Apple’s iPhoto books are a great way to preserve your memories, showcase your work, or give as a gift. Everyone I’ve shown an iPhoto book to has been impressed, but I’ve often been just a little dissapointed with the quality because I knew how the images were supposed to look. I’ve printed half a dozen iPhoto books in as many months, and I’ve prepared my images in a variety of ways to get the best quality. Here’s some of what I’ve discovered through trial and error about making the best iPhoto books, along with quick tutorials for making the adjustments in iPhoto or your favorite flavor of Photoshop. I’ve even included a free Photoshop Action for making the adjustments automatically.
Note: My original post included some settings for Unsharp Mask that are less than ideal for prepping photos for printing. I inadvertently included settings that I use to “burn the haze” from digital images, a tip I picked up from Dan Simon’s Digital Photography Bible
. Simon recommends applying Unsharp Mask with settings of 16 for the Amount (I prefer a bit more; I use 20), 40 for the Radius, and 0 for the Threshold. No harm; these settings will enhance your pictures, but you’ll probably want different settings to prepare them for an iPhoto book. You’ll find more desirable sharpening settings (and a corrected Photoshop Action), at the end of this post.
The Problem
You’ve assembled your book in iPhoto and everything looks great. The images are sharp and colorful, with good shadow detail and highlights. But when you open your freshly printed iPhoto book, the images look a bit soft, the colors look flat, and the images are a bit dark. What happened?
The problem lies with the paper and ink. Different papers absorb ink differently. If a paper absorbs too much ink, the image will lose some of its sharpness. Shadow detail is lost as the ink “spreads” in the darker areas of the image, so that everything beyond a certain level (usually somewhere in the neighborhood of 94 to 96 percent gray) prints as 100 percent black.
There are three adjustments that can improve your images and improve the quality of your finished iPhoto books.
- Adjust the color to keep your images from appearing flat.
- Carefully lighten the image or—ideally—increase the output level to preserve your shadows (this can also help with softness).
- Apply a minimal amount of sharpening.
Correcting in iPhoto
You’ll need to use Photoshop or Photoshop Elements for best results, but if you’re stuck with iPhoto, here’s how to improve your images using the tools you’ve got.
Most digital images can benefit from a bit of color adjustment and if you shoot in RAW format, color correction is essential. You can always try clicking on the Enhance button to give your image a boost. Sometimes this works just fine, but the results aren’t very consistent. To get more control over your image, click on the Edit button, then click the Adjust button to bring up the Adjust palette.
Let’s take a look at this palette. At the bottom, you’ll see a histogram, a bar chart showing the distribution of light values for each channel (red, green, and blue) in your image. Keep an eye on this histogram when you adjust your image by moving the various sliders; it will show you the effect of your changes.
Tip: You can see what your original image looked like at any time during your adjustments by pressing and holding the Control key.
The top two sliders are for adjusting Brightness and Contrast. My recommendation: if you can, stay away from these, or use them sparingly.
Try adjusting the Brightness slider to right and notice what happens to the histogram. You’ll see the entire graph shift to the right. That means all of the image is being brightened, including the shadows, midtones, and highlights. Keep your eye on the brightest part of your image and notice what happens. You’re shifting the dark values to gray and the light areas to white, and the result is an image that looks washed out.
Move the Contrast slider and notice what happens to the histogram. If you move the slider to the left, decreasing the contrast, you squish the values at either end toward the middle. You’re moving the shadows and the highlights toward the midtones, decreasing the tonal range. Move the slider to the right, increasing contrast, and you’re moving the midtones out toward either end, increasing the shadows and highlights at the same time, and loosing the midtones.
Instead of using Brightness and Contrast, try setting the black point and white point. If your histogram doesn’t extend to both ends of the graph, your image is lacking shadows and highlights. Drag the black point (the left slider under the histogram) to the right until it is just at the point where the leftmost bars in the histogram begin. Drag the white point (the right slider) to the left until it is just at the point where the rightmost bars end.
The next group of three sliders are for color correction. As I’ve already written elsewhere (read the post here), you can easily adjust the temperature and tint in one click by holding down the Command key and clicking in an area of your image that should be a neutral gray.
You may want to boost the saturation in your image, making the colors more vibrant. If you drag the Saturation slider all the way to the left you’ll notice that the three graphs in the histogram merge into one blue graph as your image loses all color and turns to gray. To boost the saturation, nudge the Saturation slider to the right, or click on the tiny color bars to the right of the slider to bump up the colors, being careful not to overdo it.
