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Participating Frequently
May 8, 2018
Answered

Photobook Layouts and Aspect Ratio

  • May 8, 2018
  • 1 reply
  • 1673 views

I'm creating a photobook with a company called Milk that has defined layouts for photos.  They indicate that most of their formats are 4:3.  So, in Lightroom, I changed the aspect ratio on some of my photos that would not fit in their layout, but that only cropped the photo weirdly cutting off part of the image.  Any tips for me to get my photos into their layouts?  Thanks.

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    Correct answer Rob_Cullen

    Thank you. I really appreciat it.


    I had a quick try at designing a book with 'Milk'.

    Very frustrating! Page layouts are very limited. Once a page layout is used you can only zoom up the image to show a smaller area of the photo in the 'fixed' photo 'cell'  ie. the zoom will crop. The photo cells all seem to be fixed as rectangular, square, round, etc, and the rectangular cells do seem to be only 4:3 with no adjustment available. My attempts were not comprehensive, but I gave up.

    Personally (what I saw) I found  'Milk' to be very limiting and will still prefer the Book module in Lightroom to create my 'Photo' books. I can work entirely in Lightroom, send direct to Blurb, or save a PDF to send to other Book printers.

    1 reply

    Rob_Cullen
    Community Expert
    Community Expert
    May 8, 2018

    I think you will have to contact Milk to seek their advice.

    Cropping a photo to match a ratio will often cut away part of the photo- that's the nature of cropping.

    I have never had a situation (using Blurb books) where I could not use "Fit" or "Fill" to see my photos (in any ratio) show correctly in a page template.

    Are the "Formats 4:3" referring to photos on a page, or the Book PAGE ratios?

    Regards. My System: Windows-11, Lightroom-Classic 15.1.1, Photoshop 27.3.1, ACR 18.1.1, Lightroom 9.0, Lr-iOS 10.4.0, Bridge 16.0.2 .
    Participating Frequently
    May 9, 2018

    I believe they are referring to book page ratios. They have high quality products but the only advice I receive from them is to resize.

    Rob_Cullen
    Community Expert
    Community Expert
    May 9, 2018

    "Resize" is not necessarily the same as "Crop" so I am not certain of the advice meaning.

    When I get time later I may be able to test their design software and provide a better answer. I will keep following your posts.

    Regards. My System: Windows-11, Lightroom-Classic 15.1.1, Photoshop 27.3.1, ACR 18.1.1, Lightroom 9.0, Lr-iOS 10.4.0, Bridge 16.0.2 .