Cropping And Bleed

When creating your page layouts it is very important to understand trim as a standard part of printing, and how to account for that trim. Properly placed pages will let your beautiful work shine!

For non-commercial services with the same quality, visit our Presto Photo Cropping And Bleed page!

Standard Books

Covers

After uploading your front, back, or full wrap covers, you’ll be shown a preview of the full cover including crop guides. These crop guides are:

• The red crop guide indicates a .25" for softcovers. Softcovers have approximately 1/8” trimmed but cropping and bleed is recommended at .25" to account for shifting that can occur. Below is an example of a very happy softcover:



• The red and pink crop guides combined indicate the trim and fold guides for hardcovers. Hardcovers require a wider, roughly ½” bleed in addition to the .25", as the cover image is wrapped around a board (very similar to wrapping a present). We do recommend adding an additional .25" as a saftey measure, as content exactly .75” from the edge will be directly against the edge of the cover. This will make a total 1" margin for hardcovers. Take a look at this example:

Interiors

The automatic trim area for standard size interiors is approximately 1/8 inch on all sides, however we cannot guarantee any content that is within a full .25” from each edge of the page due to shifting that can occur in production. This is .25" is referred to as the "caution area" and represented by the red crop guide. It is something we are unable to change or adjust for a specific book as trim occurs during manufacturing to give your book a polished, finished look. In order to produce the best results possible, all vital content should be kept within the caution area with all non-vital content fully extended to the edge of the page. This ensures that no vital content is trimmed and there is no unwanted solid border remaining around the page. The tree below demonstrates this perfectly:

Heed this warning from Hamlet: while your book has only 1/8” guaranteed to be trimmed, the additional 1/8” is included for trim that may occur due to shifting during production (1/8”+1/8” = .25”). Because of this, we can’t guarantee any content falling within the Red Crop Guide (.25”) TO BE or NOT TO BE trimmed. Imagine Hamlet's skull friend - you want him all the way in the red and pink lines or he’ll start angrily waxing poetic. And believe us, no one wants waxy poetry.

Mini Books

Mini books are, of course, quite small and their creation should be treated much like a child should: very gently, lovingly, and with kid gloves. Ok, maybe that last bit only applies to the books. Because of their small size, these books have a more aggressive crop guide (for both the covers and interior as they are only available in softcover) so you’ll need to take note of both the red and pink guides. This is to help you make sure your content is fully within the safe zone! The pretty kitty below gives a great example of trim that occurs on the cover and interior of mini books:

Two-Page Spreads

Sometimes your photos need a little more showcasing! If you want a continuous image to cross two pages, you don't need to make your image larger. Simply overlap 1/4" in the page gutter of each image for a pleasing, seamless result. With the help of a fabulous wedding photographer and member, Edna Licia Henriquez, you can see a quick overview below for making two-page spreads. We also have examples of two-page spreads here, thanks to the members that kindly passed on their knowledge!

Print Design 101

The look of elements placed on your page is ultimately your aesthetic preference. Design for print encourages elements not to fall directly against the edge of the page - the eye tends to like a little room around the edges for the most part. Because of this, when designing it is beneficial to visualize where the trim will occur. An additional buffer will also help to keep all vital elements from butting up against or under that trim. In the design world the technical term for this is "trying to dig out of prison". Now that we've covered the basics, below is a quick 1-2 (no punches, please) on setting up your document to preserve your vital content.

• Book Designer: It's a piece of cake to check on your vital content when using the Book Designer to create! Simply review the pages to make sure that your vital elements are not pushed directly up against or under the crop guides. You can see this both in the design process and when checking out by clicking "Layout Preview".

• PDF: When designing a PDF you can set up a double guide on the pages. Size the document with an additional .25" above what size you want (IE: 9x7 would be sized at 9.25x7.25) to allow amount for the trim area. Set a .25" guide in from each edge and add another guide of .25", or whatever amount you choose, in from the first guide. Extend all non-vital content to the edge of the page to ensure there won't be an unwanted border if the trim is closer to 1/8". Then, make sure the vital content is fully within the guides to ensure they won't be trimmed if the trim ends up closer to .25".

Please note: While this is completely subjective, when applied it always yields ideal results!

Just the FAQs