12 Important Things Publishers Should Know using Studio 3

#1   Pay close attention to the red lines and gray areas that border each page.

The red line is the ultimate cutoff line. Anything past it will definitely be cut off when printed. The gray area is exactly that – a “gray area” that could partially print or could be cut off during the printing process. If you want a background, photo, or embellishment to “bleed” all the way to the edge of the page, then it must extend all the way to the red line (just past it is safest). If you want to make sure it does not get cut off at all, then make sure to keep it well within the thick gray area that borders the page.

Storybook Covers
On the Front and Back Covers, the gray area will be thicker. This is the area that will wrap around the edges of the book. Make sure to keep all important elements well away from the gray area, but make sure to extend the background all the way past the red border to ensure your background will wrap around the edges.

When designing your Front Cover, you can also design the book spine. Make sure to extend your front cover background onto the book spine to ensure a smooth transition around the spine. Also, when you are centering items on your front cover, the book spine can visually deceive you making you think that the front cover is wider than it actually is. Make sure you center items between the right edge of the book spine and the right edge of the cover.

Canvas Prints
The canvas prints are gallery-wrapped which means they are stretched over a wooden frame to preserve the artwork by keeping it taut. When working on your canvas print project, you will need to keep your important images and text within the white space to avoid those images from being wrapped around the edges. You will see a gray bleed space that is two inches wide – this is the area to be wrapped around a frame. You will also need to extend your background colors all the way through the gray bleed space and just past the thin red border so that you don't end up with thin white strips showing on the edges of the frame after it has been wrapped.

 

#2   The page labeled C is the Copyright page.

The very last page in your book will have the "HM" logo and your consultant’s website printed on the bottom, as well as the project ID # near the binding so that another copy can be printed if needed. When you are working in your project, you will see red areas toward the bottom that will actually print as white areas with the logo, etc. You can still design this page, but anything placed in the red areas will be cut off. (It looks nice to leave the background of this page white so it blends in with the areas that will print white).

If your Copyright page follows an odd-numbered page, then it will print as a left page with no page to the right. If it follows an even-numbered page, then it will print as a right page with that even-numbered page to the left of it. In this case the back of the Copyright page will be a blank white page.

 

#3    Keep objects away from the bound edges so they don’t get lost in the binding.

When your book is printed, extra paper is added to the bound edge of each page so that it gets sewn into the binding and your design does not. But from experience, it is still recommended to keep elements at least ½ inch away from the bound edge to make sure they are clearly visible. (The bound edge is the right side of even-numbered pages and the left side of odd-numbered pages.)

 

#4    Your photos may appear blurry on screen, but they will print beautifully.

When working on a project in Studio3, you will see low-resolution (72 dpi) versions of your photos. Do not be alarmed when your pictures look blurry or pixelated in your project. If the original photo that you uploaded was clear, and you keep it at a reasonable size within the project, you can be confident that your picture will print clearly at 300 dpi. You can also find the recommended size for printing a photo by clicking on it once in the content explorer. This will show you a larger preview of the photo and state the recommended size for printing it.

To ensure the highest printed quality possible, each object has a built-in printing indicator. (The printing indicator is simply the border of the object and can only be viewed when an object is UNlocked.) As you increase or decrease the size of an object, the color of the printing indicator changes:
   
       Green = Excellent Print Quality
       Yellow = Good Print Quality
       Orange = Fair Print Quality (not recommended)
       Red = Poor Print Quality (not recommended)

 

#5    You must refresh Studio to access newly uploaded photos.

  If you upload photos while a project is open in Studio, then you will need to close your project and re-open it for the newly uploaded photos to become available in Studio.

 

#6    There are two ways to view the complete catalog of Premier Artwork collections.

