1. Location on book - Where on the book you'd like the stamping: front cover, inside front cover, back cover, etc
2. Position on page - Where on the page you'd like the stamping: upper center, lower right, dead center, etc
3. Font - Please download this file to see your font options: Stamping FONTS.doc (60.5 KB)
4. Color - Black, silver, gold, blind (no color, just stamping), or smoke (clear)
5. Text - this should be the exact text you need

If you are ordering a book that does not include stamping, or you want to add in additional lines of stamping, it's only $20.00 a line.

We can also have custom stamps made up for your books, either a custom logo that can be stamped on the inside of the book, or a custom stamp for your customers.   There is a custom charge to have the logo made up (most logos are around $95.00), and once you pay the one time charge, it's again only $20.00 for each additional stamp.

Custom blind stamping on cover of slipcase

For the custom stamping, we need to have your file sent to us as a B&W Illustrator file, or a B&W Jpeg sized at exactly the size you need it at 600 dpi.

If you have any questions on the stamping or preparing your file for a custom stamping, please don't hesitate to let us know.

-Team COUTURE BOOK

We're really excited about our new release of our Plug-in for Adobe's Lightroom, so we thought we'd make a little video demo of how it works.

After you have downloaded and installed the Plug-In (for more info on installation, check out: ), this demo will show you how to use the plug in to export your images to your COUTURE BOOK account directly from your edited Lightroom library.



Here's everything in a nutshell:

   1. Install Plug-in
   2. Open the images in Lightroom that you want to export
   3. Click on the export button on the bottom right
   4. Change the option from Export to Disk to Export to COUTURE BOOK
   5. Make sure your Jpeg export settings are set to 100%
   6. Pick the project you want to upload to, or type in the name of a new project
   7. Hit the Export button to start the export



This will send all of your corrected images automatically to your COUTURE BOOK account.  Once it's completed, it will open a browser window to the login page, and you can continue with your book order.

Step 1: Download

A plugin consists of a folder worth of files, with the folder having a name that ends with “.lrplugin”.
Installing a plugin involves simply moving the plugin folder to a place where Lightroom will find it, then restarting Lightroom.

Upon downloading, you'll want to unzip to create the plugin folder, then move that folder to the proper spot as described below.

Step 2: Installation

(The following applies to Lightroom 1.4 only. Lightroom 2.0 has different instructions. Skip to the bottom to see those.)

Installing on a Mac
You can simply click on it in Finder, and it will install for you. Cool.
To install either one manually, move the plugin folder to

/Library/Application Support/Adobe/Lightroom/Modules/

to install for all users, or for just yourself, to the folder of the same name under your home:

~/Library/Application Support/Adobe/Lightroom/Modules/

In either case you'll have to create the Modules folder within the Lightroom folder if it's not already there.

Installing on Windows XP
Move the plugin folder to this folder:

\Documents and Settings\username\Application Data\Adobe\Lightroom\Modules\

where username is your Windows username. Note that you may have to visit the Folder Options dialog to allow the normally-hidden Application Data folder to be seen.

You must create the Modules folder within the Lightroom folder if it's not already there.

As an example, on my XP system, the “COUTUREBOOK.lrplugin” folder ends up as:

C:\Documents and Settings\rodrigo\Application Data\Adobe\Lightroom\Modules\COUTUREBOOK.lrplugin

Installing on a Windows Vista
Move the plugin folder to this folder:

\Users\username\AppData\Roaming\Adobe\Lightroom\Modules\

Here, too, you'll have to create the Modules folder within the Lightroom folder if it's not already there.

Testing the Install
Restart Lightroom, select an image, then bring up the export dialog. Clicking in the top area of the export dialog should then bring up the newly-installed plugin in the list.

Uninstalling
You can uninstall or disable a plugin in a number of ways:
Delete the plugin folder, or move it to where Lightroom won't find it
Rename the plugin folder, for example, to “flickr.lrdevplugin-disabled”
Rename the “Info.lua” file inside the plugin folder (all plugins have an “Info.lua” file), e.g. to “Info.lua-disabled”

Lightroom 2.0 Installation

In Lightroom 2.0, navigate to File > Plugin Manager to bring up the plugin-manager dialog, click on the [Add] button in the lower-left, and navigate to wherever you've placed the “.lrplugin” folder for the plugin you'd like to install.

Several of our books have the option to have printed vellum pages inserted into the books, and the on the French Paris line, it includes a printed vellum cover wrap.

The vellum pages are added into the book after it is bound and can create a really interesting design element. 



We've also seen them used with text printed on them as chapter markers, or even wedding vows!

These books include five pages per 100 ordered, and can be either blank or printed vellum.  If you do not indicate which style you would like, we will place the blank vellum pages randomly throughout the book.  If you do want to have a specific placement of the vellum, just note this in the special instructions during the checkout process.

If you want to have the printed vellum pages, please note this in the special instructions area as well.   We'll then follow up with the FTP instructions so that you can upload those additional images to us.




You'll need to setup the vellum pages in photoshop.  Here's the instructions:

1. Download these templates: Vellum page templates1.zip (308.3 KB)
2. Create your layout, image or text on the template
3. Include your order number and the page number you want this placed after on the bottom of the page
4. Save as a Jpeg
5. Upload to the FTP account
6. Email Support@couturebook.com to let us know when they are ready.

After you have done that, we'll have those pages printed up and added into the book.

Please keep in mind that you'll either want to use an image with a lot of white in it, or you'll want to add some transparency to your images if you'd like to be able to see the printed image on the page behind it.   For text, just keep the white background, and use a solid black text.

