Support for Indie Authors discussion

I'm looking at my second proof copy of my paperback from CreateSpace. The interior looks great, but the front cover is dull and washed out. The image I sent them is hi-res to optimum print quality and has great color. The printed cover, on both the first and the second proof copy, is dull and washed out. I chose a glossy cover.

Has anyone had this experience with their paperback cover? Any suggestions? I haven't contact CreateSpace yet, but that is my next step.

Thanks for any feedback...

April

Mine have always looked okay. Mine have been 600 dpi jpegs.

Mine looks pixelized, but I didn't use as high of a quality as I should have.

I've pubbed two novels through them, both glossy covers, not had a problem like that. In both cases, artwork was sharp and clear and colors very close to what I see on screen in the PDFs I sent in. Sounds like a problem. I would contact them.

It took two tries to get a cover I was happy with. The first proof was way too dark, so I really lightened up the jpeg past what I thought looked good on the screen. The second proof was just right. At least each error in the trial and error process didn't cost very much. It is irritating to wait for so long in between the trials though.

Just got a proof yesterday for my third book. It went live today. I think it's beautiful, callem. They are really easy to talk to. That's why I pay the extra money for them.Here it is if you want to look at it.

http://www.amazon.com/Amy-Lynn-Lady-C...

April, what was the color space of your original cover image and the PDF output--RGB or CMYK? Also, did you embed a color profile? Both those things can have a huge effect on the final output.

One more thing: was your monitor calibrated? This is the most common cause of color problems.

April wrote: "I'm looking at my second proof copy of my paperback from CreateSpace. The interior looks great, but the front cover looks washed out to me. The image I sent them in hi-res and has look color. The p..."

I noticed in the early going that my matte covers looked washed out. I switched to glossy and they looked great.

I've had a couple printings of one book and the pink tones were deeper on some which I didn't like. I think they were printed from different locations based on tracking the shipments.

Morris wrote: "Mine have always looked okay. Mine have been 600 dpi jpegs."

I sent 300 dpi, which is what I thought was adequate for print. It sounds like maybe I should try a higher res image.

Jack wrote: "Just got a proof yesterday for my third book. It went live today. I think it's beautiful, callem. They are really easy to talk to. That's why I pay the extra money for them.Here it is if you want t..."

Yeah, your color is very good. Rich and vibrant. Mine's not. it's dull. But the PDF I sent them is rich and vibrant. I'll have to talk to them and get some help.

My createspace covers have all turned out beautifully, but I always go with matte. That aside, the advice that Ken gave about double checking color profiles is spot on. I ran into this problem printing promotional posters a few weeks ago. RGB vs CMYK can make a huge difference. Listen to Ken! :-)

April,

I haven't had problems with mine, but mine are glossy. Just a random idea -- make sure your pdf is 19" x 13". If it is smaller, they might be 'stretching' it out and not telling you.

Open the PDF, go to FILE, then PROPERTIES. Near the bottom, you'll see Page Size.

Virginia wrote: "My createspace covers have all turned out beautifully, but I always go with matte. That aside, the advice that Ken gave about double checking color profiles is spot on. I ran into this problem prin..."

So which color scheme is recommended? RGB or CMYK?

Bob wrote: "April,

I haven't had problems with mine, but mine are glossy. Just a random idea -- make sure your pdf is 19" x 13". If it is smaller, they might be 'stretching' it out and not telling you. Open ..."

My PDF's "page size" is 12.31 x 8.75. But according to CreateSpace's cover template, that is the correct size for my cover. The cover looks fine, in terms of proportion, and it fits the book perfectly. It's only the color that's washed out and not hi-res looking.

Can you guys make some recommendations as to the image settings in Photoshop? Right now, mine is as follows:

color = RGB
8-bit channel
resolution = 300 dpi
width = 3692 pixels
height = 2625 pixels
my PSD image was flattened before I generated the PDF file
My PDF's "page size" = 12.31 inches x 8.75 inches

I don't know enough about graphic design/printing to know what the best settings are.

