How to use your own digital camera for your book

How to use your own digital camera for your book

Written by Ray Fox

Yes, you can take photos with your digital camera and use them in your book. What you need to do is make sure they are Press-Ready. What is Press-Ready? Simply stated, Press-Ready material requires no alterations and reproduce an acceptable quality. The material will go directly from computer file to press.

With current digital technology, it is possible to take photos of acceptable quality for printing your book (even offset printing which is done with a Press). There are three factors that determine whether your digital photos will be suitable for printing:

1. Resolution - Resolution determines the overall quality of your digital photos. Resolution is expressed in megapixels or pixels in height and width. Do not rely on megapixels since this number does not necessarily provide a true image size. Your camera’s manual should list how many pixels, in height by width, it is capable of taking at full resolution. To find the maximum print size, divide by 300 for each axis. The result is the maximum dimension (in inches) that the photo can safely be printed. For example, a camera with full resolution at 1600 x 1200 pixels (typical 2 megapixel camera) would result in a 5.33 inch x 4 inch maximum print size. My camera (bought one year ago for under $200.00) allows me to create prints up to 12” x 9” which is more than enough for a full cover photo for the book I want to create. See following table for examples. My camera even has another resolution which might come in handy for an odd shaped book (3648 x 2048 which works out to be 12.16 inches x 6.83 inches).

1. Compression - Compressed photos are NOT suitable for printing. Compression affects image quality and destroys image data. If your camera supports uncompressed image data such as TIFF or RAW, you should use those settings. If these are not available, use the lowest possible JPEG compression (finest quality) ratio setting. My camera has the compression settings of Normal, Fine and Superfine. I use Superfine.
2. File Format - After transferring your photo to your computer, DO NOT resize the image, alter its resolution, or save for web output. Save the image in TIFF or EPS format (if possible), which are the standard file formats for printing. My camera creates only JPEG and this format works just fine.

Many companies will ask for images at 300dpi. The photo from your digital camera will probably not be 300 dpi. So what do I do now? First, these companies are able to easily change the resolution (they usually have Adobe Photoshop software) with two clicks of a mouse so don't let them charge you to do it. An easy and free solution (rather than relying on them) is to simply change the DPI of your image to whatever they want and send it along to them by using the free photo program Irfanview. You can download it here.

Changing DPI with Irfanview

The trick when changing the DPI is to do it without resizing (resampling) your image in the process. You want to change the DPI while retaining the original pixel dimensions (the real digital resolution) of the photo.

1. Select the "Image > Resize/Resample" option. In that dialog window you'll see a specific DPI data box. Simply enter whatever DPI you want without adjusting anything else in that dialog window.

2. Click on the "OK" button Your image DPI has now been set to whatever you want (leaving the pixel dimensions of the image unchanged).

3. Save the image.

That’s all that needs to be done. They should be happy with your "new higher DPI" image.

Other photo programs are going to have a similar process. The key is to make sure that the image IS NOT being resampled (pixel resized) when the DPI is changed. As long as the pixel dimensions remain unchanged, your new DPI photo will be identical to your original photo, only the internal DPI setting of the photo will have been changed.

Good luck with that book. If you have any questions you can address them to the Lieben Forum which I subscribe to and I will reply. The forum even has private messages if thats what you prefer.

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