Once you’re satisfied with the color, jump to the Exposure control. This control is a little tricky to explain. If you look at the histogram as you move the exposure slider to the left, you’ll see that it compresses the tonal range toward the shadows. But moving it to the right flattens the range and shifts all the values toward the highlights.
I’m not sure exactly what it does, but it’s not the same as adjusting the midpoint with Photoshop’s Levels dialog. Just look at the three images below. The image on the left is the original, the exposure in the middle image has been maxed out in iPhoto, and the image on the right shows the effect of moving the midpoint all the way to the left in Photoshop. It may be difficult to see in these thumbnails, but iPhoto has blown out the highlights to white, while Photoshop has washed out the image, but maintained the highlights.
If you don’t have Photoshop or Photoshop Elements, you’ll have to adjust the Brightness or Exposure to keep from losing detail in your darkest shadows. Adjust the Exposure a few clicks, or bump the Brightness up a bit. I wouldn’t give it more than about 5 or 10 clicks to the right, depending on your image. Be careful not to lose important highlights.
Finally, sharpen the image. iPhoto doesn’t do a very good job of sharpening, so it’s hard to overdo it. But zoom in on your image and look for any halos around the edges. If you see halos, you’ve gone too far.
For more tips, read this Macworld article, “iPhoto 5’s secret weapon” by Ben Long.
Correcting in Photoshop or Photoshop Elements
You’ll get much better results by adjusting your images in Photoshop or Photoshop Elements.
First, correct the color. You can use the Levels dialog. Try clicking on the Auto button. Like the Auto Enhance button in iPhoto, this sometimes works just fine. But if you want to fine-tune your levels, adjust the black point and white point (as described above). You can also use the eye droppers in the Levels dialog to set the black point (select the left eye dropper and click on an area of your image that should be black) and white point (select the right eye dropper and click on an area of your image that should be white). You can remove a color cast by clicking the middle eye dropper and clicking a neutral gray in your image to set the gray point.
Second, correct the output. The only way to properly do this is by using the Levels command in Photoshop or Photoshop Elements. The Output levels slider is at the bottom of the Levels dialog. Slide the left Output level to the right, or type a number in the left field above. I’ve found that a value of 12 works well for iPhoto books.
Finally, add a bit of sharpening using Unshap Mask. Select Unsharp Mask from the Filter>Sharpen menu. I use these settings as a starting point: Amount: 125%; Radius: 1 pixel; Theshold: 4. These settings will be just fine for most images, but keep in mind that this is only a starting point. The correct settings will depend on a number of factors, including subject matter (for example, you may want less sharpening for portraits), your camera (if you’re not shooting in RAW, your camera’s in-camera sharpening may be too little or too much), and personal preference. Experiment to find the right settings for you.
Get a Little Action
When I’m putting together a book, I’ll adjust each image individually. But if you want to get a quick idea of how an image might look, especially if you shoot RAW, you can try my iPhoto Book Prep Action. This action does everything I recommend for preparing your images before printing an iPhoto book: It applies Auto Levels, adjusts the Output level to preserve shadows when your iPhoto book is printed, and applies my sharpening settings using Unsharp Mask.
You can download the action here. NOTE: Use the Action at your own risk. Your mileage may vary, and I can’t responsible if you’re not happy with the results.
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40 Responses to “Making the Best Quality iPhoto Books (Updated)”
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July 6th, 2005 at 6:07 pm
Thanks for this update, Robert; very good information. One detail that I’m missing is: what filetype are you submitting for the books? Just a high-res fine detail JPEG, or a 16-bit-per-channel 300dpi TIFF? Something inbetween?
And have you done any process to black and white? If so, have you tried both a desaturated RGB file vs. a true grayscale file?
July 6th, 2005 at 6:26 pm
I don’t think it matters what filetype you use because I’m pretty sure iPhoto compresses the images and converts your book to a PDF when you submit it. As long as you don’t see a low resolution warning you should be fine.
Yes, I have printed one book in black and white. I converted the images to black and white in iPhoto, but if I were to do it in Photoshop, I wouldn’t convert them to grayscale. There are several better techniques (I’d recommend looking at The Adobe Photoshop CS Book for Digital Photographers for some down and dirty tips).
The black and white images do have a very slight purple cast, but it would be extremely difficult to correct for it. Overall, the quality is quite good.