We do have graphic designers where I work, so I can also ask them on Tuesday.

April wrote: "I'm looking at my second proof copy of my paperback from CreateSpace. The interior looks great, but the front cover is dull and washed out. The image I sent them is hi-res to optimum print quality ..."

I've released three books through Createspace, all glossy, and I'm quite pleased with the covers. However, my first proof copy of "Goliath" arrived with a much darker cover than how it appeared on my computer screen. I simply lightened the JPEG and re-submitted it. The second proof copy looked great.

April wrote: "So which color scheme is recommended? RGB or CMYK?"

It depends on what they're printing with. Generally speaking your computer screen is RGB and so the program you use to create your cover (gimp, photoshop) will use RGB for its workspace. However a number of printers are CMYK. The problem I ran into with my poster wast that the doc I had created was RGB but the printer was CMYK and CMYK tends to be much darker. So the poster they sent me at first was too dark to make out any of the details.

I'm not sure if this is true of createspace (or even if it is, if they don't adjust for it themselves) because with the two books I've printed with them I've never had any trouble. However, if, contrary to what seems to happen more often, you have a CMYK image and they print in RGB that might explain why it's lighter and looks faded. At any rate double checking what they request in the cover requirements and comparing it to your color profile in gimp/photoshop etc. seems like an efficient way to fix the problem without having to do too many additional proof runs.

And that is 110% of what I know about that topic. ;-)

Regarding RGB vs. CMYK: It's not a straightforward answer, unfortunately.

If you're set up from scratch to work in CMYK (most average users are not, most good graphic designers are), that's the best option.

However, you can get acceptable results working with RGB files as long as you keep in mind that the final output will convert the color space to CMYK and (usually) result in a shift to darker tones.

Ultimately, digital printing is not the best choice for accurate color reproduction, so no mater how carefully you prepare your files, you won't get perfect color. It's a compromise we have to live with.

My cover is going lighter, though. Several people mentioned their covers were too dark. Mine is too light - washed out.

I'll contact CreateSpace and see what they say.

I found the following comment in the discussions forum on createspace (it's from 2012 but the commenter seems to be someone who has run a number of color print tests through createspace):

"Neutral colors, pastels, and fleshtones are the bane of full color printers.

While I may be the only person who thinks this, I have spent two years testing CS printing, and they do a better job from sRGB than CMYK: unless the CMYK has been correct to match the sRGB, in which case they do both equally as well. Simply converting to CMYK (whether by changing modes or using PDF/X) applies a cookie cutter conversion that may be great and might not be.

For my own work, I often go from RGB to CMYK, which offers many great way to color correct that aren't possibe in RGB. What little I might lose is more than offset by the control I gain.

But if you've got out-of-gamut colors, CS handles them from sRGB files as well as color corrected CMYK files. (No printer can perform miracles with CMYK: if you've got large solid colors that are out-of-gamut, they will likely be flat. But if you've got a ful color scene in sRGB, CS will do a great job from those files

That said, and I commented on this on another post, I have had seen real problems with color printing this year (2012). But some of them, like the effect of oil droplets (some of the problems Talentnextdoor had) in the ink suggest that many of the color problems in general are much more about poor maintenance and training with some pressmen, than what CS is actually capable of doing.

Trying to adjust our work to match an ever changing training/maintenance problem is just chasing our tails . . . too many variables.

walton"

"Neutral colors, pastels, and fleshtones are the bane of full color printers."

My cover is a photo of a pale, blond woman - it's ALL pastels and fleshtones. Maybe that's the problem.

Both my novels through Createspace have been great.

April wrote: ""Neutral colors, pastels, and fleshtones are the bane of full color printers."

My cover is a photo of a pale, blond woman - it's ALL pastels and fleshtones. Maybe that's the problem."

I still suspect that the problem lies with your monitor: what you're seeing on screen is not what the color in your file represents.

