Hi Joe,

LR's book module is far inferior to Aperture !

You must find a template with text boxes already included and the only flexibility you have is to use extreme padding to move the text somewhat around.

Besides it is still very unstable, alos in 4.1, so do not try to copy-paste text from one book into another, preferably do not move back and forth into develop module (at least not before having clicked create saved book), and finish the book in 1 LR session as people report to have lost all work. Minimum back up the catalog when quitting with a book not yet finished.

Your workaround could work, but not for pdf, it needs to be an image file type supported by LR library.

But why would you bother when you have Aperture?

Export your final develops from LR into Aperture and do the book there - much less headache !

Cornelia

Joe_Caldwell wrote:

 

Is there a way to add text boxes to book pages in Lightroom? In case Lightroom 4 does not allow text box additions to its book pages, have any of you found a way around it?

 

Lightroom has a remarkably clunky way to do this. Select the page itself, and in the Caption panel tick the Page Caption. You then move it around using the Offset slider. Within the Type panel, you have some more options.

John

I really wouldn't want to complicate things by involving other apps. For example, roundtripping to InDesign would add development cost and operational constraints external to the LR team, and would provide little value for most LR users who don't own or know how to use ID.

In a way I think Book's design may have suffered from thinking too much about other apps! The most-obvious one is the assumption that Illustrator should be used to design templates, when the need was for a freeform layout tool similar to Print's custom package.

Perhaps there has also been too much of an attempt to re-invent the wheel? The result has been we don't have Slideshow-style text boxes which can be freely positioned, and we only have a choice of 3 metadata fields when Print / Web / Slideshow all have the Text Template Editor. So we lose UI consistency as well as functionality.

So rather than looking outside LR, I feel the emphasis should be on staying inside, re-using UI elements from elsewhere in LR, and making Book punch its weight. That said, while I characterize it as "fiddly" or "clunky" and as forcing the user to be too ingenious, I'm delighted to have it and it satisfies my needs to the extent that I've done half a dozen books which would not otherwise have seen the light of day.

John

PS

For me the real successes are:

- Auto Layout

- Detailed type control

- Background

- Double Page spreads

My usability tweaks (within existing scope of Book)

- lasso selection of text boxes / photos on multiple pages

- linked text boxes - for repeating titles on cover / spine / title pages

- text boxes linkable to external text files - longer pieces of text could be edited / spellchecked externally and re-used in multiple books

- copy and paste styles from one page to another

- page numbering

- index page generation

- support transparency in TIFs

Hm, and I'd put on a hard hat in anticipation of one of your rants, Cornelia. I'll keep it on for when Butch shows up though!

I've said most of these directly to Adobe, but I've added http://feedback.photoshop.com/photoshop_family/topics/lightroom_book_u sability_tweaks

I don't feel it was so unfair as it is the impression I've received. I like rants anyway, and I know somewhere I've referred to one of Butch's lengthier comments on Book as convincing. So please don't take it as criticism - people tend to know when I'm really sticking the boot in!

Joe_Caldwell wrote:

 

 

Is there a way to add text boxes to book pages in Lightroom? In case Lightroom 4 does not allow text box additions to its book pages, have any of you found a way around it?

 

I have thought about a workaround but am not sure if this would work. I would create pages with photos and text either in InDesign or Photoshop, export this as an image and then place this image on the book. The image could be created in full page size and then imported into my Lightroom 4 book to fill the entire page. In your opinion would this approach work? If so, what would be the best file format to use for this? PDF, JPEG or TIFF?

 

Thank you in advance.

No, you can't add textboxes to book pages in Lr. You have to choose one of the Lr page templates that have a textbox already. You can change the appearance of text in the textbox by using the Padding feature - it shifts the text within the textbox - but you cannot move the textbox or resize it.

Your workaround will work. I would use either TIFF or PSD to avoid having the JPG saved several times which would deteriorate the quality.

Also, Juleanne Kost in one of her videos pointed out that it is possible to create custom templates in the Print Module with multiple images, export this to JPG-file, re-import it into Lr and use it for the book. If you use this way, you would create a PSD or TIFF for the text only, import it into Lr and use it as one of the images in your custom print template - export it as JPG, ... see above.

Joe

Ideally a roundtrip to ID should be possible, but realistically I suspect the costs of doing it well would be too great, not satisfy enough LR users, and sacrifice built-in Book features. Also I think PS is integral to a photo-centric workflow in a way that ID isn't. Export as IDML might be worth doing, but I'm not convinced. I'd rather have Book features exposed to the SDK (though they've got to polish Book's interface first) so the plug-in community could fill that ID gap and others too .

As for the books, I've been broadly happy.

• I preferred the glossiness of the dust jacket over the image wrap (I wish they'd drop the little QR code on the back).
• Mostly I used the Proline papers, starting with the Pearl and then the Uncoated which I preferred - reproduction was equal (I did one book with almost the same set of pics), but the Uncoated seemed a purer white and I preferred its more paper-like feel.
• I've not tested the Proline papers with B&W but I suspect that reports of colour casts mainly relate to the Pearl, and I was happy with the neutrality of the B&W on the standard paper.
• Colour was acceptably-good, maybe with reds being a bit overdone
• I don't think any brightness (or sharpening) was introduced. If anything, I felt there was a tendency to block the shadows and this seemed more obvious on Pearl. When I reprinted roughly the same book, but on Uncoated, I went through all the images again in Develop and reconsidered how I'd done the shadows. The combination was a lot better.
• Delivery time seems around 8 days - Netherlands printing facility to London

Hope that helps.

It was generally just a matter of looking again at the black clipping and re-editing the files. I'm not sure the process is helpful because all the pictures had gone through Photoshop (as smart objects) and to Silver Efex Pro, which is mostly where I'd pushed too much into darker shadows that didn't print too well.  The pics' mainly sepia-blue tones were printed close to what I'd expected, but the reds were a hint of the original colour rather than realistic skin tones.

After receiving the Pearl book I did try softproofing in PS with the icc profile and seeing if I would have changed any pictures. Overall, I decided not, and I suspect that's because it's a single profile for 4 different paper types and who-knows-how-many printers. We're in sRGB territory, and soft-proofing in LR with sRGB seemed to give me good-enough indications that I could / should open up the shadows. So overall, my thinking is that I'll now stick to the paper I prefer and be ultra-careful with the shadows - not exactly a lightning bolt of wisdom!