July 6th, 2005 at 7:43 pm
Thanks again. Coincidentally, I read that chapter (and RAW processing) of that book today at the bookstore, heh. IIRC, on all of the methods, the last step is actually converting them to Grayscale, but only after doing a proper color -> BW conversion (unless you’re moving on to a duo-tone of course).
July 7th, 2005 at 1:52 pm
Kelby recommends five different methods in the book, but only in the Calculations Method does he instruct you to convert the final image to grayscale, and then only because you have created a new document from the blended channels. If you do convert the final image to grayscale, be sure to save it as a copy. Once you’ve saved a converted image, you can’t get that color information back.
July 7th, 2005 at 10:50 pm
Aha, gotcha. As for the iPhoto books, I discovered the other reason not to do this: iPhoto can’t properly handle grayscale colorspace files. They all display as negatives of themselves. Others on the Apple Discussions boards report poor quality on submitted grayscales (why they didn’t stop when they noticed them looking wonky onscreen I don’t know.)
I applied the .plist change to increase the photobook resolution to 300 dpi and converted to grayscale, and back to RGB so iPhoto would play nice. Ordered the large hardback. I’ll report back when it arrives on the quality. I’m really looking for an Ansel Adams-esque feel, so I’m going to be disappointed if there is any color cast. Oh well, we’ll see.
[In case you weren’t aware, as I can’t find it on your blog, iPhoto defaults the medium and large size to 150dpi. Open com.apple.iPhoto.plist in your ~/Library/Preferences/ folder and change the BookTargetImageDPI (and the Medium one below it) to 300. Your filesize will obviously increase, but the quality will as well.]
July 8th, 2005 at 6:42 am
That’s a good tip about changing the resolution. I’ll be very interested to hear how your book turns out, especially if the quality is better than another book you’ve printed at the default settings. Thanks!
July 12th, 2005 at 11:50 am
Well I got the book today, and I’m really pleased! The resolution change did have a substantial impact on the quality of the prints. Not to an extreme, but definitely worth the trouble.
The book was entirely composed of black and whites, as I mentioned, and the retained contrast is great. With your tip on changing the output levels, it matches the intended brightness and shadow detail as my onscreen postprocessed images.
They do have a minor purplish cast, but nothing dramatic: only in the highlights. Perhaps I saved some of the problem by converting to greyscale and losing all RGB data, and then converting back into RGB so iPhoto could handle them. Either way, unless you’re looking for it, it just appears to be dithered black and white, which you’d expect from this printing process. I need to find my loupe and see if it is really printed in just black ink, or if it’s an RGB mixture. My areas of complete black look more black than I’m used to seeing from the mixed methods.
All around, I’m very pleased, and glad I looked for tips such as yours before I spent the money on a hardback. I can see how using iPhoto as-is with your images might yield slightly disapointing results.
July 13th, 2005 at 3:15 pm
Thanks very much for the update, and for the tip about increasing the resolution!
July 13th, 2005 at 3:41 pm
No problem, and just as an FYI, the iPhoto update released today (5.0.3) doesn’t reset your .plist entries for the resolution. At least, it didn’t mine.
July 22nd, 2005 at 4:37 am
What application should I use to open and modify the plist?
July 22nd, 2005 at 7:58 am
You can open and modify the plist in any text editor, such as TextEdit, but I’d recommend installing the Xcode Tools (you’ll find instructions at the beginning of my post about Core Image Fun House) and using the Property List Editor in the
/Developer/Applications/Utilitiesfolder. Always make a backup copy before you edit, just in case.August 1st, 2005 at 1:48 pm
What happens if you set the resolution to a higher one, like 600 dpi? Would the quality improve at all or is the resolution capped?
August 1st, 2005 at 1:54 pm
According to DJones (see comments above), you can change the resolution to a higher one. He claims to have seen improved results by increasing resolution to 300 dpi (I haven’t tried this). It’s doubtful that you’d see any improvement above 300 dpi, however, since most commercial presses don’t print at that high a resolution. But if you try it, give us a report and let us know how things turn out.
October 14th, 2005 at 6:51 am
I don’t seem to be able to find the place where I can adjust the dpi settings in iphoto? Is this not available on version 5.0.4?
Thanks
Tim
October 14th, 2005 at 11:39 am
Tim, you can’t adjust the dpi within iPhoto. You have to edit the preference file, as DJones describes in post #5 above. Be sure to make a backup first. I still have not tried this method, so I can’t vouch for it.
