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Celeste

Celeste

I'm moving to Hogwarts!
Joined
Jan 20, 2012
Messages
6,106
i have a confession. i have never printed any of my pages. I have 5 years worth of digital pages. Probably about 2000 or so pages. I think I should print them, but it just seems so overwhelming. The other issue is I don't have full page saves. I have the original PSD files and a web jpg - that's it.

And now I need help!
How would you tackle this enormous project?
How would you quickly get the PSDs into 12x12 jpgs?
Where do you print your pages?
What do you think the cheapest way to do this would be?
Do you think I should just start now and print going forward? Not look back!
 
Oh my - I can't even imagine.. I'd separate it into smaller chunks, just so it's less overwhelming - with the numbers you're talking I wouldn't tackle more than 2 or 3 months at a time.. I always to one last pass for spelling before I print, but if you're not too concerned about that, you could write an action to flatten and save for print then have PS batch process a folder for you.

As far as books vs individual pages... I did a book for my son's first 6 months, but since then I'm so sporadic at scrapping I actually prefer individual pages so I can just print as I go, rather than waiting to have a specific time period complete.. For the quantities you're talking about, I'm assuming you have at least a couple of years finished, so maybe books are the way to go - they'll be less expensive for printing and a lot thinner on your shelves, too.. I printed mine with Inkubook because they had an 11x11 option, but that was 5+ years ago, so I'm not sure of the options out there now.. I've printed a couple portfolio books with Adorama - their lay-flat 8x8 - and they are beautiful, but a lot more expensive, and you can't have as many pages in the lay flat books. One thing I will say - 12x12 is HUGE printed out.. I've never paper scrapped, so I'm not used to that size at all .. I do all my printing at 8x8 and haven't had any problems with text being too small (when I'm scrapping I always view at 25% and that's about the size it will be printed). If you choose to go with individual pages I'd suggest Persnickety Prints.. Do all of your batch processing ahead of time then wait for their semi-annual sale where you can buy print credits in bulk.. The 8x8s come out to be about 75¢ each, I think, with that discount - maybe even more with larger quantities - I don't remember - I always just do 50 at a time and that lasts quite a while for me.. ;)

Anyway - that was a novel and all over the place because I was wrangling two littles at the same time.. Sorry if it didn't make sense - post questions and I'll clarify.. I am by no means the expert in printing since my experience is so limited, but I'm happy to help in whatever small way I can.. Having our pages printed and in our hands is such a wonderful thing - when the first batch of pages came back from PP I sat with my incredibly hyperactive son for nearly an hour just looking at them - it was magical.. :) :heartlub
 
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I have printed 12x12 individual pages at Costco when they had a print sale and was happy with how they turned out, but like Amber said they seemed so huge. I have printed an individual 12x12 book and love it, it was about $80 and I just printed a 7x7 book of my art journaling pages through blurb and really like how that turned out, believe it cost $36 (Cdn). I have a coupon for Shutterfly and may give them a try for my Florida 2013 book and do 8.5x11.

I have tried printing off my printer but the colours just seem so dull to me.
 
Hi Celeste, I'm answering your questions back to front!

I've just had a look at your gallery and I think it would be a shame not to have your lovely pages printed. I see you have project life pages that I would put in photobooks but if you decide not to print you could maybe make the jpgs into slideshows so they can be easily viewed in the future.

I'm not sure what the cheapest option would be as I live in the UK and am not sure where you are.

I use Bonusprint and print 8x8 photobooks. I can thoroughly recommend them and know they ship to Europe and international also. They frequently do great offers; my last book was 96 8x8 pages with a printed hard cover for £19 (delivered to UK) and quality is excellent. Works out at about £0.20 per page and cover/postage for free!

Sorry can't help with making PSDs into jpgs as I use Craft Artist professional.

Now for the big question! I would:
1. Decide if I wanted single pages or photobooks
2. Decide if I wanted to print a certain timeframe / occasion or a book/pages for individual members of the famly
3. Create folders depending on no. 2 above and save the jpgs into these
4. Start with my most recent pages and work backwards, populating each of the folders with the relevant jpgs. That way if you think you've bitten off more than you can chew and decide on a cut-off date you won't have a gap between the jpgs you have created and your new pages!

12x12 would be fabulous but as Amber said 8x8 is perfectly fine and I have found it to be a good size for kids to hold and look at if you go for photobooks.

Hope this helps!
 
Just a quick word on size, An 8x8 comes to just on 20 x20 cm . that means it will fit unto an standard A4 sheet of paper, that can then be trimmed down. So if you decide to "home print " or go to a copy shop to try some ,out just to see how it comes out before taking the plunge ,that is the size to go for. Also most pages look fine that size. Anne wrote about printing a little while ago, I will see if I can find it and add the link.
Edit sorry cant find Annes post, Hopefully she will see this instead ,
 
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Wow, Celeste, that is a ton of pages and a huge job - but I think you and your family will LOVE having the printed pages to look at.

I scrap 12x12 but print 8x8. The albums are just so much easier to display and handle. I don't scrap chronologically and because of that I rarely do photo books. I prefer to print individual pages so I can slip them in and out of albums and change order if I need to.

I always print with Persnickety Prints because the quality of the prints and customer service is just really great. They have sales twice a year - I think they coincide with iNSD and DSD - seems like November and May. Anyway during the sale, like Amber said, prints are 25% off so an 8x8 is about 75 cents.

As far as saving all those PSDs as JPEGs - definitely time consuming - surely someone has an action for that??
 
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You don't need an action to save PSDs as JPGs as it's already built into Photoshop! It will process a whole batch at once, so as Amber pointed out, if you need to check for typos or whatever, do that FIRST.

