Shutterfly photobook issues...

[TheSteph]

Hi there,

I am in the process of putting a digital album onto Shutterfly to order a photo book. when I go to do the cover page, however there is some kind of error that is making it zoom in on my cover page even though I have placed it correctly in the preview.

Anyone else ever expderience this type of thing when ordering Shutterfly photobooks? this is my first time ordering one, and I don't want to order it until I can get the cover page to look like I want it to.

TheSteph

[digigrandma]

Hi Steph! Sorry, you're experiencing some problems at Shutterfly.

Could you explain a little more what happens? Do you mean you get an error warning that pops up on that page? Or, is it just doing something kind of wonky?

I think sometimes they have so many people on at the same time that occasionally the site doesn't work real smoothly. I would first try closing your browser and then going back again to see if it is still acting strange.

Next I would try contacting their customer service. I have a friend who has talked to them several times via email when she experienced problems and they have been responsive and helpful.

Another possibility I just thought of:
I have better luck with Shutterfly working smoothly when I use Firefox for my browser.

PS I have ordered about 10 books from them and been pleased every time, so, don't give up! Good luck!

[Joey_M]

This happens to me too. Perhaps this would help: Double click the cover (while working under the cover "tab"), which should pop up another screen where you can edit, effects, etc. under the edit tab you can drag the outline line to encompass the whole LO. It's like shutterfly is reading the LO wrong. Don't forget to shut off vivid color pro too! HTH!

[carollee]

It happens to me too sometimes, not all the time and on not all the pages, exactly how Joey said to fix it.

But you mentioned it was the cover. You didn't make your cover square did you, like the rest of the pages? There's specific dimensions for cover front and back and they're not square.

[dugarner]

Yep, Joey's right. This happens to me all the time, and the first time it happened, I spent 1 1/2 hours on the phone with customer service. She thought I was crazy. I couldn't get her to see what was going on. Then she transferred me to the help desk, and he knew right away and told me to fix the crop box. So now I know to look out for it. And sometimes I'll fix it, and save the book, and then do a preview and a page is messed up again. Make sure you preview the whole thing right before you order it.

[BrittanyLane]

That's happened to me before, until I downloaded the templates for the cover. I highly recommend going here: Shutterfly Templates and download for whichever book you want. Open it in photoshop and arrange your cover onto their template. It has blue lines showing you what you'll see.... it's kind of a weird shape, not square. Hope that helps!

[carollee]

It still happens to me even with the templates.

It seems to happen, say when I've uploaded my pages, all fine and dandy. But when I actually click into one of the pages to check it more closely, it's usually that page that distorts and then I fix as per Joey's message above. It only happens to the pages I click into.

I think that's what I've kind of worked out from my end anyway.

[muddygirl]

I just put together my son's first book, 101 pages. I found that if I turned off vivid pics on the layout in the album that I uploaded to ( before adding the pages to the book) then the pages were cropped ( zoomed in ) and I had to go into edit them again after putting them into the book ( when you click on the page and it brings up the edit options) and extend out the crop area to show the whole page. If, however, I inserted my layouts into the book, then clicked on them to edit , and then turned off vivid pics that way, i didn't have the problem.
I don't know if this relates to your problem, but that was my experience.

[Joey_M]

Originally Posted by muddygirl

I just put together my son's first book, 101 pages. I found that if I turned off vivid pics on the layout in the album that I uploaded to ( before adding the pages to the book) then the pages were cropped ( zoomed in ) and I had to go into edit them again after putting them into the book ( when you click on the page and it brings up the edit options) and extend out the crop area to show the whole page. If, however, I inserted my layouts into the book, then clicked on them to edit , and then turned off vivid pics that way, i didn't have the problem.
I don't know if this relates to your problem, but that was my experience.

That's what happens to me too! You can call Shutterfly and ask for vivid color pro to be shut off of your account. That would save a ton of time on a 101 page album!

[muddygirl]

Joey, I asked them via email to do that, but they told me it wasn't possible . Hmmmm. I guess it depends on who you talk to!

[audrey77]

Just be persistent if they say "no" to turning off vivid pics.... they WILL turn it off if you ask the right person (in my case, I had to ask for a supervisor) ;-)

[anke]

I just received my latest book in the mail and the cover is cut off the same way. I did use Katie's template and it still happened. I hate to send the whole book back for a little missing word, but it is annoying...I guess I should have looked closer. I was so focused on the pages, editing (like you all said) and making sure nothing was cropped out that I forgot about the cover. Bummer

[TheSteph]

Thanks ladies for all your replies.

I removed the vivid pics, but it's still howing it too close-up when it previews the cover page. when I have the box open and I am setting the corp it looks fine, but when I close the box, and go back to the preview, it's back to the way it was again!

I'm going to try contacting the customer service/help and see it they can help me. I'm not going to order this book until the cover looks the way I want it to in the preview!

Steph

[McQueen]

Hi TheSteph, I was wondering if you ever found a fix for this problem. I'm a Shutterfly photobook veteran and just encountered this glitch for the first time. I've tried working with their customer support, but they didn't fix the problem. Have you had any luck?

Thanks!

[artmidget]

Originally Posted by TheSteph

Thanks ladies for all your replies.
when I have the box open and I am setting the corp it looks fine, but when I close the box, and go back to the preview, it's back to the way it was again!

The exact same thing has happened to me. I spent a ton of time trying to fix it with no luck.. decided it wasn't worth the frustration, so I am going to try a different company.