Good luck!
October 28th, 2005 at 11:21 am
Do you have a specific workflow for getting the images in your book out of iPhoto for editing in Photoshop, and then back into iPhoto, without having to lay out the book all over again?
October 28th, 2005 at 11:34 am
You can edit individual photos in Photoshop even after you’ve added them to a book (just select Photoshop as your external editor in iPhoto’s Preferences). But I find it much easier to edit them first. Collect all the pictures you might want to use in your book in a new Album. Then edit them (I usually edit them one by one because I like to tweak them, but you could export the original files, batch edit them in Photoshp, and import them again). Now create a new book from the Album.
November 4th, 2005 at 6:55 am
The app ‘Pref Setter’ will help you to adjust the res in iPhoto prefs, it’s very easy.
What I don’t understand is why we can’t make them up anyway we want and just send them a high quality pdf though Acrobat distiller. That way we wouldn’t be so restricted.
Anyway thanks for this info.
Wish me luck on my first book guys.
November 4th, 2005 at 10:28 am
Pref Setter looks good. I don’t know why we can’t just send them a PDF. Apple tries to make things as easy as possible. I haven’t tried them, but SharedInk will print a book from a PDF created in iPhoto.
Good luck with your first book!
December 9th, 2005 at 2:13 pm
I use iPhoto and my highend printer to print out my own hardcover photo books using the BreezKit from Digifilmlabs. http://www.digifilmlabs.com
I’ve ordered books from iPhoto before but I get better results using my own printer. The books are super high quality and the fineart paper is simply awesome. check them out if you have a good printer. I think you will be happy with the results.
ibryan, the digital guy, reviewed the Breezkit in his latest podcasts. you can listen to it at http://www.ibryan.com/?p=22
good luck.
December 9th, 2005 at 2:20 pm
Digital Guru, the BreezKit looks pretty interesting. Thanks for the tip!
December 10th, 2005 at 1:13 pm
Before changing the prefs for 300 dpi, I set up a book in iphoto and saved it as a pdf.
I then changed the prefs, using “Pref Setter” and saved the book as a pdf again. So now I have two pdf’s—one pre-change and one post-change.
The two pdf’s are exactly the same size. I would expect the pdf to be larger depending on the resolution of the images, but my expectation may be uninformed.
(iphoto was not running when I changed the prefs, and when I launched it after changing them, iphoto compiled the book anew in order for me to save a pdf. I’m running OS 10.4.3.)
Any thoughts, anyone? Obviously, I’m concerned that my changing of the prefs didn’t take, didn’t work, won’t make any difference when I order the book—which I need to do soon.
December 10th, 2005 at 1:58 pm
Dan: I tried changing the DPI settings and you’re right, both PDFs are the same size. But it’s probable that the settings used to save a PDF are different than the settings used when iPhoto uploads a PDF to Apple (I don’t know where Apple hides the PDF temporarily before uploading, so I can’t confirm that). I extracted the images from the PDF using File Juicer and the images were 72 DPI, screen resolution. So, it’s unlikely that this is the same as a PDF used for printing.
January 11th, 2006 at 5:40 am
Do I need a make to make an iphoto book or can I do it with my nasty old pc.
January 11th, 2006 at 10:17 am
No, you don’t need iPhoto. I can’t vouch for the quality, but if you’re on the PC, try SharedInk or MyPublisher.
March 9th, 2006 at 1:35 pm
How long did it take to get the book created? (from send to receipt)
March 9th, 2006 at 1:40 pm
In my experience, turnaround time is about a week.
March 17th, 2006 at 4:58 pm
I’m about to have a book printed for the first time, but I’m unsure of the correct Color Settings I should be using in Photoshop CS2 or if it even matters at all.
I have them set for Adobe RGB, US Sheet Fed Coated v2, Gray Gamma 2.2 and Dot Gain 20%. These were recommended to me by a color management friend.
My files all have an embedded Adobe RGB profile.
Any help is appreciated.
March 17th, 2006 at 5:08 pm
Keith, I don’t think the settings you use in Photoshop will matter. I’m pretty certain everything will be converted when the PDF is created for upload.
March 18th, 2006 at 7:42 am
Robert, what is the turn around time for a book?
Thanks
March 18th, 2006 at 7:44 am
Robert, sorry I just found the info above.
