Table of contents for Viovio 12 x 12 Premium Process

1. Viovio Premium 12 x 12 photo books, The process: uploading images
2. Viovio Premium 12 x 12 photo books, The process: the cover
3. Viovio Premium 12 x 12 photo books, The process: creating & laying out book
4. Viovio Premium 12 x 12 photo books: the results

I returned from a trip to find my 12 x 12 Viovio photo book on the doorstep.  The book turned just like I hoped it would. 

• The photos are good quality. 
• The paper is good quality. 
• The binding is done really nice.
• The cover is gorgeous!  That’s the part I love the most about these books is putting your images on the cover and creating one of a kind book.  No plain linen cloth. 
• Shipping was very reasonable. I chose the inexpensive method that comes media mail, the slow postal rate.  I knew it had gone to a printer on a Monday (they informed me via email) and I received it the following Thursday.  So it probably spent a week in media mail shipping.  Definitely a way to go if you aren’t under a deadline!
• The whole process was quite easy from start to finish.

I also like that I can share my photo book with a link so others can view it.  I have friends in another country that I wanted to show.  So instead of showing them the printed book, I gave them the link and they could view it. 

I would encourage you to Viovio.  They are making photobooks easier and easier to create!

Table of contents for Viovio 12 x 12 Premium Process

1. Viovio Premium 12 x 12 photo books, The process: uploading images
2. Viovio Premium 12 x 12 photo books, The process: the cover
3. Viovio Premium 12 x 12 photo books, The process: creating & laying out book
4. Viovio Premium 12 x 12 photo books: the results

Now that we have our images uploaded and the cover created, lets create the book!

Begin by going to Books & Products | Book Designer

This will start Viovio’s Book Designer program.

• Give your photo album a title.
• Choose Product type.  I am creating the 12 x 12 square book so I choose Square 1:1.
• You can choose number of pages but I left it as default of 20.  You can add or remove pages later.
• Then click Create

Note:  For digital scrapbookers that are uploading full 12 x 12 pages (or other size) you do not need to do anything with templates on the right side.

You will be presented with an empty album:

The next step is to add your images to each page.  I like the Auto-fill pages.  If your pictures are already ordered, they will be placed ordered into the book.   (When I get ready to print a book I will rename all my jpgs with the page number and filename.)  This isn’t necessary though because Viovio Book Designer provides an easy way to order your pages.  Auto-fill will also add the correct number of pages to match the number of images you uploaded.   So for now, click on the Auto-fill and you will have to wait a bit.  I had 46 pages it put into the book and it took a few minutes.

Once the book is auto-filled, you will see images on each page:

If you want to order any pages click on the second icon to Reorder your pages.   Drag & drop the pages around to order them and when done click on Save.

Note:  When you look at individual pages, you might see image1 in the upper left hand corner of the images.   When you look at the previews that image1 text will not print.

Once you have images on their pages and ordered correctly, you can go on to step 2, Design Cover.  Click on it on the upper-right hand corner.

I am doing a full-wrap cover and we already created the cover in a previous post so we are ready to go:

• Since I don’t put text on the cover, the top 5 choices, don’t apply.   If you do want to add text on the spine, this is where you should do – in the Spine Text field.
• I click the Full Wrap Cover box since my cover is one large image.  Then I choose where that is file is located.
• Viovio Logo Alignment.  By default it is in the bottom center.  I changed my setting to bottom right since I have my logo in the bottom center.
• I also deleted the Product URL.  This is a private album and don’t want or expect others to purchase so I don’t want the Product URL on the bottom.

Once done, click on Update Cover

Once the cover updates, you will see a preview of the cover and since I used their template, it is just as I expected:

If everything, looks ok, click on Next.  You will be presented with your photo book previews, pricing, settings.

• The first thing you want to do is set your security on the bottom right and click on Save to save your book so you don’t lose what you have done.
• Next you want to click on Generate Pageflip and Generate PDF views right underneath your cover and it will create what your book will look like.    (Each step takes a little while.)
• You can click on PDF Preview and proof all your pages.  Make sure there are no typos!  If there is correct your page, delete the page that is wrong in your photo album, reupload the image, and go back to Step 1 and make sure that page gets updated with your changes.  You do not need to do whole process again.
• The Page flip allows you to make sure all pages are ordered correctly and you got the left & right paired correctly.  It also allows you to show the crop guides so you make sure nothing is being cut-off.
• 
• If all is correct you can click on Buy Now! select the type of book you want and go through the checkout process.
• 

You’ll notice that I am printing a 2007 book!  I am really not that far behind in my digital scrapbooking. I am working on mid – 2009 right now so a little less than year behind.  I am a chronological scrapper for my family albums.  In addition, I create project albums.  I about to send an album of to my parent about a cabin they built in the early 1970’s.  Just that far behind in my printing.

