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Post by And Kevin 2024 on Aug 13, 2020 18:09:52 GMT
Thanks for that Yes I like that one. I don't recall the one on Lulu, but they should all also be on Amazon. (Although I don't use Lulu's e-book option to port over to Amazon, I publish e-books direct to KDP. Often you can find my stories with a number of different covers depending on size and type, as you can see here www.amazon.co.uk/Just-Couch-Kevin-Lomas-ebook/dp/B009Z55TIE/ref=tmm_kin_swatch_0?_encoding=UTF8&qid=&sr= although when I created that I misread KDPs ebook cover guide as to ratio!). It's all cut and paste. That's the beauty of doing digital art. Imagine doing covers old school with paint, then at the last second doing something that ruins it! Almost all of my covers are done as separate original jpg elements, then eventually pasted to one jpg image. In fact I also keep copies of my covers sans-text, as well as all the elements, which can be used again, with adjustments.
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Post by And Kevin 2024 on Aug 13, 2020 18:12:12 GMT
Oh. BTW. The example you showed used PSP's text tool, but then it was enlarged and effects added using other tools in PSP.
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terrym
Junior Reader
Posts: 15
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Post by terrym on Aug 14, 2020 16:02:17 GMT
Just to close the circle on this, I received a reply from Lulu, as follows:
Sounds like when they resaved the source file by hand, the print ready file came out right. Maybe just a one-time glitch.
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sirram
Senior Printer
No man but a blockhead ever wrote, except for money
Posts: 269
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Post by sirram on Aug 14, 2020 18:34:14 GMT
terrym - firstly, and just like the lovely Emily from Lulu, "I hope that you are well today". Cringe. At least she didn't also hope you are "keeping safe".
Anyway, to the point. I get the impression from Emily's reply that the issue is in your PDF-save software. If so, then not a one-time glitch but something that will happen time and time again.
Intriguing though, and it would be useful to fathom out the precise cause.
Have you tried other background colours to see if the same problem persists?
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terrym
Junior Reader
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Post by terrym on Aug 14, 2020 20:14:56 GMT
terrym - firstly, and just like the lovely Emily from Lulu, "I hope that you are well today". Cringe. At least she didn't also hope you are "keeping safe". Anyway, to the point. I get the impression from Emily's reply that the issue is in your PDF-save software. If so, then not a one-time glitch but something that will happen time and time again. Intriguing though, and it would be useful to fathom out the precise cause. Have you tried other background colours to see if the same problem persists? I have used essentially the same cover instructions before with these differences: (1) different background color, and (2) no math font. I will probably try a different color on my next printing, just to see. However, since the selected color is well within the CMYK and RGB color spaces, I am at a loss to figure out how changing colors would matter to an automated process like their "normalizer".
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Deleted
Deleted Member
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Post by Deleted on Aug 14, 2020 21:29:11 GMT
When you created the cover, specifically the yellow spot background element, did you use the drawing functions of whatever PDF software you used or did you create a yellow bitmap with another program and import that into the PDF software as the background?
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terrym
Junior Reader
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Post by terrym on Aug 15, 2020 0:45:00 GMT
When you created the cover, specifically the yellow spot background element, did you use the drawing functions of whatever PDF software you used or did you create a yellow bitmap with another program and import that into the PDF software as the background? I used the drawing function of my document creation tool (LaTex), not an imported bitmap. Every single PDF reader I have tried (7 total) recognizes the color and displays/prints the cover perfectly.
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Post by And Kevin 2024 on Aug 15, 2020 0:53:21 GMT
But is your PDF actually an image? And a single one at that, not Layers.
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terrym
Junior Reader
Posts: 15
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Post by terrym on Aug 15, 2020 2:36:25 GMT
But is your PDF actually an image? And a single one at that, not Layers. The PDF is flattened to a single layer. No images, just a file of standard Adobe PDF instructions: e,g, paint the whole document yellow, make a red rectangle here, write text there, etc.
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Deleted
Deleted Member
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Post by Deleted on Aug 15, 2020 13:39:22 GMT
But is your PDF actually an image? And a single one at that, not Layers. The PDF is flattened to a single layer. No images, just a file of standard Adobe PDF instructions: e,g, paint the whole document yellow, make a red rectangle here, write text there, etc.
