making albums in SM and transferring to another program to print...

[mommy2MTK]

Hi all,
Has anyone ever made all your pages in SM and then transfered your pages into another program (such as picaboo) that actually prints and binds them for you? If so, PLEASE tell me how they turned out. I'm looking for anyone who has done this.

[kristyc1994]

I have used "Scrapbooks to Share"

I have not tried picaboo - but I have uploaded high quality jpeg versions of my pages to sbtoshare.com and they came back VERY good. 8.5 x 11 inch pages are only 0.75 a page! (12 x 12 is $1.25) You can't print them at home for that - and they can do edge to edge printing. They don't, however, bind them for you (or at least I don't think they do) They use laser printing technology - so it's just SLIGHTLY below photo quality - because they don't print on photo paper - but that's why they are so cheap! I liked the quality and I am EXTREMELY picky when it comes to my photos!

If you upload a page in jpeg format (very easy to do, just choose "Publish to" then "Images" making sure everything is at the highest setting) they will send you FREE samples on the three papers they have available!! You can see for yourself if you like the quality without spending a dime. Just follow their upload instructions....very easy. I just ordered 30 pages, they should come in the mail any day.

[Ellenb]

scrapbooks to share

Hi Kristy,
How do you know it's saved as 300 dpi? I was reading what to send for as a sample, but I know it's .jpg but not how many dpi SM saved it at. The other program I am using has a level and I can't save it 300 dpi in that one unless I move up a notch.
Thanks,
Ellen

[Desmond]

Hello,

Click on Page > Settings, and choose the Size tab. There you'll be able to see your page size and resolution, and change either one if necessiary.

Keep in mind that the print quality difference of 200dpi versus 300dpi may not be enough to warrant the larger file sizes. I know we printed a bunch of stuff at both resolutions, and noticed little differences between them.

Good luck!

Desmond.

[Lorne]

DPI (Dots Per Inch) doesn't really matter...images are actually just made of colored dots, called "pixels."

Like this:

xxxxxxxxxx
xxxxxxxxxx
xxxxxxxxxx
xxxxxxxxxx
xxxxxxxxxx

Imagine that each x above is a pixel. That little square is 10 pixels wide and 5 pixels tall.

Now, "DPI" just says how "tightly" to pack the dots when you print. So, if I said that my little image above is "10 DPI" then the printer would space the pixels so that you can print 10 of them side by side across a single inch of paper.

I could also say that my little image is "100 DPI," and then the printer would space the pixels so tightly that you could fit 100 side by side across an inch...and suddenly my image, which is 10 dots wide, would print onto paper so that it's one tenth of an inch across.

Or I could say to print my image at "1 DPI" and the printer would spread out the dots so they're one inch apart. (Then we'd really see that it's made up of little dots.)

The important thing to notice is that the actual number of dots never changes - as far as my little image is concerned, it's always 10 pixels wide and 5 pixels tall. Changing the "DPI" doesn't change the number of pixels, it just tells printers what to do with them.

Remember: DPI is just a way of saying how tightly to print the dots in an image.

When you set the page size to "8x8 inches," Scrapbook MAX needs to translate that measurement into pixels (colored dots). "Okay, you want 8 inches by 8 inches when you print it...but how tight do you want the dots?" That's why you can set the resolution to something like 200 DPI, which tells Scrapbook MAX to "make an image with exactly enough pixels so that when I print it at 200 DPI it will be 8 inches across and 8 inches high."

(Which would actually be 1600x1600 dots.)

Of course, when it comes time to actually print something, you're free to tell the printer anything you want. Once you save an image, it's just a bunch of dots - the "DPI" doesn't matter at all until you need to print it out.

You can take an 8x8 200 DPI page (a.k.a. 1600x1600 dots), and print it out at 300 DPI, or 100 DPI, or 1200 DPI, or whatever you want. The only difference will be how "tightly packed" the image's dots will be. At 300 DPI, an image with 1600x1600 dots will print out at a bit larger than 5x5 inches. At 100 DPI, it would print out at 16x16 inches.

Changing the DPI affects the quality of the printout -- packing 300 dots into an inch will look a bit "smoother" than 150 dots. But the truth is that over 200 DPI it gets really hard to tell the difference.

When someone says "save your image at 300 DPI," what they're really saying is to save it with enough dots that it will print out at the size you want it to at 300 DPI.

[kode]

mommy2MTK I sent a message back to you. I'm sorry I didn't even realize I had a message. Hope it helps!!