I did the cheaper slower shipping method, so when I receive the book I will let you know what it looks like.  I found the process of uploading my images, creating the book and buying the book from Viovio fairly easy and straightforward!

Table of contents for Viovio 12 x 12 Premium Process

1. Viovio Premium 12 x 12 photo books, The process: uploading images
2. Viovio Premium 12 x 12 photo books, The process: the cover
3. Viovio Premium 12 x 12 photo books, The process: creating & laying out book
4. Viovio Premium 12 x 12 photo books: the results

I love the full-wrap covers on my photos books.  They make them look like elegant coffee table books!

Creating them correctly is important!  Viovio provides some templates and highly recommend you use them.   The information can be found here:  Book Cover Specifications.

I download the 12 x 12 full-wrap guide from Viovio to start creating my cover.

Some hints:

• Don’t expect the spine to hit exactly where the template says.  The number of pages in your book affect your spine and spine placement.  I don’t try do anything special to the spine (such as label the spine with text.)
• Don’t put anything close to the edges, especially text so it doesn’t get cut-off.

I open up the guide in my editor and and then design my cover using the template.

When I have it as I want, I hide the Viovio template and save the image as a jpg.

You don’t need to upload the cover to Viovio just yet.  During the photobook process, it will ask you to upload the cover and do it then!  We’ll start creating the photobook next!

Table of contents for Viovio 12 x 12 Premium Process

1. Viovio Premium 12 x 12 photo books, The process: uploading images
2. Viovio Premium 12 x 12 photo books, The process: the cover
3. Viovio Premium 12 x 12 photo books, The process: creating & laying out book
4. Viovio Premium 12 x 12 photo books: the results

Since I last tried Viovio, they have added some new products.  Namely their 12 x 12 premium photo books that come in softcover, hardcover, die-cut or just loose pages.

Premium photo books means they are using Commercial-Quality, Acid-free, 100# Futura coated photo book paper with a 7-color electroink process.    They describe it as more colors mean more detail and accuracy.  Thicker paper givers you heavier weight paper with more professional feel.   To most users that doesn’t mean much until you see the printed quality of the book.  So when I receive the book, I will let you know!

In addition, they have added a new online tool called the Viovio Book Designer.  This allows you to easily drag and drop your images into the book and order your pages and get it exactly like you want.

Let’s start from the beginning to see the process…

One of the things I love about Viovio is the ease of getting my pictures to my account.

After you login, you will have a menu from your dashboard. That’s the quickest way to navigate.

Begin by choosing Photos | Create Gallery

In Gallery, give it name and description if you wish.  I leave all the other settings as is except for the last one.  The last one controls the security level of the album.  I like my images to be private (not visible to public) so I change the last option.  When done click on Save Gallery.

Once the gallery is created you can click on upload pictures!

You can upload pictures one by one, but that is not the way that I recommend.   I recommend you gather all your images for your book and put them all in one zip file.  Then choose the zip file to upload.  That is the quick way!    A few words of caution:  The zip file cannot be larger than 500 MB.  The file I uploaded was 441MB zip file (46 12 x 12 pages at 300 DPI.)  In addition, your account can only hold 500MB.    If your book is larger, email support and they will help you with account size limit.   Make sure that Don’t Resize is selected.  The last thing you also should check in the security level again, make sure its set to what you want.  Then click on Upload Files and go have a cup of coffee or a nap!

Once done, you will see your photos in your gallery on your account:

The photos are now ready to be created into a book!  We’ll see how in the next few posts.

Usually, I work on my desktop and hard drive with my digital scrapbook supplies and images and backup to my EHD.  Twice a year, I take my laptop and EHD (which is my backup and identical to the what’s on my hard drive for digital scrapping stuff) and do a scrapbooking weekend with a few gals!  Last weekend, I started to digi-scrap and looking at my images on EHD.  I noticed a few images with corrupt thumbnails.  I browsed around and found I had corrupt images randomly throughout the EHD.    It wasn’t corrupt enough that I couldn’t work but I sometimes I had to skip a layout I had intended to do because the pictures I wanted were corrupt.  After returning home, I verified my images on my hard drive where just fine so its only my backup EHD that has bad images.   I am going to reformat the backup EHD and see if its salvageable (a reformat will mark places on the disk that is bad and not use them) and then re-backup.    I didn’t lose anything and if the reformat doesn’t work, I’ll just have to buy another EHD.  I am coming to believe a lifespan of EHD is 2 years and I treat them well.  (They sit on a shelf in my office and only move/travel twice a year.)

