What is a spread? You can find the explanation HERE.
Please note that one spread equals two pages. The minimum number of spreads in an ECO album is 3 (which equals 6 pages), and the maximum is 10 (which equals 20 pages).
For designing the album, we will use an ECO album in the 20x20 size.
The blank template, when opened in the Crystal Editor, looks like this:
(All the examples below are screenshots from the Crystal Editor.)
Each template has special guides that are extremely important and useful for further work.
What do the guides indicate?
- The center vertical guide marks the middle of the design—this is where the album will fold in half. :)
- The dashed guides indicated by the red arrows are the safe area for the design—all text, frames, and important elements of the design must be placed inside these lines, or the photo can be extended up to the dashed guide, which will give us equal margins around the album.
Note!
Print bleed (cutting line) - is intentionally not marked, because the margin of error when trimming the album with a guillotine is +/- 2mm, so it is not possible to define an exact cutting line. For this reason, it is extremely important that photos are either extended to the edge of the template or placed inside the dashed line.
Now we can start designing!
Add photos to the spread using the arrow located below each photo.
Example 1
The spread below will be printed with an equal white border around it—CORRECT
The photos are extended to the dashed guide.
(close-up of the top right corner of the above spread).
Example 2
The spread below will be printed without a border around it—CORRECT
The photos are extended to the edge of the template.
(close-up of the top right corner of the above spread)
Example 3
The spread below will be printed with an uneven border around it—INCORRECT
The photos were not extended either to the edge of the template or to the dashed guide.
(close-up of the top left and bottom left corners of the above spread)
Please note that at Crystal Albums, we do not verify the correctness of the uploaded files.
Important!
The project added to the cart is its final version and will be printed as such. Any changes made to the project after it has been added to the cart will not be saved.
SUMMARY OF THE ABOVE EXAMPLES:
- Photos should be extended either to the edge of the template or to the dashed guide.
- Any arrangement of photos within the area defined by the dashed guide is allowed.
- Even if the photos in Example 3 were stretched between the edge of the template and the dashed guide to the same height, there is still a high risk of uneven borders due to the margin of error when trimming the album with a guillotine, which is +/- 2mm.