I think MyPublisher is trying to make the book as realistic-looking as possible, but that shouldn't come at the expense of usability. At first I thought this meant that my image didn't cover the entire page, and that white line was showing me that I'd have a white line on my page - that's the whole idea behind WYSIWYG interfaces after all - but when I tried to move my image on the page toward the white line, it didn't cover it up - meaning it's not really part of the layout.
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That's an ugly approach to take the developers of MyPublisher 4.0 should re-work how this part of the software works.įigure 57: Is that thin white line going to show up in my photo book?Īnother point of curious design is the decision to show the user a thin white line next to where their image is on the page. The only thing I could think of doing was deleting all the pages, then inserting new pages that are set to a full-page image. And, bizarrely, there's not even an option to force the page layout to a single full-page image. Instead of assuming full-page images and customizing from there, or at the very least allowing a full-page layout to be implemented with a couple of clicks, the MyPublisher template makes all right-hand pages multi-image layouts.
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On the plus side, the images in the layout are crisp and clear, and seem to be full resolution, so you can see all the details of your images on the page.Ī source of frustration with this software is how it locks the page into using certain photo layouts. Dropping an image onto the page and waiting for it to resolve takes 5 seconds.I shudder to think how slowly this software would be on a single-core, lower-speed CPU. It looks like it's multi-threaded, because when I dropped an image onto the page, I saw overall CPU usage shoot up to 69%. I saw the spinning blue "This application is doing something, hang on" Vista circle icon more than once, and this is on a system with a Core 2 Extreme X6800 CPU at 2.97 Ghz, 4 GB of RAM, and a Western Digital Raptor 15,000 RPM hard drive. The MyPublisher software has a nice user interface, but it's pretty sluggish and can become unresponsive at times. It's a bit odd that PNG isn't supported by the software - it's not as though it's an unusual or rare format.įigure 55: The MyPublisher book building software. The back of my book was a PNG file, so after I converted it to JPEG, the book-building process could continue.
Selecting the images was next, but I discovered that MyPublisher doesn't like PNG images:įigure 54: No PNG files for you with MyPublisher. They also offer the typical picture window option, but I've never been a fan of those. I selected Just Photos, since all my photos are full-page images, and opted for the Book Jacket as the cover style. After selecting the books size, I was presented with a choice of ten different book styles, including Bestseller, Wedding, Baby Boy, Travel, Collage, and others. This visually-driven approach is much nicer than the text-based drop-down menu approach from the companies that use the My Photo Books software. The first few screens are selecting the product you want to build - photo book, calendar, greeting cards, or book jacket - followed by the size.
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Building the BookĪfter downloading the 11 MB MyPublisher 4.0 software client (the current version as of April 2011 is version 6.0), it installed quickly and I was starting to build my book within a couple of minutes. They now offer photo finish (image wrap), book jacket, linen or leather covers.
The quarter-inch and three-quarter inch sizes are curious - there are only so many brands of high-end printing presses in the world, so I wonder why MyPublisher has such unique sizes? MyPublisher uses "premium 115-pound high-gloss archival quality paper" in their Classic Hardcover books. They also offer a book style called the "My Mini" which is a small 2.75" x 3.5", 20 page softcover book. Softcover books can also be created at the 7.75" x 5.75" in size. MyPublisher is one of the heavyweights in the photo book industry - they've built and shipped more than 5 million books since 2002. MyPublisher now has photo finish (image wrap) covers, lay-flat pages, and a Super Gloss Printing option that has to be seen to be believed. This section of the review has been updated as of April 2011 with new book options.
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