Resizing photos for a book publication

[oiram]

Here is a little back history: I am authoring a pictorial book (my first book) that will contain over 200 pages of high gloss photos. I am using Corel Draw 12 to layout the book but have encountered a small problem that I need help in solving. I need to resize each photo first in Adobe Photo Shop because the Corel file by page 85 is way too heavy.

My question is what size should photo’s be to fit on a page and still have good clarity, and quality, and yet not be so heavy?

The pages of the book are 8.5 X 6.5 inches

The size of the original photos I am using, are as follows:

Width 3648 pixels
Height 2736 pixels

Any help, suggestions, sizing guides or any other info would be greatly appreciated.

PS: Anyone do editing & Layout work?

[DJSoulglo]

I'm afraid you're not doing it in a way that anyone I know would suggest. Do your layout in Indesign. Layout is easy and in the end you just deliver a PDF to your printer.

[oiram]

I am not sure I follow. Can you explain more or do I need to explain better? In laying out any print design for large scale printing such as newspapers or books I thought Corel Draw was often the program used. By doing this project in Corel draw a publisher or printer can open the file and everything is in place. Am I wrong here?

[Damo77]

You really need to speak to your publisher about this. We can't give you anything more than broad generalisations.

You need to ask them what format they want to receive your book in, what resolution they need the images, what colour mode and space they expect, how they want fonts handled, etc.

I don't know anything about Corel Draw, but I'm nervous for you. I hope the 85 pages you've done so far are not wasted. As DJSoulglo suggests, InDesign (or perhaps Quark Xpress) are well suited for this kind of thing. I can't vouch for Corel.

[oiram]

I appreciate the answers so far and don’t consider the work I have done to really to be a waste of time. It has allowed me to get a feel for the layout and the text besides I don’t really know any other way to lay it professionally as I don’t have the programs you mentioned.

I know many companies who publish news papers, and other publications as well as advertising use Corel Draw for their design and layout but each publisher is different. I would think they would have this program as I have already designed all my covers and other design stuff in this program and it’s an industry standard. There are preferences to every program or operating system.

[chal]

Hi Oiram.
To find out about your question i recomend you to go to CorelDraw.com forum and there you will find your answer.
regards,charles

[Steve13]

I'm with Damo77 on this. I don't know any publishers who use Corel. Our papers use Quark and InDesign. We send everything to press as pdf's.
You really need to get the publishers requirements for file submissions. All photos and files will need to be in CMYK. (Converting them from RGB will change the color). They will have requirements on photo resolution, image size, bleeds, trim, color makeup of blacks, pdf settings, etc.
To lighten your layout files, make sure they link to the photos and just show previews instead of full resolution pictures. I've never used Corel so I don't know the preferences.
Generally by sending pdf's the publisher doesn't have to worry about installing fonts, type shifting, large file uploads, Mac or PC... though if the layout is wrong, they have little control over it.

[DJSoulglo]

I did layout, making mechanicals and books for companies like Nike, Adidas, Glenfiddich, Amstel, EA Games, Sony and a bunch more. I've never encountered anyone who did anything in Corel.

Photoshop = Image editing
Illustrator = Vector Graphics
Indesign (Quark in the olde days) = Layouts and putting everything together.

If you don't know how to do this, that's fine, there are plenty of talented DTP artists out there. Try and find someone who can help you. Or buy a used copy of Indesign, and get a classroom in a book. It seriously is how I learned to use that program so it can be done It's a tough process and yeah you will need to learn alot about pre-press, but maybe the printer can do the CMYK conversion for you for their specific profile. That way you worry about making it look pretty and they worry about the technical stuff.

Obviously get a proof from them before they really start printing so that you know you like the way they convert their images.

Good luck.

If you want I can also artwork your book for you, but I'll warn you: I'm expensive. Now a fulltime retoucher, so hourly rates are quite high

[oiram]

Thanks DJ

Not sure now what I will do. I will look into getting Indsign because if I can use Corel I am sure I can learn InDesign.