Friday, December 03, 2010

Annoyance

I really want to like Ka-Blam Digital Printing: kewl website, useful FAQs and about half the price of, say, Lulu.com. And they'll even take my hand-hewn .TIF image and turn it into a shiny paperback cover!one!

Update: Finally heard back and constructive criticism it is too. Yay! Like I said, I want to like them. My cover art's low-rez, which is what happens when you screencap a PDF to make it into a TIF via, ohgawd, MSPaint. Help? Need me a 300 or 1200 dpi TIF preversion.

...That is, they could if they would. But they won't lift a finger even to say, "Get lost!" This, I find frustrating. Their Message Center is the sole and only way to talk to 'em and even that would be okay -- except they don't reply. Nothin'. Not even dialtone.

Further Updates in blue:

So right now I'm stuck going to have some with a suboptimal stock-Lulu cover design and a price that I'm not happy with. But supposedly I have some real proofs in the Ka-Blam pipeline (with a somewhat blurred cover 'til I gin up better art) and should be seeing them before the heavyset B&E man makes his red-suited rounds. Didja hear the rumor he used to be a bishop?

Yeah, I'm not so sure about even that. I doubt any story they tell me about him after the first big one turned out to be untrue. And I would be happy to be proven wrong when I'm starting to doubt online printers that look too good to be true, too. I wonder if FedEx/Kinkos Office does the smaller sizes? (Yes. Costs run a bit above Lulu)
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13 comments:

  1. PhillipDecember 3, 2010 at 3:38 PM

    I might be able to help you with that cover art issue. Shoot me an e-mail if you'd like some help.

    ReplyDelete
  2. Rob KDecember 3, 2010 at 3:44 PM

    You may want to try gimp (http://www.gimp.org/). I think you'll find it more capable. It's not easy to master, but it'll probably get you something better than ms-paint.

    ReplyDelete
  3. RuthDecember 3, 2010 at 4:33 PM

    Do you still have the PDF? or preferably whatever you got the PDF from? If so then if you know someone with some computer/graphic arts skills they should be able help you (I'd say I can help you, I have a degree in it, but you don't know me so thats fine)

    ReplyDelete
  4. Roberta XDecember 3, 2010 at 4:45 PM

    I got the PDF from Word2010. I need to resave it with embedded fonts, which the MS product will do but they do not make at all obvious -- I only figured it out this morning.

    Thank you all for the offers of help; I intend to take everyone up on it, as there is much I need to learn.

    ReplyDelete
  5. Roberta XDecember 3, 2010 at 4:47 PM

    Phillip: Blogger takes your e-mail addres -- but it doesn't show it to me!

    ReplyDelete
  6. Wayne ConradDecember 3, 2010 at 5:10 PM

    I convert PDF to TIFF from time to time. If you can produce a pdf with embedded fonts, I can do the rest, and it ought not to be a big bother. I can give you the command I used to do it, too, so if you have access to a Linux box you'll be able to do the same. Send to wconrad@yagni.com, if that sounds useful.

    ReplyDelete
  7. Old GrouchDecember 3, 2010 at 5:13 PM

    The Gimp will save as .tif and will do screen caps.

    If that's what you have to do to get the image, I'd suggest adjusting the PDF reader to make it as big as possible, capturing the whole screen, then using Gimp to size/crop it after capture.

    I have it, and will be in office (Nora) Saturday after 10:30... 843-0411.

    ReplyDelete
  8. Roberta XDecember 3, 2010 at 5:36 PM

    I definitely need The Gimp; Paint is only somewhat useful.

    ReplyDelete
  9. Robb AllenDecember 3, 2010 at 8:25 PM

    Roberta, Tam has my email addy. Feel free to ping me for graphics help.

    ReplyDelete
  10. Wayne ConradDecember 4, 2010 at 12:08 AM

    imagemagick makes short work of this sort of thing. Roberta, email sent from my work account. If you didn't get it, I'll have to send a carrier pigeon with a thumb drive...

    ReplyDelete
  11. KenDecember 4, 2010 at 9:36 AM

    Inkscape may also be able to help, and may I suggest PrimoPDF for PDF creation? I use the free (less-than-full-featured) version, and have had good results so far.

    ReplyDelete
  12. RuthDecember 4, 2010 at 5:44 PM

    for online free photoediting tools also try http://www.aviary.com it requires registration but does not cost anything (at least for basics, I think there is a paid subscription option). I've used it a few times and found it usefull. Its designed for folks used to newer Photoshop versions so it might take a bit getting used to.

    ReplyDelete
  13. Roberta XDecember 4, 2010 at 8:00 PM

    Wayne massaged the files for me, so I may be in biz there.

    I came home from my early shift today and zonked out on the couch; moved from there to the bed and woke up a few mins. ago.

    Robb A: eggspect e-mail.

    ReplyDelete

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