include In Organizer is selected, and click Save.

Photo books are special ways to share your photos. They make great holiday gifts and they are a wonderful way to share memories with family and friends.

Where to go from here

If you enjoyed this tutorial, check out these other resources to help get you started using Photoshop Elements.

• Photoshop Elements Essentials for Windows tutorials on lynda.com
• Photoshop Elements shows on Adobe TV
• Photoshop Elements Help and Support
• Making a photo collage
• Creating a slide show
• Making a panorama

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