PDF preview of iPhoto book shows image degradation

For years I have made iPhoto books first designing pages with text and color imagery in InDesign, then exporting PDFs of the pages to iPhoto via Automator, and then placing the designed pages into blank pages of the iPhoto book. Prior to printing I preview the book by going to Preview in the print dialog box. The preview images have always been spot on regarding what the image quality of the finished book would be. Now I'm trying to make a large book incorporating both color and black and white images. These are elegant, black and white images that have been lovingly restored in Photoshop and feature full tonal ranges. They are TIFF images. Subsequent to making a small, trial run book, I discovered that if I kept the images as grayscale images, they printed too dark. AS a result of phone conversations with Apple and trying the Adobe discussion site, I found that if I resaved the BW images as RGB, the page PDFs I generated when exporting the pages out of InDesign reproduced the BW images perfectly. Likewise, throughout the process of assembling the new iPhoto book, when I placed the pages, the BW images looked gorgeous. However, just prior to uploading the book, I decided to preview the pages and generated a PDF preview in the print dialog box. Lo and behold, all the images show up noticeably different; the BW images lack good blacks--the dark areas seem distinctly muddy compared to the originals. Does anyone have a clue as to what is happening and how I might regain the original look? Thanks. I'm using iPhoto 11 with Snow Leopard on a new iMac.

I don't think you're doing anything incorrectly. I think that the inside page is automatic in the printing process and is not included in the pdf file that is created. Only the cover and pages 1-20 or whatever are added to the pdf file.

Similar Messages

Problem with preview of iPhoto book cover

A friend has assembled a book in iPhoto and we have previewed it by going to File-Print and choosing to open a pdf in Preview. The pdf preview looks fine except for the front cover in which the image and text appear enlarged and shifted, cutting off the top of the cover photo. Attempts to insert a photo with a white border just give the same result - the picture is cropped and shifted.
We then looked at a previous iPhoto book which David has had successfully printed through the Apple book ordering system. This shows exactly the same fault on the cover when opened as a pdf in Preview.
Can we be confident that the new book will also print correctly despite the incorrect cover preview? David is using iLife 09 on a 24" iMac running OS X 10.5.8.
Andrew

Use the recommended preview method - http://support.apple.com/kb/HT1040
Assume that it will print exactly like this preview shows - you can save the resulting PDF for reference
LN

IPhoto not showing image for editing

In iPhoto, in events, I click on an event, then highlight a photo. When I double click the thumbnail, I see a preview but when I click that to edit or if, on the thumbnail, I right click>"edit in iPhoto", all I see is a blank screen. If I highlight the thumbnail and click Reveal in Finder>original file, I get "can't find it" or if I click >modified file, I get iPhoto library>previews>the file. I have by shear accident been able to find iPhoto>masters and see that the original files are still there. How can I get back to iPhoto finding the masters and allowing me to edit?

If I highlight the thumbnail and click Reveal in Finder>original file, I get "can't find it"
Your library is corrupted. Try restore from your back up. If that fails:
Download iPhoto Library Manager and use its rebuild function. (In early versions of Library Manager it's the File -> Rebuild command. In later versions it's under the Library menu.)
This will create an entirely new library. It will then copy (or try to) your photos and all the associated metadata and versions to this new Library, and arrange it as close as it can to what you had in the damaged Library. It does this based on information it finds in the iPhoto sharing mechanism - but that means that things not shared won't be there, so no slideshows, books or calendars, for instance - but it should get all your events, albums and keywords, faces and places back.
Because this process creates an entirely new library and leaves your old one untouched, it is non-destructive, and if you're not happy with the results you can simply return to your old one.

Iphoto not showing images

Some of my photos are not showing in iPhoto,i can see them when i open the events tab but when i click on the image to view i get a black screen with an exclamation mark,this does not happen on all images,on the same event i can have 10 images but only see 2 and the rest will not show,all the 10 images would have been taken on the same day,i have tried option/command and open iPhoto to restore thumbnails but this did not work

This indicates a disconnect between the Thumbnail and the original
this can be caused by two things
1 - User action deleting items from inside the iPhoto library - can be directly - can be from the All images list (never delete from there) - can be from running cleanup software like MacKeeer, CleanMac2 or other dangerous, defective software that improperly deletes or changes things in the iPhoto library - if you have done any of these things you must restore your backup from before you did them and damaged your iPhoto library - and I recommend getting rid of any "clean up software" ASAP (although being essentially MalWear it is not easy)
2 - corruption of the iPhoto library - If it is not #1 then Back up your iPhoto library, Depress and hold the option (alt) and command keys and launch iPhoto - rebuild your database
LN

