Welcome Sign out
Shopping Cart My Account Order History Sign in Not yet a member? Help

BookSmart

Suggested enhancements

Maybe these have been covered (as I am new), but here goes:

 - Photo enhancement options from container (after I drag a photo, I’d like to be able to use sliders to adjust brightness, contrast, saturation, etc.)

- Option for photo transparency (opacity) (slider from invisible to fully visible)

- Ability to resize template photo containers

- Auto adjust container to orientation of photo (landscape vs portrait)

- Larger preview when starting to drag photo.  I had 1000s of photos and sometimes could not distinquish which one I really wanted.

Just some initial thoughts.  Published my first book and waiting to see the quality when it arrives in next week or so. 

 Thanks,

 Ron 

 

Replytopic_b_normal
Posted by
ram9825
Apr 28, 2008 11:52am PDT
Permalink
ram9825
 

Hi Ron,

Great ideas, thank you.

Your ideas for adjusting image containers and being shown a larger preview are especially terrific, and certainly in line with the direction BookSmart’s developers are going. 

Quick note about BookSmart. It’s not meant to replace Photoshop, or even InDesign, which sports more and more effects these days so designers needn’t necessarily re-open Photoshop. We actually removed from BookSmart a couple basic photo editing tools, black&white and sepia image conversion, so it would be clear that BookSmart is a straightforward (and free) layout program only. So I wouldn’t expect to see opacity controls in BookSmart.

However, the folks with the know-how are of course welcome to create custom pages in InDesign and bring them into BookSmart!

Cheers,
Jeremy

 

 
Posted by
jbates
Apr 29, 2008 9:57am PDT
Permalink Staff
jbates
 

I agree with all of the suggestions – they would help tremendously.  I also agree that the product should not try to replace Photoshop.  Opacity controls and other controls that might best be adjusted when looking at a finished product (in booksmart), should at least be considered in my opinion.  Sometimes the adjustments can only be made when seeing the full layout.  Just a thought.  Having larger previews and the ability to make adjustments to the containers would be really nice to have.
Posted by
sfmansp
Apr 30, 2008 2:53pm PDT
Permalink
sfmansp
 

I also think opacity controls would be a good thing (I also agree – it wouldn’t be a replacement for photoshop).  One of the uses I was thinking of is that I may want to use a picture as a full bleed – at full opacity at the beginning of a book or chapter.  It would be nice to use that same picture under text explaining the map, or giving a history of the location, etc., which would require the picture to be at a lesser opacity to make the text easier to read.  It would be nice to control the opacity in booksmart to minimize the number of picture you need to generate.  Also, it would have the added benefit that I could change my mind on which picture I’m putting under the text.

Just a humble 2 cent opinion from a newbie!

Posted by
rbgool
Apr 30, 2008 4:56pm PDT
Permalink
rbgool
 

Hi Guys;

Opacity – an alternate approach ???

My tendancy is to support Blurb on the front of NOT being an image processing software, but a design facility; so I do NOT think that having Opacity controls is a good idea…

Blurb need to concentrate on the fundamentals of the "design" aspects and ensure that is 100% bedded down… There’s a long way to go on this front…

However, I see a way forward without breaching the concept of design v. image manipulation, and that would be to facilitate importation of a "custom" theme or background…

Seems to me that would provide what rbgool (above) is looking for, and enhance the Blurb product to boot!

This could also be a part of a "Personalised Settings" menu I would like to see, and have made numerous suggestions for…

Cheers;

Lee
Posted by
lkb-28
May 1, 2008 2:42am PDT
Permalink
lkb-28
 

I certainly agree with the above comments; I think that the addition of support for custom backgrounds that would allow placement of full-bleed photos under photo and/or text layouts is an absolute necessity.  Does anyone at Blurb know if such an advancement is possible or forthcoming?
Posted by
hooloovoos
May 1, 2008 6:50am PDT
Permalink
hooloovoos
 

One thing I would find useful would be an indexing function, maybe similar to Word, whereby a user enters an indexing item in the main body, and it then gets listed in correct alphaberic order at the back with the correct page reference, the page reference being corrected if pages are inserted or removed. Includes sub-entrries, cross-references, bold (for picture refs for example) etc.

 What do yoi think?
Posted by
thompp
May 1, 2008 9:06am PDT
Permalink
thompp

Forums

Help