Are you absolutely certain about that......because Adobe Acrobat is identifying elements in your source PDF that haven't been flattened including multiple Transparencies......
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terrym
Junior Reader
Posts: 15
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Post by terrym on Aug 15, 2020 17:10:45 GMT
The PDF is flattened to a single layer. No images, just a file of standard Adobe PDF instructions: e,g, paint the whole document yellow, make a red rectangle here, write text there, etc.
Are you absolutely certain about that......because Adobe Acrobat is identifying elements in your source PDF that haven't been flattened including multiple Transparencies......
I use PDF Studio Pro to check my files. That program says that my file has no layers (so nothing to flatten). Am I "absolutely certain"? No. But that program is what I have been relying on. I would be surprised if they cannot tell a single layer file from a multi-layer file. But who knows. Does your program say that there are multiple layers?
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Deleted
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Post by Deleted on Aug 15, 2020 22:50:06 GMT
Before going any further I should emphasise that my comments are not necessarly aimed at definitely explaining why the colours have changed in your PDF. I don't think any of us have an idea what goes on when Lulu 'Normalizes' a PDF, what gets converted or changed specifically in preparation for printing as opposed to simply viewing it, so that has to be an unknown variable in the process. The Source PDF is single layer though for some reason the Transparent elements on that layer have either not been Flattened or Flattened incorrectly, this can be seen by comparing the number of Tranparent elements against that of the Ready PDF. 11 There are issues with flattened transparency (30%) Flattening can cause thin white lines to appear. It can cause shifts in color or make text appear fat. Flattening can also cause white rectangles to appear in graphic elements such as artwork or images.Again whether this has anything to do with your colour problem is not something I can say but if you have any other way of identifying the component elements of a PDF file I would use that to check the breakdown of it. I am not an expert on PDFs but I had to understand more when I started converting my PDFs to JPGs and saw a similar problem which is why I asked if you had used a bitmap for the background colour. In my case it turned out to be a problem with the bitmap conversion software even though the PDF itself was created via commercial software (not Adobe) and could be viewed perfectly without any errors. My best guess is that Lulu's automatic Normalization process took exception to what should have been a standard PDF (albeit one not 100% Print Ready according to the specs) and between the two of generated the fallback solution of using the colour spec of one of the elements instead. Which is probably why when Lulu's Emily did a manual conversion with Adobe it worked as it should.
Other than that I'm as in the dark as you are
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Post by And Kevin 2024 on Aug 15, 2020 23:14:43 GMT
I am just looking at the prog I do my covers in, PSP 95, and it will not Save As a PDF. Oh dear. And Lulu now only accept PDFs for covers? OK, I have said this before, but I don't consider that LaTex is suitable for creating artwork in for use as a book cover. It does not even pretend to be for art. www.latex-project.org/about/
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terrym
Junior Reader
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Post by terrym on Aug 15, 2020 23:59:39 GMT
I am just looking at the prog I do my covers in, PSP 95, and it will not Save As a PDF. Oh dear. And Lulu now only accept PDFs for covers? OK, I have said this before, but I don't consider that LaTex is suitable for creating artwork in for use as a book cover. It does not even pretend to be for art. www.latex-project.org/about/Can you "print to PDF" using some PDF print driver? Agreed that LaTex is not what you would use to create artwork. If I need artwork I insert a JPG.
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Post by And Kevin 2024 on Aug 16, 2020 12:01:30 GMT
Lulu's Project Wizards were always fussy about the kind of PDF they would accept. ISO 19005-1 Compliant (PDF/A) The first 1 underlined. That's what I used when using Save As PDF in Word. Has that requirement changed? I have no idea what settings Print to PDF or even Print to File uses, but perhaps Lulu's Wizards may not like those either! For covers I always uploaded JPGs to the Cover Wizards.
Inserting a JPG is not really the same as simply being a JPG, if you get my meaning? Neither is saving a JPG as a PDF the same as inserting.
Anyway, my next book, being part of a series, will possibly be the last I do at Lulu. The next ones will be at KDP/CreateSpace. Lulu do not seem to have updated their existing software, but totally binned it in favour of something else.
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