Hardcover Photobook A4 Landscape
Choose your Book Size
RapidStudio’s online photobook editor offers beautiful, professional layouts that are easy to use. If you prefer to use alternative design software, follow the instructions below to set up your document in your preferred program and share your document with RapidStudio for printing. RapidStudio for printing.
PAGES and COVERS have different set up requirements and are treated differently – we deal with pages first below, then covers.
Step 1: Choose your Hardcover Photobook size:
A4 LandscapeStep 2: Calculate/set up PAGE size with bleed
After you’ve chosen your book size, you now need to set up your document with bleed. Bleed is artwork that goes beyond the cut line of your page. The project is then cut down to size with the appearance that the image is “bleeding” off the edge of the paper. This is important to avoid white edges on your finished pages.
Pages in our HARDCOVER photobook range are always** prepared as SINGLE pages.
Your photobook pages will need to be set up with bleed on all four sides of the page. Bleed requirement for Hardcover photobooks is 4mm each side (top, bottom, left and right).
Refer to the table below. The RIGHT hand side of the table indicates the PAGE size. You’ll be most interested in the cells highlighted green - they’re your final page size WITH bleed for the size of photobook you’re making.
*Note: We prefer you upload JPEGs as they have large file capacity (a 40MB per page limit). If you prefer to use PDFs, please note the maximum file upload size is 100MB.
**Note: If you are designing pages where one picture flows across two pages, it IS possible and acceptable to prepare your pages as double page spreads. We have provided your page setups for double page spreads in the table below.
NB: When your image files are prepared and ready to load your DPS into the RapidStudio editor (step 5 below), you will need to change the page layout in the editor to double page spread so it can receive a double page spread JPEG.
Step 3: Calculate/set up COVER size with bleed
We recommend you make your cover using the RapidStudio editor. Reason being, our pre-set
cover designs (there are a few to choose from),
have the spine size built in, bleed is catered for etc.
If however, you want to make the cover using your own design program, follow the instructions below. Remember, where the front cover transitions to spine
there is going to be a fold. If your calculations are incorrect, it won’t look nice. RapidStudio can’t unfortunately take responsibility for this miscalculation
in page set-up. That said, if you follow the dimensions provided, you should have all the information you need for it to be designed perfectly.
a. Figure out how many pages your book is going to be.
b. Use the table above (left hand side) to get your COVER set up WITH bleed (the green columns)
c. Enter these dimensions into your preferred program and design your cover.
Hint - drag a guideline to create a SAFE AREA:
Draw a safe area guideline on your template that reminds you not to design too close to the edge of the cover/page. We recommend 10mm in from the cut line.
Remember, text, borders, and other elements look bad when they are too close to the edge of the page. Give your design room to breathe.
Step 4: Export your files
Once your album design is finished you will need to export the pages in JPEG at 300 DPI (high quality print) in sRGB colourspace.
We do not want crop marks on your document or bleed – because remember, we’ve already set up the document with bleed in steps 2 & 3 above. So make sure if your preferred program gives you the option to add crop marks or bleed that you deselect these options.
Handy hint: If you use a naming hierarchy for the double page spreads that includes numbers 01, 02 etc it will allow you to autofill your pages and they will populate in the right order.
Step 5: Upload files into the RapidStudio editor
In this final step, you submit your files to RapidStudio by uploading the cover and pages to the RapidStudio online editor.
This step is where you choose your product options: cover style, cover material and colour etc. This process also enables you to double check your pages appear perfectly on the preview – do the pages bleed right to the edge, do important elements on each page appear in the safe area? etc.
a. Login to your RapidStudio account.
b. Select "Hardcover Photobooks" from the "books" tab from the top menu bar and from the drop-down menu. Select the calculator/import artwork button on the bottom left-hand corner of the screen.
Calculator / Import artwork
c. Choose your book style/variants offered on the right-hand side of the screen – size, cover type, paper, cover material, etc.
(your selections here go through to our factory as a set of instructions on how to make your book. These can also be changed in the editor if you change
your mind).
Once all selections have been made, click on the blue “import my artwork” button.
This will launch the RapidStudio editor WITH the book size, style and other variants you selected.
d. Design or insert your cover picture FIRST.
e. Upload your pages: - click the image button on the vertical menu bar and select ‘upload’
After you’ve populated your cover, select the autofill button – this uploads your pages into the editor automatically. If your naming hierarchy is correct they should load in the exact page order. Do double check.
Important: Click through your book to make sure all the pages appear in the frame correctly (no unintended white edges, images bleed off page, everything important is within the safe area), and the pages appear in the right order.
If your book has more than the standard minimum pages, when you click autofill a pop up box will appear asking to add more pages. Select OK and the exact number of pages you need as per your design will be created.
OR Step 5b: Upload files via “send a file link”
Alternatively you can send us your artwork via file sharing service WeTransfer. We do charge a service fee for this method as it involves extra labour to check the artwork is perfect and ready for production. Unfortunately the WeTransfer option does not offer an option to allow you to preview your album before printing (like step 5 above does). We highly recommend you upload your files to us using the “import my artwork” option by loading the pages into the RapidStudio editor (step 5 above), but sharing your files via the “send a file link” with WeTransfer remains an option.
NB: When “sending a file link” make sure the product variants you chose are correct INCLUDING the last option at the bottom of the screen is ‘number of pages’. It’s important this corresponds with the number of pages you exported in step 4 above. If they don’t match, production of your book may be delayed while our support team gets in touch to confirm your order.
Step 6: Add to cart and payment
Once complete click add to cart.
Continue shopping or follow payment process/checkout.
Need help? Contact us:
If you have trouble of any kind, we are here to help and make it easy for you.
Contact our dedicated Customer Support team on [email protected] or 011 225 0500.
Monday to Friday 9:00am – 5:00pm. Closed on Weekends & Public Holidays.
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