For those of you designing your own full wrap photo covers for our PhotoBooks and PhotoBook Plus’, we’ve got a few measurements for you. We’ve created this handy PDF table and the following procedures so you can create accurate, custom, photo covers. 2010 Cover Specs

In Photoshop you’ll start your cover by clicking File>New. We recommend that you create and save this canvas as a new Preset so that you can use it over and over again. In our example we’ll create a 10×10 cover for a 20 page (40 side) PhotoBook Plus. Remember, this chart is based on page inserts; each page on the chart equals two sides in our pricing catalog.

Width: 22.375 inches (based on the table)
Height: 11.5 inches (the same for all 10 inch high covers)
Resolution: 300 pixels/inch
Color Mode: RGB Color / 8 Bit

Be sure to save this as a Preset before continuing so that this will be saved and you can easily open it and readjust the sizing if needed.

Now we’ll set your margins. From the outer edge of each side, set a guide line in 0.75 of an inch. This is the case for ANY sized book and accounts for the part of the image that wraps around the edges of the cover for the full bleed look. In our example, margins are set at 0.75 and 21.625 inches on the outer edges and 0.75 inch and 10.75 inches from the top.

Next we’ll set the spine width which is the width of the cover face in from your edge margins. In this example we’ll have guide lines set at 10.75 and 11.625 inches. Then we set additional guide lines 0.5 inches outside the spine with for the “pinch” part of the cover on either side of the spine guides: 10.25 and 12.125 inches.

You’re now ready to layout your cover and add your images, background, text and logo. We still recommend that you don’t place critical elements too close to the margins as our covers are hand made and very slight variations can take place. If you have any additional questions about your covers please let us know. Happy designing.