Urgent help needed with iPhoto/pdf preview for book order - mysterious pixelated areas show on PDF but not in iPhoto

Hello. I ordered an iPhoto book last week to give to my parents for their 50th wedding anniversary. Tonight, I just checked on the order status and found that my book is cancelled. I received no notification about it, and all I could do was fill out the online form, so customer service will get back to me on Monday via email (if I'm lucky...). There is no telephone number for me to call about this. I decided I'd best do some searching to try to figure out what had happened.
I had thought that the preview I saw in iPhoto was the preview of the book. I found out I was wrong. So I created a PDF preview of the book and found some craziness that I don't understand. In iPhoto (and any other program, i.e. PhotoShop), my photos are fine. They are mostly TIFF format and high resolution with a few high res JPEGs. However, when I view the PDF, there is a band of black and white pixelation about 1/2-inch across the bottom of some pages - not all. The photos in that area are messed up in that band zone. The other photos are totally unaffected. This affects both TIFF and JPEG photos, and both black and white and color.
Has anyone else had this problem, and what was your solution? I would be extremely grateful to anyone for advice or information about this! The anniversary party is less than a week away and I'm beyond my limit of stress right now...

Launch iPhoto with the Option key held down and create a new library. Import enough photos for a book (use some of those in the current book) create a new book and preview as a PDF. If you don't see the problem then it's limited to your library which may be damaged. If that's the case make a temporary, duplicate copy of the library and try the two fixes below in order as needed:
Fix #1
1 - delete the iPhoto preference file, com.apple.iPhoto.plist, that resides in your Home/Library/Preferences folder.
2 - delete iPhoto's cache file, Cache.db, that is located in your Home/Library/Caches/com.apple.iPhoto folder.
3 - reboot, launch iPhoto and try again.
NOTE: If you're moved your library from its default location in your Home/Pictures folder you will have to point iPhoto to its new location when you next open iPhoto by holding the the Option key. You'll also have to reset the iPhoto's various preferences.
Fix #2
Launch iPhoto with the Command+Option keys depressed and follow the instructions to rebuild the library.
Select the options identified in the screenshot and the option to rebuild the small thumbnails.
Click to view full size
If you get the same problem in the test library then log into another user account on your Mac, create a test library and try it there. If the problem shows up there a reinstall of iPhoto is indicated. To do so you'll have to delete the current application and all files with "iPhoto" in the file name with either a .PKG or .BOM extension that reside in the HD/Library/Receipts folder and from the /var/db/receipts/ folder,
Click to view full size
If you don't encounter the problem in the other user account then it's something in your account that's the culprit. Post back with the results.
OT

Can I send an iPhoto book to my parents as a PDF? I need their input before I order the ibook.

Can I send an iPhoto book to my parents as a PDF? I need their input before I order the ibook.

You can create a PDF preview of your book, see this link:
iPhoto, Aperture: Previewing an order in iPhoto or Aperture http://support.apple.com/kb/HT1040
The PDF will be too large to email to your parents - copy it to a USB stick or burn it as CD or DVD and send it as a letter. Or upload it to a server for download, your Dropbox, etc.

IPhoto book error when trying to preview book

When I try to preview my iPhoto book it starts "assembling book" but when it gets to page 14 it fails with the following error "The operation couldn't be completed. (com.apple.chameleon.componentGenerator error 8.)"
Does anyone have any advice on how to resolve this? Thanks!

Hi there,
Are you able to reproduce the issue consistantly with the project. Can you please ask your coworker to publish a blank project and see its working fine or not?. In case if the issue is project specific, then can you please send the .cptx file to us so that we can investigate the issue at our end. Please upload it to a shared workspace(Acrobat.com) and send me the link at [email protected]
Thanks,
Nimmy Sukumaran.

IPhoto books and Photoshop

Hello,
I have assembled my first book and had it printed as a folio medium and large soft cover book. I discovered this forum after having sent the books up to Apple to be printed so these books have not benefited from the archived wisdom of everyones comments. Sure enough the medium book shows the half tone quality problems in the non full page images. I am hoping that I can improve the quality of my books for the next try.
Issues with the Medium sized book;
Image quality on the non full page images (I have since downloaded pref setter and made the adjustments as described in another post- one setting was at 300 dpi and the other two I changed from 150 to 300)
Issues with the large book
There was no separation between images on pages with two images. The small book had a narrow white space separating the two images. Is there any way to make sure that that line is there in the big book? (it did not show up in my pdf preview of the book)
Are there any tricks for improving image quality in the big book? I should say that my images are from and Olympus C8080 and they are jpgs 240 dpi 13.6" x 10.2"
Issues common to both books.
I found the text quite hard to work with and I would like to create a Jpg in photoshop that has the text that I want on it in order to bypass the limitations of the iPhoto layout. Are there any suggestions about Canvass size or resolution? Will the quality of text be OK?
Thanks so much for considering these questions