Quickly browsing through the artwork in the Content Explorer can be difficult because you have to click on each folder to view what’s in it. Viewing the artwork in the Premier Art Catalog allows you to scroll through a snapshot of each collection very quickly. This is helpful when you want to narrow down your options of which collections you like. When you are in Studio, just click Help and then Premier Art Catalog. If you want to view the artwork by themes, go to http://picasaweb.google.com/HMPremierArtwork

 

#7   Locking objects prevents you from accidentally making unwanted changes. Unlocking objects allows you to edit them.

At the bottom of the Tool Box, there is a Lock icon. When you click on any object, the lock icon will show whether it is unlocked or locked. An unlocked object can be moved, resized, rotated, or formatted. A locked object can be formatted but not moved, resized, or rotated.

 

If you need to quickly lock or unlock many items at once, under Edit on the Menu Bar, click on Lock then one of these 4 options:
-Lock All on Page, Unlock All on Page, Lock All in Project, Unlock All in Project

 

#8   The Photo Swap technique makes it fast and easy to customize a template with your own photos.

Follow these instructions to swap a photo:
 - Click on the placeholder that you want to replace.
 - Make sure it is locked. An object must be locked in order for the message “drop photo here to swap” to appear.
 - Find the photo (from an album in your photos tab) that you want to add.
 -Drag the photo from the album and point to the “drop photo here to swap” area and release.
 -Your photo will now be in position but still have the dimensions and formatting that the placeholder did.

Tip: Avoid putting vertical photos into horizontal placeholders and vice versa if you don’t want to spend time unlocking the photo and re-cropping it.

#9    The Crop tool functions differently depending on whether the object is locked or unlocked.

In the Tool Box on the Tools tab, you will find the Crop tool.

When an object is unlocked, you are able to adjust the dimensions of the crop area. On the Tools tab, your options are either Crop (if the object has never been cropped) or Adjust & Remove (if it has previously been cropped.)

When an object is locked, you are able to adjust what part of the photo you want to appear in the locked dimensions. On the Tools tab: first> click on Adjust, then the Scale and Rotation options appear. The Scale option allows you to zoom in and out on your photo. The Rotation option allows you to rotate the photo.

IMPORTANT: When you have applied a border to a photo on the Effects tab, make sure that you do not zoom too far out or you will have a clear gap between the photo and the border.

#10   The Multi-Select technique is a wonderful time-saver.

To select multiple objects, hold down the Shift key while you click on each object in the group. To de-select a group, simply click somewhere else on the page.

With a group of objects selected, you are able to move, resize, or rotate the entire group at once. Also, you must use this technique when you want to use the Align, Distribute and Space tools on the Layout tab (in the Tool Box) as these are only effective when applied to a group of objects.

You can also use the Paste Format technique with a group of objects. For example, say you have 10 objects and you want each to have the same drop shadow. First, select one of the objects and apply the drop shadow. Click Copy. Click on one of the other objects, then hold down the Shift key while clicking on all the remaining ones. Right-click your mouse and choose Paste Format. The drop shadow will appear on all the items in the group.

#11   When applying drop shadows, make sure to adjust the settings.
Applying a drop shadow in the default setting of Distance 10 and Intensity 90 is very bold and does not give a realistic effect when printed. Also, you should adjust the drop shadow settings depending on whether you are applying it to an object or text. Generally, here are recommended settings:
Text: Distance 0-2, Angle 0, Intensity 90-100
Objects (Photos, Artwork): Distance 0-5, Angle 0, Intensity 75-85

 

 

 

 

 

#12  You can collapse and expand certain windows to give your “canvas” more room on your screen.



 

 

 

 

To resize the Content Explorer (the bottom section with all the tabs): Click and drag the === symbol at the top of the content explorer. Or click once to collapse it all the way down or expand it all the way up to the last position it was in.

To resize the Pages Tab (right side of screen): Click and drag the ||| in the vertical gray area just between the vertical slider bar and the little page previews. Or click once to collapse it all the way closed or expand it all the open.

To collapse or expand the Tool Box: Click on the _ next to the X in the upper right corner.