Getting a perfect match requires both a color-accurate monitor and calibration with a professional tool. However, you can still get pretty good calibration by eye. There are free tools for Mac and Windows that you can download (try Googling "monitor calibration software").

Thanks, Ken. I've never done anything with calibrating the color on my monitor. That sounds like something I definitely need to do. Thank you for the advice. I'll look for some calibration software.

Many thanks for the post and all the comments. I'm researching monitor calibration software.

I'm following along with interest and will try out some of these suggestions as my book arrived today and I had the exact same cover problems as April. (eg. colours not what I saw on screen, pink tinge to white writing, green tinge to black and white image, double edges to much of the text - something to do with the printing process??)

I had thought it might be because it's matte and was planning to switch to glossy (I know, makes no sense, it was just my first thought!) but obviously that's not the source of the problem. Thanks everyone!

I use tiff colors cmyk and highest dpi my janky puter can handle (1200). every now and then the offset might be off (navy appears indigo or purple, dark grey appears green or brown ) but usually it's a print run error

I've primted 12 covers on createspace. What worked best for me was using their cover creator and my own picture. The glossy stands up better to fingerprints.You can check out the covers at Nathaniel Robert Winters on Amazon.

Hi, Nathaniel. You used their cover creator, but your own picture? Did you use one complete image that included the back cover, spine, and front cover? I'm getting ready to submit a new interior file and a new cover. Maybe I'll try their cover creator, if I can figure how to do that with my own full cover image.

I am using glossy. Thanks for the info!

Hi guys,

Just embarking on my first createspaces publication and wondering whether anyone has any tips or do's/don'ts with them?

Thanks

April, our covers have always looked great, and we've done both glossy and matte. We upload a hi-res jpeg into their cover creator. (We use 300 dpi -- going higher did not result in any visible increase on quality.)

If you submitted a PDF, that might be the issue -- the PDF creator munches the image and while it may look great on your screen, that does not mean it will print well. I would try a 2000x3000 pixel RGB (not CYMK) jpeg at 300 dpi in their cover creator and see what they do with it.

Fun Fact: Gray tends to be the hardest colour on a wide format printer (posters, banners, billboards).

Fleshtones are often lacking in magenta in cmyk and have too much yellow / green. Try changing those bars slightly in your graphics program.

Maybe take a few different versions of your cover to a local print shop (or your home printer). Try one just as it was and compare it to the cover. Hopefully it is close to Createspace's colours so you can modify it from there. Cheaper and faster at least if it works.

Also try opening it on a different computer to see what it looks like.

Can you take a picture of it / post what it should look like? That would help!

:)

April wrote: "Can you guys make some recommendations as to the image settings in Photoshop? Right now, mine is as follows:

color = RGB
8-bit channel
resolution = 300 dpi
width = 3692 pixels
height = 2625 pixels..."

I'm no expert, but I'd up the dpi - 300 might produce a pixilated picture. Also, if this is a book cover, your height should be about 1.5 times greater than the width. Depending on where you are going to put it - Amazon, Smashwords, Barnes and Noble, etc. - check their requirements for cover dimensions.

300 dpi is perfectly fine for digital printing (or offset, for that matter). This assumes, of course, that you're placing the image at 100% scale or less.

However, those settings don't mean anything if your monitor color is off, which is why I keep harping about calibration :)

An alternative is to do what C.B. says, and try printing different samples. For me, that's a lot more work, so I just make sure my monitor is calibrated, and I know what to expect every time.

I had proof copies where the color faded towards the side. I contacted them , and sent them photos, and they sent me new ones.Tthey just seem to have color running out at times, (or are overworked)but are quick to resend stuff. At least for my experience.

My new books arrived yesterday. I lightened the cover picture by 30% but did not alter the colour at all. It looked odd on my screen but worked out perfectly in print! There is no longer a green tinge to the black-and-white image, so I've no idea how that sorted itself out! I went with gloss after hearing that others were happy, and it looks great. Thanks everyone for all the helpful info re: colour calibration, which I will refer back to again in the future I'm sure.