nektai:
The halftone appearance with the medium size book was evident in my books ever with the 300 dpi change. There was a post from a user who had received books from different printing sites in the US, west coast and east coast. His experience was that the east coast book better image quality.
Regarding the space between the two photos, are your photos cropped to the recommended 4:3 ratio? I did notice that if I put a 4x6 cropped photo into one of the frames and Control-click and select Fit Photo to Frame" it will be reduced a bit and leave a white space at the bottom and top.
If you're going to use a 1 photo per page layout and the text on the image file, you'll be best served to find a them that has a full page layout like Picture Book. For the large size I would make the canvas 8.5 x 11 inches at 180 dpi minimum. Then when you place it in the 1 photo per page frame and select the Fit Photo to Frame option it gets fitted without any cropping of the image. If the image is the 4:3 ratio and is placed in the frame if the Fit option is not selected some of the image will be cropped. If the Fit is selected it will be reduced so it will fit horizontally but smaller vertically. So use a letter sized canvas.

How long should it take to upload pictures for iPhoto books

I have created a book for Christmas on iPhoto. The book is 100 pages. There are two steps to the process of sending in your order.
1. Assembly (which it assembled no problem, under 30 min)
2. Upload (it shows a bar and a blue line moves as it uploads)
I have been uploading for 2 days now and I am 1/4 of the way there. Now while I am waiting for it to upload I cannot do anything with my iPhoto pictures. Which is a problem since I take pictures for my school and I need to edit pictures by Tuesday.
It states under the "Uploading book to the store...." Note: Any interruption of the upload process will cancel your order.
I have enough memory that this should not be the problem. I have turned off every application, restarted my computer, checked for updates. Nothing helps. I have had to cancel this order 3 times now and restart the process as I needed to use iPhoto for school projects.
This should not take more than 2 days! What is going on? Any help would be wonderful. Thank you
Kara
OS X Yosemitie
Version 10.10.1
2.66 GHz Intel Core 2 Duo

Two days is way too long for the upload, unless you are having a very slow Wi-Fi.
There may be a something interfering with your connection to the Print Products Store (Anti virus software, firewalls), or you have included unprintable items.
Is the PDF preview of your book correct? Make a review and check it carefully for missing items, see this help page:
iPhoto, Aperture: Previewing an order in iPhoto or Aperture
If the preview is alright, try to upload your book again in Safe Mode. That will disable non standard extensions, and prevent them from interfering with your connection to the Print Products Store:
See: Mac OS X: Starting up in Safe Mode

IPhoto Book Print - Rejected

Sirs
Could you please help me with an issue that I currently have with iPhoto.
As a Christmas Present for my 6 year old daughter, I have created an iPhoto book of our recent trip to EuroDisney. I completed the book and purchased it via the Apple Store in iPhoto.
However, I have today received an email stating as follows:
To Our Valued Apple Customer:
It appears that when your order was submitted to Apple, an error caused the
image file to be unreadable or unprintable. As a result, Apple is unable to
process your order and you will not be charged. We recommend the following
before submitting your order:
1. Update your software.
2. Restart your computer.
3. Make sure all applications are closed.
4. Open iPhoto or Aperture.
5. While all other applications are closed, preview your print product as a
PDF.
6. Resubmit your order.
While previewing and resubmitting your order, make sure all other applications
are closed. For instructions on how to update your software, refer to:
Mac OS X - Updating your software
<http://support.apple.com/kb/ht1338>
I have checked the version of my MacBook - it is OS X 10.7 and I have checked the version of my iPhoto - it is 9.1.5. When selecting purchase in iPhoto, it is stating that I need to upgrade to 9.2.3. However, when I attempt to check for new updates in iPhoto itself, it is stating that my version is the latest version. Furthermore, checking for software updates via the Apple logo does not bring up any update for iPhoto nor does any updates in my Application Store.
It seems as if I require an update but there are no ways in which I can update this.
Could someone please advise / assist as I desperately want to get this book printed.
Many Thanks
Paul

If you update your system to 10.7.5 with the OS X Lion Update 10.7.5 (Client Combo) and OS X Lion 10.7.5 Supplemental Update updaters you can update your iPhoto version all the way to 9.4.2 thru the updaters availailable here: Apple - Support - Downloads-iPhoto 9.
But that's no guarantee that will fix the problem. If the problem image appears OK in a PDF preview of the book it should, as Larry pointed out, print out OK. If it doesn't look OK in the PDF preview file export it out of iPhoto, open in Preview and export as a new, JPEG file. Import it back into iPhoto, add to the book and replace the problem file with the newly created one. Then create a new PDF file of the book and check that photo.
OT

Any way to use the slideshow in the iphoto "Book"?

