Getting more confused by the day...

[momtutu]

Hi all! I'm going to be working on a classroom scrapbook for my DD's class this year. I'm getting pretty confused as to which direction to go...

#1 - Looking at printing out through MyPublisher as it appears to be less expensive than shutterfly and also I've heard that the pictures are clearer than shutterfly (I asked this yesterday but didn't get any responses). Can anyone confirm or deny this?

#2 - I'm a pretty new digi-scrapper and have done all my layouts as 12x12. When I went to My Publisher last night, the page size is 11.25x8.75. So, obviously, my layouts don't fit. Can I readjust my 12x12 to fit these in Elements? How?

#3 - If I make new layouts, what size to I make them so that they fit in MP and leave enough room around the edges for bindings etc? Anyone have the specific dimensions I need to create the layout?

Thanks for the help!

[Darcy Baldwin]

The page size is 11.25x8.75 for My Publisher? Then if you do your layouts in 11x8.5 they should fit fine. You cannot resize a 12x12 layout to 8.5x11 without skewing it. You can, however, adjust it to 8.5x8.5 an then put it on a background paper and it will have a border, if that makes sense. The way you only have to do one added step instead of redoing the whole layout.

Or, if you still have the layered files of your 12x12, you can create the 11.8.5 canvas, and drag over the elements and just adjust the size as you need to have a full layout.


I don't know for sure about the binding issue since I don't know their binding methods. But if you do a 11x8.5 layout to put on their 11.25x8.75 canvas, you'll have a white border around the entire layout.

[momtutu]

That makes sense - thanks! Anyone else have any info on shutterfly vs mypublisher?

[meems]

I made one photobook (photos only) with My Publisher and the pics were on the grainy side. However this was several years ago and the photos were from a 2MP point & shoot camera, so there might not have been much to work with.

But I think that unless the other parents are all pro photographers and would really notice such things, I think you could go with either company. Chances are the parents and teacher will be thrilled with whatever you make.

I'm not sure how My Publisher works but I think with Shutterfly once you create the book you can share it with others and they can import the books into their own accounts and place their own orders. You wouldn't have to order for them and have to deal with collecting money, delivering, etc. And people could pick their own covers and maybe add their own pages if they wanted. OTOH, though if you did place a multi-book order you might be able to get some sort of discount (with either company).

If you go with My Publisher and have a Costco membership, check the prices through the Costco photo center. They might have better deals.

As for doing square layouts and wanting to put them on rectangle pages, I have done that by shrinking by layouts down to 8x8 and printing them into a classic (landscape) Shutterfly book. Looked totally fine. I just put a plain white background behind the layouts.

[momtutu]

You know what Mimi? You make a lot of sense and I'm already used to doing 12 x 12's and you're right about letting the other parents order for themselves. You just talked me into keeping with shutterfly - I think. :-)

Thanks for the input!

[meems]

Oh, glad I made some sense for once.

If you go Shutterfly, then you could just do 12x12 or shrink down to 8x8.

Or could still do classic landscape too.

If you did 8x8 or 12x12 you can customize the cover. So parents could even put their own kiddo on the cover.