Thanks
March 24th, 2006 at 1:32 pm
Great article… I was very dissappointed with the print quality of my first iPhoto book… but I’ll be taking some of your suggestions into consideration next time.
I have a question though, it there anyway to retrieve the PDF that is created by iPhoto? I’d actually like to be able to post somethign like that to my personal website…. doesn’t haev to be full resolution or anything, just be nice to share it with others that will never have an opportunity to actually see teh book.
March 24th, 2006 at 1:39 pm
You don’t need to retrieve the PDF that iPhoto sends to Apple for the book. Just select the book, then select Print from the File menu and choose Save As PDF from the PDF menu (or click Preview, then choose Save As…).
March 27th, 2006 at 8:30 pm
I am having a slight problem in iphoto. I am doing all my page layouts in photoshop so all my photos are treated and color corrected in photoshop. When I import them into iphoto to create a book, my images are some how auto corrected and look very different. The photos are extremely blown out and the contrast is much greater than what I set in photoshop. As a designer this is not good. Has anyone else had this problem and is there a way to turn off the auto correct? I looked in the preferences and didn’t see any options there. Thanks for any help and insight.
April 5th, 2006 at 11:33 am
I am trying to back up iphoto Books, not as a pdf, the actual editable book. Does anyone know how to do this?
April 5th, 2006 at 11:37 am
I know of no way to back up an individual book. You would be better off just creating a backup of your iPhoto Library, which should be in the Pictures folder in your Home folder.
April 17th, 2006 at 1:22 am
I have just purchased a book through iPhoto and can’t believe the quality of what I have got back - it’s appauling! Robert, I think you hit the nail on the head when you said: “I’ve often been just a little dissapointed with the quality [of the book] because I knew how the images were supposed to look.” I don’t think you should have to adjust your pictures (unless really necessary) in order to get a decent quality book back from Apple and in any case this doesnt address the fundamental problem with the whole process.
From my own experience the book that I created and ‘previewed’ was approx 30MB. However, when I pressed the magical ‘Buy Book’ button and entered all relevant info, the amount of data that was transferred to Apple was only 8.7MB. Therefore a significant amount of the image quality is effectively stripped from the book, (or rather the images contained within it), at the point at which you send it to Apple. Therefore what you see is most definitely not what you get, which is the part that I find most galling. Through investigations on the net, it is suggested that the quality of the images in the PDF preview are at 720dpi where as the quality of the images that are printed are 150dpi. I have learned of a ‘hack’ which seems to suggest it increases the quality of the images that are sent to Apple and subsequently printed by them to 300dpi - see this.
Has anyone tried this? I just wondered whether it works? My advice to anyone thinking of buying a book is don’t bother!
April 30th, 2006 at 6:56 am
I am trying to increase the booktargetimage file size in iphoto to increase the quality of the images I print with iphoto online books. But the file com.apple.iphoto in the library preferences folder will not save the change to 300 dpi. Any suggestions?
December 12th, 2006 at 10:56 am
I just received my new ipod. What a great treat, just in time for winter break. I am so excited because I never win anything good before. Now that my Internet is working, I have been downloading songs like crazy from itunes.
Thanks again,
Michelle
December 20th, 2006 at 9:21 am
Hello, All,
My name is Michelle Seelig. I am a professor in the School of Communication, at the University of Miami. I am asking your help with a research study to measure the visual delivery of information through the use of photos with sound.
I am asking you to participate by completing a survey about photos with sound. The survey takes about 15 minutes.
Your participation in this study is voluntary. If you choose not to participate or to withdraw from the study at any time, there will be no penalty.
While there are no direct benefits to participate, this research will provide insight as to the emerging technologies used to present still photos with sound and their impact upon viewing experience. There are no foreseeable risks or discomforts to your participation.
The questionnaire is anonymous. The results of the study may be published but your name will not be known. This study is not commissioned or funded by any company.
I highly appreciate your time and your input. If you have any questions before, during or after the survey, you are welcome to contact me, Dr. Michelle Seelig (mseelig@miami.edu). If you have any questions regarding your rights as a research subject, please call me the University of Miami Human Subjects Research Office at 305-243-3195.
Clicking of the link below will be considered your consent to participate:
https://surveys.miami.edu/WebService/mrwebpl.dll?project=MSEELI0609271237
Thank you for your help.
Michelle
Michelle I. Seelig, Ph.D.
Assistant Professor
University of Miami
School of Communication
Coral Gables, FL 33146
(305) 284-5211