For those who Lighten their Shutterfly pages? - Digital Scrapbooking Community

Julie DeGuia · #1 (**permalink**) 12-20-2009, 06:35 PM

If you have had albums printed at Shutterfly, do you lighten your pages first? I have read that Tara and Janet do this, but what have been others' experiences? For those who lighten, how do you do this? I find that when I lighted an image, I loose some of the contrast?

Thanks for the advice. There seems to be so many little steps in this Shuttefly album process I am almost afraid to even start. But, I have a free 8x8 expiring December 31st so I have to figure it out now!

iUma · #2 (**permalink**) 12-20-2009, 10:56 PM

I'll be interested in the answer to your question, Julie, cause I just got my book back from Shutterfly and the pages were a bit dark. But I think my monitor screen might be set on it's brightest setting. Once when printing at home was the issue I remember Cassie telling someone in a thread to just reduce the brightness of the screen and set the images with that level of brightness. I hope we have someone who knows about the Shutterfly situation.

MIDA78466 · #3 (**permalink**) 12-21-2009, 12:17 AM

I've had several books made and did not lighten any of the pages. They didn't appear too dark--I've been very satisfied.

Jana Morton · #4 (**permalink**) 12-21-2009, 12:38 AM

I don't lighten my pages and I've been very satisfied with the page quality...I've had a few issues with the binding though. They are wonderful books!

wendymck · #5 (**permalink**) 12-21-2009, 12:43 AM

l lightened the last 2 books i did by 20% on a screen layer. we'll see how they turn out, they have not arrived yet.

aeball1819 · #6 (**permalink**) 12-21-2009, 07:58 AM

I've had five books done by Shutterfly and have been very happy with all of them. I don't lighten my photos, however, I read somewhere that you should always do two things with your photos in your Shutterfly albums before bringing the photos into your books. 1) Go to Edit & chose Apply Effect. In the box on the right, check the box that says "Don't apply automatic corrections to picture," and click on the "Apply this effect to selected pictures"; and 2) Go to Crop & click on the "Easy Crop Tool" to select your whole page. This you'll have to do for each of your selected pictures. Hope this helps. Good luck.

dugarner · #7 (**permalink**) 12-21-2009, 09:35 AM

I haven't lightened my pages, but I do tend to increase the saturation about 10% when I think about it. My last book was a teeny bit on the dark side, but I think that is a monitor issue. I don't calibrate my monitor like I should.

There aren't that many steps, the big one is just remembering to turn off Vivid Pics. My biggest frustration is proofreading before I upload the pages. I hate proofreading my own stuff!

ValerieP · #8 (**permalink**) 12-21-2009, 10:00 AM

I haven't lightened any of my pages and I even forgot to turn off the Vivid pics once and all was still good! I lucked out-I just hadn't adjusted any of the photos in that book- I have been really pleased with my books

Mark · #9 (**permalink**) 12-21-2009, 01:52 PM

My pages tend to be a little dark too. I have always been afraid to lighten them too much because I really don't know how it will turn out. I like the idea of adjusting the monitor brightness down a bit. I will try that next time around.

carollee · #10 (**permalink**) 12-22-2009, 05:54 AM

I don't mind how my pages have turned out, it's the photos that have been a wee bit dark, but it's probably only me being picky and no one else would notice anyway. So I tend to just lighten the photos a wee bit when placing them in my page. I'm happy with how the elements/paper print out.

esther_a · #11 (**permalink**) 12-22-2009, 06:35 AM

I often lighten my photos to get a nice skin tone on the subjects. I don't lighten my papers or my page as a whole.

dfwest · #12 (**permalink**) 12-24-2009, 06:16 AM

I too just had a book and several individual pages printed at Shutterfly and found some of the pages to be a bit dark. Specifically the pages with darker background papers were the problem; it seemed to darken the entire page. The lighter toned papers/pages were no problem.

marnie · #13 (**permalink**) 12-24-2009, 11:14 AM

I've ordered 8 different books from Shutterfly over the past year and been extremely pleased. I don't lighten pages but I turn off Vivid pix for consistency.