File > Scripts > Image Processor...

However, if you need to add bleed, that is not built in. I believe WendyZine has actions to do it.
 
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Just for info, for ladies in the UK or Europe, I use a fantastic company to print my 12x12's called DSCL in Manchester UK. They work out as around 75p per print and £2.99 for next day postage. They deal with a lot of UK scrappers so know what we're looking for and they print archival.
 
If you are a LR user you can also import your LOs to LR and export.
 
Wow! I love my printed pages. I print every 6 months or so during the PP sale. Honestly, I've used several different online printing companies and have found PP to be the best BY FAR. Mainly b/c I never have to worry about bleed and the colors are always right.

I've had to re-print pages from other companies b/c of the edges being cut off and I don't want to bother with an additional action to fix this. PP is always right. Whatever you chose, I wouldn't print a TON at once, just in cases you are not happy with the quality.

Many sites have sales, especially on photobooks if you want to go that route. Shutterfly has 50% off sales a lot. I don't do book b/c I don't scrap chronologically. I do like Ashley and stick pages in albums (which I buy with Hobby Lobby coupons or when they go on bigtime sale somewhere... check amazon for these). I print 12x12 b/c it's all I've known and the few smaller books I've done bother me, LOL. I will say that the albums take up a lot of room on my shelves.

If I were you, I would create a "To Print" folder and start filling it with your favorite pages. Or with a group you want to print together if doing a book. Be sure to get a system so you know which ones you print so you don't repeat later.

I group my pages by year-month (date created). I keep my tif/jpg/web-sized jpg in this folder until I upload them to PP where I'll print them. Then I move my folder to an EHD. That way I know which folders are printed.

Also, a little tip... I upload early (or try to) into albums (mine are my month). Then I change the name after I've printed that album. I add a "_P" at the end of mine. That way I always know which albums in PP are printed. And which are waiting (for the sale, LOL).

Hope you get at least some of your gorgeous pages printed. In the long run, you will be happy you did!
 
I love Persnickety Prints. I usually will buy print credits every time there's a sale. I tag my layouts with different colors, which helps me keep track of what I've uploaded and what I've printed without having to change file names. I keep all of my layouts (psd and jpg in separate folders) by year and month (of the picture used). Tagging them makes it much easier to see which ones I've printed and which ones I haven't, as well as what needs to be uploaded to PP.
 
lorryfach said:
You don't need an action to save PSDs as JPGs as it's already built into Photoshop! It will process a whole batch at once, so as Amber pointed out, if you need to check for typos or whatever, do that FIRST.

File > Scripts > Image Processor...

However, if you need to add bleed, that is not built in. I believe WendyZine has actions to do it.
Click to expand...

awesome! does it flatten and everything?
 
Ditto Persnickety Prints, they have great quality, they personally check each print. I keep hoping that someone will make a 10 x 10 album, because I think that would be a perfect compromise. But I love my 12 x 12 prints.

I would definitely consider photobooks though for years that are complete -- or project life.

Sounds like quite a task, (I recently printed a large batch myself. I use LR, so I zoomed in on the text of the pages I wanted to print, tweaked them in PS if needed, then exported them as JPGs for printing.)
 
I say print 'em! I print some at 12x12 and some at 8x8 here. Most of the kids stuff is 12x12, for mine and the heritage stuff it just depends on where I plan to put them. I print a couple of times a year at Persnickety and stock up on credits every time in addition to that.

I personally don't flatten the high res ones until I'm getting organized for another print job. I always like to let them "marinate a little", then I double check the spelling and make sure it's dated then flatten with a _p to tell me it's ready to go. To make my upload easier to PP, I create a 8x and a 12x folder and upload them in two batches by size to make it easier to place my order. When I get them back, I put them in a separate 12x12 album to make it easier for the kids and my family/friends to look through the "new" stuff. Then I sort them into albums before the NEXT new stuff comes in.

I do have a spreadsheet where I keep track of stuff I've printed and what album I want it to go in as I have several going all the time. {I know... accountants and their spreadsheets...}
 
I'm not sure what you mean. There is no such thing as a layered JPG, so if it saves as JPG it saves it flat. If you're asking about Wendy's actions, I think she has different ones for flat and layered files.
 
If I hadn't already bought my 2014 PL binder, I would have gone with 8x8. I also tend to write a lot though, and the smallest you can go is like a size 14 font, if not a size 18. Sometimes I struggle with size 12 to fit in a 6x4 card.
Anyways, I love persnickety. I just got 19 pages printed and I love all of them. The quality is so good and they do run those specials.
 
my heart is heavy...for this exact subject!!! I am in the midst of a project to coax you along with baby steps to make a book or to print your pages...
Friends should HELP Friends PRINT!
lol
 
Thankfully I have printed since the beginning of my digi-scrapping and I have not regretted it for a second! I do print some individual pages and use Persnickety Prints for that. Wait for their 25% sales and you can purchase print credits for $1.49 per page.

But, the majority of my printing is done in 12x12 Shutterfly books. Again, wait for 50% off sale. Also, when you're done with a book, add it to your cart and wait a few days. they almost always email me an additional coupon, usually an extra 20% off, or sometimes it's $10 more off. I can almost always get the cost to around $1 per page with the 12x12 hardcover books.

The last time I printed, I did just vacation pages and tried both 10x10 and 8x8 and I have to say that 8x8 was too small for me, but I REALLY loved the 10x10 size.
 
AnneofAlamo said:
Friends should HELP Friends PRINT!
lol
Click to expand...

I love this, Anne. This is so true though. You will not regret printing. It is so inspiring too. I love to get a fresh batch of printed layouts, it always gets me in the mood to scrap.
 
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