For the Vellum cover wraps, you'll do basically the same process, just with a different template.  Here's the templates for the cover wraps: Vellum cover templates.zip (101.52 KB)

Check out this great Sign-In book David Wittig created with a 9x6 German Munich book:

The way he did the layout looks great, and was super simple!  To create the book, he just uplaoded his images, choose full bleed images from the border options, then clicked the "Right Side Only" option for the blank sign-in pages and that's it.  

Thanks David for sharing the cool book, and beautiful images.  You can check out more of David and the DWP crew's amazing work at:  http://blog.davidwittig.com/blog/

Just in case you haven't seen it yet, we've teamed up with David Jay, ShowIt and Adobe and will be coming to a town near you!

We're going to be traveling in style in this new tour bus that DJ hooked up:


The tour starts at the end of the July and goes through the begining of September.   Here's a link to the dates, locations, and registrations: http://www.davidjay.com/tour

Find a stop close by, sign up, and we'll see you there!!

We get many questions regarding the specifications for page layout on our books.  The short and sweet answer is your working canvas should be set to the size of the book at 300 DPI in sRGB. 

For instance, if you were laying out an 8x10 book, you'd start with a canvas that was 8 inches wide, by 10 inches tall at 300 dpi.   The only book size that is not exactly the right size is the 9x6, which is actually 8.5x6.

What about the trimming on the edges?    We do trim about 1/16 of an inch off the outside edges, and between 1/16th and an 1/8th of an inch on the books with the hand torn edges.     You'll still want to setup your pages exactly the same way, but just be aware that the edges will be trimmed a hair.

By the way, the full bleed pages look fantastic with the hand torn edges!  See below:




What about double page spreads, or panoramic images?   You can absolutely setup a double page spread with images going across the middle.   The only tricky part about pano pages is they need to be split into the left page and the right page before uploading.  The way I layout my books is I start with a double page canvas, layout all of my pages, and then on the last step, I crop it to split it into the left side and right side.

There is basically no center gutter to worry about in the design either.   There is a fold, as you can see in the picture above, so I wouldn't run text across the middle or put the brides head there, but you can definitely run a full image through the center.

Back to our 8x10 example, for a double page spread, we'd start with a 16x10 page, create the layout and then split it into the 8x10 sides.  Those of you more savvy with Photoshop can probably whip up an action to batch process all of those spreads into the sides, thus saving a bunch of time.

Hope that helps and happy designing!

We are happy to be featured in the Adobe Showcase on Adobe.com, and here's a link to the Case Study done on COUTURE BOOK.
Here's a shout out to Frederick over at Adobe for helping make this happen. Thanks Frederick!

NEW PAPER SAMPLE PROCESS !!

We're all photographers over here at Couture Book, so we understand how important it is to know what your images are going to look like when printed, and we also understand how difficult it is to feel the quality of the books without seeing it in person.  It doesn't matter how many images or descriptions of our books we post, it'll always be a little short of having actual books or prints in your hands.

We do currently have a discounted studio sample program for books, but we also want you to be able to see YOUR images on all of the paper stocks before that first book order is placed.  With that in mind, we came up with the new Couture Book sample print program. 



This new program will let you put together two pages of you corrected images, and we'll print them out as is on all of our different paper stocks.  This is a great way for anyone thinking about using our books to get started!  With the samples you can not only see and feel the quality of our paper and printing, but you'll also be able to check out your calibration and see how your images look on the different stocks.



Here's how it works:
1. We have you design two 11x17 layouts full of images (see the link for the PSD templates: Sample pages.zip (109.61 KB) )
2. Log into your Couture Book Account - Click on "Create" on the homepage to get started
3. Create a new project
4. Select "Paper Sample" as your style type
5. Follow the instructions to upload your templates
6. Place order online

There is $45.00 cost to cover the printing and shipping (additional charges for international shipping).  Once you have placed your order, we'll send you a confirmation email and will get them started right away.  We usually have your sample pages out within five to seven business days from the date they are ordered.

With many of our books, we use a process called Smyth sewing for the binding.   Smyth sewing is basically the same process that has been used for years and years to professionally bind most if not all hard cover books.  Pull any of your fine art coffee table books from your bookshelf and nine times out of ten, they'll be bound using this process. 

The way the Smyth sewing works is we take several sheets of paper, fold them in half, and sew from the middle fold through the rest of the pages into the binding.  This bunch of paper is called a signature.

  

To make a book, several signature are then sewn together to form the block, or as I like to call it: the guts.   The guts are then mounted into casing or the outside cover via the end-sheets.



The end-sheets are generally blank or colored pages, although several of our styles do have printed end-sheets.  The sheets are first mounted to the inside cover and are then mounted to the first and last signatures of the book.  

To ensure that the books last a lifetime, the first and last signatures have to have a certain number of pages to give enough strength to the binding and end-sheets.   Because of this, occasionally additional blank pages are added to the end of the book which gives that final signature the number of pages needed.  

I do get the question as to where the sweet spots are to minimize any blank pages in the book.   The signatures are in sets of 16, and we need two blanks at the end for the mounting.  Although the calculation isn't too bad, I've attached a spreadsheet with all of the number crunching/page counting already done.  On it I've listed the page counts versus the number of blank pages at the end, and have highlighted the sweet spots :)
SignaturePageCount_current.xls (30.5 KB)



The Smyth process does take a bit longer is more labor intensive than some styles of binding (hand sewing, lining up every page perfectly, etc), but it's well worth it for the flexiblity and durability it gives the books. 

It's this binding that lets the books lay flat for a superior presentation of your images, and allows us to offer a lifetime guarantee on the binding of every book in the Couture Collection!