Hi All,
Currently, I want to edit slideshows and burn into IDVD. But I prefer the slideshow preview from iphoto "Book" which can edit more comments and slideshow function. Is it any way to select the slideshow from iphoto "book"? rather than just using the single function from the iphoto slideshow (which is not dynamic enough)... please help
Thanks!
Wymond

Welcome to the Apple Discussions. You can create an iDVD slideshow of a book. It's relatively easy. It's described in Old Toad's Tutorial #6 - Creating an iDVD Slideshow From an iPhoto Book.. I create one for every book I buy. A great way for a group of people to view the book at once.

72dpi in pdf iphoto book preview

Hi,
I'm planning to have my first iphoto book printed by apple. BUT, as described here on the forum before, it is wise to first check the .pdf preview.
I made an right-click --> save book as pdf... preview.
When I take a look at the specs of the preview I get worried:
11 x 8,5 inch
792 x 612 px
This means it is just 72 dpi!
The source photo's are big and high in resolution (3307 x 2539 jpg 300 dpi 24 bit)
Will the pdf file that will be send to apple be 72 dpi also? Cause that is an unacceptable resolution for printing.
Can someone please advise?

Welcome to the Apple Discussions. Where are you seeing this spec and how did you create the preview: iPhoto, Aperture: Previewing a book order in iPhoto or Aperture?
The figure you posted is not px but pts which is points. If you change it to inches via the drop down menu you'll find that it is 8.5 x 11 inches.
iPhoto creates PDF files for uploading and printing that are at 300 dpi.
OT

PDF Preview quality is horrible for iPhoto book!

I created an 82 page iphoto book with several photos and some text and when I preview the order in PDF the quality is distored in various ways every time I try it! I even did a software update and reconfigured iphoto! And the problem then is that this PDF quality is what is meant to be your final product once it is ordered!

Boot into Safe Mode and try again.
Regards
TD

I want to order a second copy of an iPhoto book. Thought created in the smaller format only the larger format is showing. How can I switch an existing iPhoto book back to the smaller format?

I want to order a second copy of an existing iPhoto book. Though created in the smaller format now only the larger format is showing. How can I switch an existing iPhoto book back to the smaller format?

To change a book size duplicate it (select the book in the source pane and press command and D) since text flow and picture placements can change due to the size differences - then click on change themes, select the same theme and the new size
check it carefully
Before ordering your book preview it using this method - http://support.apple.com/kb/HT1040 - and save the resulting PDF for reference - the delivered book will match it.
LN

Low budget image proofing for iPhoto book order

Hello!
I want to prepare my photos the best I can for iPhoto book ordering (Christmas present for family).
I have a Dell U2711 attached to a Mac Mini running OS X 10.6.8 and iPhoto '11 9.2.1. and a Canon Selphy CP520 dye sub printer which I thought to use as a precheck of what my JPG sRGB images would look like when printed in a book.
Here's my headache:
If I set up the monitor and calibrate the display profile as suggested in post #1 under this thread then such setup makes me color correct the photos by RADICALLY pushing the midtone slider in the levels adjustments to the left (brightening the picture). Prints that come out of the Selphy under this setup are a perfect match to what I see on the monitor and that is wonderful. However, I hesitate to order a book using such images because they appear far too bright on an iMac for example. (Perhaps I should mention that Google logo in Safari looks like its on steroids in this setup).
On the other hand, if I set up the monitor as it came from factory (PC gamma, standard preset), and use the default DELL U2711 display profile in SystemPreferences, then pictures look relatively ok on screen without any radical color correction. But prints that come out of Selphy with this setup don't match what is on the display, prints are too dark, and again I hesitate to order a book with such images.
Any suggestions?
Thanks.
Mato

Yes - don't try so hard and use your Mac and iPhoto - not a PC
iPhoto is designed as a consumre level program for point and shoot comeras - many people (including me) report excellent results using it that way - load sRGB photos form a digital camera and do minimal processing on them - never do major color adjustments - using iPhoto - preview rthe book -
Before ordering your book preview it using this method - http://support.apple.com/kb/HT1040 - and save the resulting PDF for reference - the delivered book will match it.
and order
Apples comments on this are here
Of the negative comments posted here nearly all of them were from people who spend lots of time and energy adjusting photos trying to second guess the printing process and failing to do so - Apple does have an unconditional sastisfaction guarentee - do it the simple way - less is more in this case
LN

PDF preview of iPhoto book shows image degradation

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