If you like to kick it old-school and design your album spreads in Adobe Photoshop, InDesign or another piece of software, here are the settings you need to know about:

• Spread Dimensions: twice (2x) album width x album height in inches
  • (e.g. a 10x10 album has a 20x10 spread)
• Albums are printed and created at full size and then trimmed off this to make them square.
  • Trim is 1/8 inch (3mm) 
• Safety Zone is 1/2 inch (13mm) -
  • DO NOT place image edges, heads, text etc into this area, only image ares that are okay for trimming
• Resolution: 300 dpi
• Output in JPG, sRGB
• Albums always start and end with a full spread
• 5 spreads min, 37 spreads max

Scroll down for an example of measurements and calculations to make a photo wrap cover yourself in Photoshop (or another design software)

Photo Wraps

• Design your spreads as per above
• You design your cover inside lifethreads studio (this is the only way to ensure that your cover design will fit the album you choose accurately)
• Or you can send us a designed cover by email

Here's how to calculate a photo wrap cover dimensions with a 10x10 example at the bottom:

1. Add 0.25 inches to height and 0.5 inches to width - this gives you the height & width of EACH cove board.
    - e.g. 10x0 book has front & back cover boards that are 10.5 inches wide and 10.25 inches tall

2. For the spine - minimum height is 11 mm.  Then take your number of spreads and multiple as follows:
    1. for 5-24 spreads add 1.2 x # of spreads
    2. for 25+ spreads multiply 0.85 x # of spreads
    3. Add the answer to 11 mm to get a total spine height for your cover in mm
    4. then divide your answer for one of the above by 25.4 to find the spine height in inches
        - e.g. for 10x10 book that is 29 spreads:
            - 29 x 0.85 = 24.65mm + 11 mm = 35.65mm spine height
            - 35.65 / 25.4 = 1.25 inches
3. Then add a 1 inch folding area around the entire perimeter of the document.  This area will be folded over the back of the cover boards, it is best to extend non-important areas or use photoshops generative fill function to make this extension look natural.  We DO NOT recommend leaving folding areas a solid colour as this may lead to small coloured lines being visible on your cover which will look odd.
4. In addition to the folds, you want to allow for a safety area of at least 0.5 inches around every fold. This includes to the inside of where your print folds over the cover boards (top, bottom, left & right) and on both sides of where covers will fold around the spines (we call that area the hinge).  This will make sure you don’t lose important image content in a fold or crease.  More simply stated: always keep EVERYTHING IMPORTANT AT LEAST 0.5inches away from any edge or either side of where any fold will occur.

EXAMPLE:

Putting it together for a 10x10 29 spread cover, your file would be: 24.25 inches wide x 12.25 inches tall. I’ve broken this down below for you: