InDesign Children's Book JPEGs and PNGs Replaced with PSD Files

Now that I know better, I’ll be using only the original PSD files for my future children’s picture books. Live and learn, I say…when I’m feeling philosophical. Today I finished finding and replacing all of the low-res images in my children’s book. Hooray for me! My next step is to create the cover, which is no small task. Besides being the cover picture, there’s a back picture, and a spine, and the inner front and back liner content. I’ve read thousands of books, and yet, this is the first time I’ve even thought about what goes in to creating a book cover.

Here’s one of the images I patched up today. Just look at those cute bugs and rodents. My question is, why the hell is Jimmy’s nose blue? Shouldn’t it be orange, the same as it is in every other picture in the book? Dear, dear…that problem goes on to my ever-growing TODO list.

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Day #256 Children's Picture Book Progress Report

Today’s progress was two low-res PNG images replaced by two high-res PSDs. By “low-res”, I mean having fewer than 3,200 pixels in either height or width. Print images have to be at least 300 dpi. For an 8” square page, that’s a minimum of 2,400 pixels, but to be safe, I’m going for a much larger size.

Picking the right size for digital images is important. Pick too few pixels and you limit your options to small pictures. With 300 dpi being the minimum acceptable resolution for print, you have to plan ahead, which I didn’t do. An 8-inch square image would have to be 2400x2400 px, not including the part of the picture extending to the bleed line. That’s an extra 80+ pixels of height and width. To be truly safe I should have created all of the images as 8000x8000 pixels so that I could use the images for something large, like a big poster. For my next book I’ll be doing all of the art using traditional media: pen, ink, gouache, watercolor, etc. I’ll be able to scan the images at up to 1600 dpi if I have to.

Here are the two images I replaced today: The first image was only 2000px tall. The second was only 1000x1000 pixels. Both images looked great on my screen in InDesign, but the would suck when printed.

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This image was only 2000px in height.

The second image has a problem with body parts being so close to the trim line that they could be cut. That’s an unpleasant sight! The biggest problem is the sliver of white stabbing Jimmy in the back down in the lower right corner. I’m going to fix that by extending his shirt beyond the trim line.

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This is Getting Repetitious but It's Part of the Self-Publishing Business

Today was like yesterday — I replaced another low-res jPEG with the full-sized PSD file. Okay, I’ve learned my lesson. Enough! Let’s move on!

That’s what the impatient part of me is saying, the part that quits a project when it gets tedious/repetitious/grueling/hard. I’m talking to myself when I say, I ain’t falling for that line of reasoning. I’m going to ignore the noisy propaganda coming from inside my own brain and focus on getting this project repaired and completed. One inch at a time still stands as my guiding principle.

Here’s the image I replaced today. Because I’m displaying it on a web page, the resolution looks fine, but it’s way too low for printing. What looks good on a web screen looks like crap on paper. This image is for the square print version of my book. I’m planning to use a 4:3 aspect ration for all images in my next book. It’s a decent compromise — there will be reasonable black bars on HD devices, but it will be perfection for print and the iPad.

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Ditto, Ditto, Ditto

Today’s inch forward is the same as yesterday’s inch forward — I replaced two low-res JPEGs with their high-res original PSD files. So, I really moved two inches forward today.

I calculate that by the time I walk the miles required to get this book done, I’ll need to make more than 63,360 inches of progress. At my current rate of two inches a day, completing this book will take only 31,680 days, and that’s only 86.79 years. Furthermore, by the time I finish my proposed series of six Jimmy Jay and Buddy Butterfly books, I’ll be only 521-years old. I’m not deterred even though Art truly is long, and Life, no matter how long, is always going to be short. The silver lining is that Art will always be there waiting for me, incomplete, mysterious, alluring, and never boring.

In the meantime, I thought this Github Kitty Kat might be an amusing diversion from the facts of life.

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More of the Same, Again...Replacing Low-res Images, That is

Today I spent most of my Art time trying to get my Plustek A3 scanner working with Linux…so far it’s a no-go. It turns out that Linux can’t deal with certain scanners because of hardware incompatibilities. And, Plustek is one of those corporations that doesn’t care about Linux. With that in mind, I tried using Virtualbox to install Windows, which does work with my scanner. I planned to open a Windows session (in Linux) and use my scanner as I would use it with Windows. But, alas! Virtualbox doesn’t want to recognize my USB ports. I’m optimistic that I’ll eventually find a very technical solution. I have to remind myself that there are some tasks that are much harder — and sometime impossible — with free software.

In the meantime, I spent my remaing Art time tracking down low-res images in my InDesign document. This is the single image I replaced today. As I’ve said before, and inch a day keeps the fire burning.

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Al Fresco Art Club Challenge - Sep 22, 2019: Learning to Paint Basic Shapes with Gouache

At today’s Al Fresco Art Club meeting I proposed that we all paint a common object using basic shapes — all in one hour. In previous challenges attempting to replicate masterpieces was instructive, and fun. Those challenges taught me that I should really learn the basics first if I want to develop confident brush strokes. As it is, I usually worry the poor paper to death with a thousand tiny pecks of the brush.

I chose to paint my Holga 120 N film camera atop an Artbin craft box. I assert that the black blob does resemble a camera, and the plastic bin definitely look something like an Artbin bin. In this exercise I learned that it’s a good idea to paint in the background first. I didn’t this time but I wish I had. This is called learning from experience.

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Chore Day Sep 21, 2019: Seeking Low-res Images in an InDesign Children's Book

Today I checked the file sizes for the images in my children’s book. Last month I learned that InDesign could process my PSD files directly and I started replacing the JPEG and PNG images with the original PSD files, one at a time. Just to make sure I’d replaced all of the low-res files, I saved the book as an InDesign package, which places a copy of all the files in use into a project folder. Today I looked at the “links”, as InDesign calls packaged images, and found that I had not replaced many JPEG and PNG files. Some of the images were large enough and had sufficiently high resolution to work with a print book, but others had a suspiciously small file size. When I checked those funky files I found that they were 1000x1000 pixels, which would fail to pass the Ingramspark minimum resolution requirement. I’ll have to replace those files with the original PSD files. I’ll have to search for them. I know that some of the missing files exist only on my iPad.

Here’s an example of what I’m seeing. Notice the pixel size of 1000x996.

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Wow! A Day When I Have Nothing to Say

Really…nothing say. Nada. Zip. Nil. Nothing about Art. Nothing about how hard I’m working. Nothing about moving another inch forward. Nothing about why I don’t have anything to show for today. I actually did work, with the left side of my brain, but I don’t count that anymore.

Today’s memorable moments were spent reading a marvelous little illustrated book called “Introducing Buddha - A Graphic Guide” by Jane Hope with amusing illustrations by Borin Van Loon. This book is available from Icon Books in the UK. I don’t see it on Amazon U.S, but you can probably find a used copy floating around. It’s worth looking for if you’re into learning about Buddhism and that kind of cool stuff.

All of the “Introducing” book from Icon Books are amazingly entertaining and thoughtful. I have about 15 of them. Here’s a sample page from “Introducing Buddha”.

A Meditative Moment with the Frontispiece Image

I’m feeling cranky and burnt out today. Yet another day spent bailing water from a sinking boat (my ever evaporating day employment) where I’m creating a masterpiece that will be seen just one time, and an hour spent double-checking my children’s picture book for typos (yes, I found another bunch). I’m stunned that I can create so many errors in a story with only 150 words. So, I’m letting myself be cranky — cranky enough to let my characters get a little cranky, though I will remove their gratuitous speech bubbles when I come to my senses.

Just keep movin', folks. Nothing to see here.

My inch forward today is nothing more than opening InDesign and staring at the screen. I scrolled through my book from beginning to end and began to feel the pressure of the blank front matter and back matter. There’s a lot of empty space that needs something to fill it up.

• I have to create the realistic images of the Steller’s Jay and Monarch Butterfly for the back matter.

• For the copyright page I need an ISBN number — in fact, I have to buy a batch of 10 ISBN numbers to get a decent price for the two that I’ll need, one for the print book and one for the e-book.

• I need a bar code for the last page and the cover, which shouldn’t be a big deal — there’s software for that sort of thing.

• Oh, yeah…I need to create a cover image. I just thought of that after 8 months of nothing thinking about it. The book has to have a cover.

And that’s it, as far as I know … at this point. I’m wised up enough to know that I really don’t know what I’m clueless about. I overlooked the cover. What else did I forget? We’ll find out.

No picture today. That’s sad. Between my day job and tweaking the pages and text, I haven’t drawn or painted anything since the last meeting of the Al Fresco Art Club four day ago.