Some backup tips that I want to share:

• If you find a few corrupt images.  Thumbnails don’t display or images won’t load.  Randomly browse your collection and see if its just that one or multiple. Typically finding a few corrupt files is one of the first signs that a hard drive is failing.  I highly recommend backing up what is there (corrupt and all.)  It might be your only chance before it fails completely. 
• Periodically go look at your backup where you do it and make sure things are you expect them and everything is looking good.  Its not good to find out after the fact that backup wasn’t running or you weren’t backing up the right thing.
• You can never have too many backups!  I just bought a 1 TB hard drive and backed up all our data from all our computers on that hard drive.  Then I repacked it back up and sent it to a location 20 miles from my house (hubby’s office drawer!)  If the house was hit with a catashropic event, I will still have my data.  Periodically, I will ask him to bring it home so I can update the backup.

I feel very strongly about backing up!   With all this technology and digital images sitting on your computers, its all really very fragile.  It takes one event and your images might just be gone if you don’t have them backed up.   My digital files can be retyped/redone but my digital images can never be retaken. 

So go take the time from your busy schedule and backup – however you want.  Just backup and make sure the backup is good!

The main differences:

Modes:

ACDSee’s user interface has been broken into modes:

ACDsee has 4 modes:  Manage, View, Edit, & Online. 

• Manage is where the organizing gets done.  As a digital scrapbooker, I spend the majority of my time still in the familiar manage mode that is similar to the previous version of ACDSee. 
• View allows you browse your images larger.  The view mode is nice also when you want to see images larger.  There are few things you can do while viewing them large and I will share that later in another post.
• Edit allows you to do editing of your images.  The edit mode allows you to make changes to your image and it will automatically save your original away for safe-keeping.  If you decide you don’t want to keep the changes, you can right click and choose Restore to Orginal
• Online allows you to upload to ACDSee Online albums.

Multi-select & boxes in the Organize Pane

In the organize pane, they have made a new way to assign images.  The boxes are now for assigning a category (not for searching for a category.)  For those familiar it takes a little bit to get used.  I kept assigning images when I started to do a search and found a few mis-categorized images.  To do a multi-select, you use the arrows on the left side. To select categories to search for, you click on the category name or on the arrows on the left.  (Hold down ctrl to select multiple ones.)    For the organizers that like to check boxes to assign categories, they will like the boxes next to the categories.  I still like the faster way of dragging and dropping the categories onto the selected images to assign. 

Tagged flag

Tagged flag allows you to mark images at “Tagged” and then quickly recall all Tagged images in bottom right.  This can be used however you want.  In another blog post, I’ll share my use of the tagged flag.

Edit Shortcut

The keyboard shortcut to send your image to a default editor has been changed!   The all familiar CTRL-E now sends you into the Edit mode in ACDSee.   The way to send your images to your default editor now is CTRL ATL X.  I find this key combo incredibly hard to do so there is way to reassign this back to CTRL-E.   More on that, in another blog post too!

Windows 7 support

It is supported on Windows 7 if you have upgraded your operating system.

Share on Facebook

You can get your photos from ACDSee to Facebook.  It is using ACDSee online mode and uploading them to your ACDSee Online Albums from there you can share them to Facebook.

FTP support

If you ftp images or files to an ftp server, you can use Send to FTP Site… 

Image Basket is remembered!!!

In previous versions, once you closed ACDSee the images in your image basket would be wiped out.   This was quite a bummer for those that would use the Image Basket to collect all thing they need to do a digital scrapbook layout.  Now, whatever you have in the Image Basket is remembered upon close and when you restart they are still there!   Now I just have learn to periodically clean out my image basket after I finish my layout.

The price:

The regular price is $69.99.  If you already own ACDSee products, the price is $48.99

Visit ACDSee to download the trial for ACDSee 12

If you visit, ACDSee and look at the tutorials for ACDSee 12, you will find these tutorials to learn more about ACDSee 12:

• ACDSee 12 for new users
• ACDSee 12 for existing users
• Moving photos to another computer
• Tagging your images
• Emailing images
• Browsing photos by date or event
• Uploading your photos to ACDSeeOnline.com

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I found a neat little site that allows you to follow a Twitter List by RSS.  It is called Twitter Lists 2 RSS.  And you may ask what is a twitter list? A twitter list is a way to group a bunch of tweeters together into a group. Twitter users can create their own lists or you can  subscribe to a list created by another user.  And even more info on a Twitter List

I haven’t create any of my own twitter lists yet, but Hummie has.  So I am using Hummie’s list: http://twitter.com/HummieIsMe/digitalscrapbooking.

In the little app: Twitter Lists 2 RSS, I enter the url for the list url and receive back the RSS URL which is http://twiterlist2rss.appspot.com/HummieIsMe/lists/digitalscrapbooking/statuses.rss

I can now subscribe to this rss feed and watch the tweets of the digital scrapbookers from my rss feeder.