Shutterfly's New All Custom Path Feature

[Suzscriv]

There's already been a lot of dialogue about the disappointment in Shutterfly's decision to do away with the Digital Scrapbook feature, but there's another issue that may come as a surprise to some of you.

If you create pages with a symmetrical border surrounding the page, you're likely to discover that the border is quite uneven once the book is printed. Even though you've taken into account spine gutter space and bleed space around the page edges and the preview screen looks fine before being printed, the borders are likely to be fine on the top and bottom of the page, but unevenly spaced (or nonexistent) on the sides when printed. That's because, as explained to me by the design specialist, when you select the full bleed page (which digital scrapper's would typically be choosing) the new All Custom Path Books automatically adjust the dimensions to accommodate left vs. right pages. According to the specialist, the templates that we've been given in the past don't apply for the new All Custom Path books. He says there's currently no template that can be used with the new product, because there would have to be one for left pages and one for right, and the people in marketing don't think the benefits outweigh the costs.

If your pages don't have borders, there shouldn't be a problem. But anything with a symmetrical border isn't all that pretty in their new product. The specialist doesn't have a workaround for this, but he's strongly in favor of having the former custom digital scrapbook feature reinstated. He encourages us to speak up and convey this to Shutterfly.

Am just letting you know because some of the Quick Pages we like to use from Digital Scrapper will now look funky when printed if they have borders. If anyone has a suggestion on how to handle this, other than to avoid using borders, I'd love to hear from you.

[landorasue]

So where and how do we speak up? Do they realize the thousands and thousands of digital scrappers out there? Must not!

[Suzscriv]

I called Customer Service to let them know of my preferences. I also plan to write comments in the online Customer Service section. Unfortunately, I don't think there are really thousands and thousands of us digi-scrappers yet. It may seem that way based on the volume of our posts, but we're still a relatively small number. In my large group of friends, acquintances, and colleagues (offline, that is) , I only know of one other digi-scrapper (and she merely "dabbles" in it. I keep trying to spread the word, but most are afraid of the learning curve.

So where and how do we speak up? Do they realize the thousands and thousands of digital scrappers out there? Must not!

[JobaScraps]

thanks for the heads up. I'll email customer service too to do my share to help .Looks like I'll be sticking to Paper Kiwi and also relearning how to use viovio's site.

[Susie Roberts]

There's already been a lot of dialogue about the disappointment in Shutterfly's decision to do away with the Digital Scrapbook feature, but there's another issue that may come as a surprise to some of you.

If you create pages with a symmetrical border surrounding the page, you're likely to discover that the border is quite uneven once the book is printed. Even though you've taken into account spine gutter space and bleed space around the page edges and the preview screen looks fine before being printed, the borders are likely to be fine on the top and bottom of the page, but unevenly spaced (or nonexistent) on the sides when printed. That's because, as explained to me by the design specialist, when you select the full bleed page (which digital scrapper's would typically be choosing) the new All Custom Path Books automatically adjust the dimensions to accommodate left vs. right pages. According to the specialist, the templates that we've been given in the past don't apply for the new All Custom Path books. He says there's currently no template that can be used with the new product, because there would have to be one for left pages and one for right, and the people in marketing don't think the benefits outweigh the costs.

If your pages don't have borders, there shouldn't be a problem. But anything with a symmetrical border isn't all that pretty in their new product. The specialist doesn't have a workaround for this, but he's strongly in favor of having the former custom digital scrapbook feature reinstated. He encourages us to speak up and convey this to Shutterfly.

Am just letting you know because some of the Quick Pages we like to use from Digital Scrapper will now look funky when printed if they have borders. If anyone has a suggestion on how to handle this, other than to avoid using borders, I'd love to hear from you.

Thanks so much for letting us know that, Suzanne! I haven't yet had a book printed using the new system at Shutterfly but I'm so glad I read your post before I uploaded anything with a symmetrical border.

As soon as they took away the Classic Custom Path we decided here at Digital Scrapper that we could no longer recommend them and now do not promote Shutterfly like we used to. There are a lot of other photo book companies out there so all you can go by is other people's recommendations when choosing a new company. I have written many emails to different departments at Shutterfly regarding how disappointed we are that they were going to remove the old system. Apart from writing to the company president I don't know what else would make a difference.

[Charlene]

I am so thankful to see I am not the only one doing battle with the company!
I have had two books printed under the new program and I am not satisfied with either one of them.
(3-4 copies of each and my family wants copies also)
I also have written and called..oned day the lady on the phone said it looks alright to me, I said well I am
the one making the book and it does not look alright to me.
Not only do the pages not ine up exactly they are not the correct color.
If you find a good publisher please let me know, I seem to like making books lately.

[landorasue]

Mixbook.com is supposed to be good. Charlene, go to this link in DS Blog. Read the article and there is a link that rates various photo book companies.

http://www.digitalscrapper.com/blog/...rapbook-album/