Proofing a Mixbook Book

 I have been using two different printers for photo books for the past several years.  I tend to use Printique (formerly AdoramaPix) for my "serious" books, those where I anticipate wanting full spread images and top quality printed images.  

I also like using Mixbook.  I find it easier to use and less expensive, though the lack of a practical lay flat option and my perception of their print quality keeps me from using them for books where I know I have top notch images.  

Covid-19 has me delving into my archives to create new books of events well in the past.  Mixbook is the right choice for me on these as: 

1. My images back then tended to be a bit off -- no need for big prints.
2. Ease of book creation is more important given potential volume and time constraints.
3. Lower cost encourages more generous allocation of pages for marginal materials.
4. Thinner finished size takes less bookshelf space.

One of the advantages of Mixbook over Printique is the ability to collaborate and review.  This post will delve into that a bit deeper.

EXIF Image Rating

Image ratings are essential to my work flow and management of my Smug Mug photo galleries.  Using that data in a consistent way is important to me.

EXIF is short for EXchangeable Image file Format and can be used for storing quite a bit of text information with or inside of a data file. EXIF typically stores image capture time, identification of camera and lens and many other optional fields.  This posting delves into my use of the Rating field.  Which is really nothing more than a very short integer limited to values of 0 to 5.  Those values are often represented as a count of stars (⭐️) to show a rating.

Preparing for a Photo Expedition (Pre-Build Smug Mug Page)

I'm blessed to be able to go on one or two pretty significant trips each year.  I always depart with the intention of building a set of pages on my SmugMug site that will host images captured by me, my family, and when I am lucky fellow travelers. Sorting, rating, post-processing and ultimately posting the images to my site takes a fairly large amount of time and effort.  Having the images appearing on the site as fast as possible is useful, having some of them appearing during the trip encourages other to participate making it even more important to me.

My desire for speed combined with my natural inclination to laziness has spurred me to create a cookbook for pre-trip prep to make posting of images faster during and after the expedition.  This post lays out the steps I go through to setup my working environment for a trip, your milage, will of course, vary.

What is a BarrettPhoto Book?

The books I create are compilations of images taken at a specific event or series of events.  My intent in putting them together is to capture memories and build something that is a worthy keepsake for the participants in the event.

Photo books allow me to utilize images that would otherwise end up in a shoebox or just sit on a disk drive into something that I am proud to share with people who may be interested in where I have visited and/or seen.

Some of the books are intended for any/all participants in a group trip, such as the Grove City Alumni travels that Linda and I enjoy participating in.  So far, I’ve produced three such books, with one more slated for June/July of 2018:

• National Parks of the High Plains, June 2015
• Galapagos, January 2017
• Machu Picchu, January 2017
• National Parks of the South West, June 2018

Fonts in Barrett Photo Books

My knowledge of typography is fairly sparse. I have picked up a few things here and there in classes and other readings.  I've learned enough to know it is an important element of book / page design and that I don't know nearly enough.  That said, I have settled on a few design guidelines that I think make sense and I try to follow. I'll try to lay them out here, for my own reference at least.

Travel Memory Books

A few years back I discovered photo books as a way to make my images from travels a powerful tool for bolstering my memory and enjoyment of vacations and other trips.  Before that, I had taken pictures, often printed some of them, looked at them and put them in a box or drawer.  When I looked at them years later I really couldn't appreciate what I was looking at.  The images just didn't work as a way to really remember the event.  Putting those images into book format forced me to really think about what I saw, adding some organization and narration, allows my to save the memories much more accurately and gives me something that I can look at long after the fact and once again enjoy the experience. These books, for many people have become the ultimate souvenir.

Mixbook Opportunities for Improvement

I've created three nearly 100 page books with Mixbooks at this point and I'm willing to use it again, so it has some definite upsides, but it also has some "opportunities for improvement," things that just drive me nuts or feel a need to fix a book and reprint it.  These things really should be fixed.

I'll go into my major beefs with Mixbooks below.