Final Books - scanning and upload advice.

You should now be at the stage where you are ready to scan and upload your selected images (15 - 20) to an online publishing service such as Blurb www.blurb.co.uk, the price for a 20 page standard size (20 x 25cm or A4) with softcover should be in the region of £15 - £20.
The Blurb website has clear instructional videos on how to upload and arrange your imagery via their downloadable "Bookwright" software, I have arranged clearance to download and install this software on the college computers.
Obviously this is a narrative illustration project, so having relevant text from the book either integrated into your illustration, thoughtfully positioned alongside or placed on the page opposite is a requirement.
The inclusion of text needs careful consideration, you have a number of options, make sure you choose the best one to complement your illustrations:

• Using text options from the online publication website (limited in terms of available fonts and placement options).
• Collaging text by hand directly onto images before scanning (Flexible, but needs sensitivity so as not to interfere with the effectiveness of your images - a sensitive piece of drawing could be swamped by inappropriately chosen text slapped on top). Fonts (either hand created or sourced from magazines or websites like www.dafont.com) need to be carefully selected.
• Scanning your illustration and then adding text through Photoshop (best done on a computer where you can upload fonts as typesets within Photoshop are limited).

• Producing separate text (using direct quotations from the original story) to be uploaded as separate image files to be used on the facing pages to your illustrations. You can do this using downloadable fonts, by hand, through collage etc. This is probably the most flexible choice if you are keeping text and your images apart.

Everyone should select, scan, adjust and upload  all imagery/text pages and order their books by the end of Friday 27th April. In addition to ordering the hard copy of your book order a pdf version, you should then email us the link to this so we can mark your work - this saves waiting for the books to arrive in the post.

Scanning and PhotoShop tips:
Remember that many of the illustrations you upload will benefit from some editing to ensure they have maximum impact in your final book; simple tweaks from the Image Adjustments menu in Photoshop can be highly effective, Contrast, Brightness and colour saturation are worth altering for almost all scanned images. Ensure you scan images at 300dpi resolution so that you get decent reproduction quality in your book.

We will be delivering the briefing for the new GRAPHICS project next Wednesday 2nd May and you will have new work for that project from that point onwards.

The FINAL DEADLINE for completed sketchbooks for this project is Tuesday 1st May, you should also email the link to your pdf final books should be handed in as soon as they arrive in the post.