Using Photoshop Artboards to lay out your KDP Children's Book

In this tutorial, I'll show you how to use Photoshop Artboards to lay out your children's book for Amazon KDP. Artboards are really great to use because you'll be able to see all the pages at once, and you can see how your spread will look too!
For more detailed instructions on how to add the text and do other layout things, check out this playlist:
• How to Create Layout f...
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[@HeatherCashArt]

Hi! Just want to mention that if your pages are out of order when you export your PDF, you can rearrange them via the Layers Panel! Your artboards will export from the bottom up - so the folder all the way at the bottom of the layers panel will export first, and the folder at the top of the layers panel will export last. Hope that makes sense!

[@DavidAllenFarrell]

Extremely helpful. Thank you, and best of luck in your ventures.

[@RunningStallion-o6u]

Now that was some really useful information and time well spent. Thank you.

[@HeatherCashArt]

You're so very welcome 💕

[@olga_neffedorova1867]

THANK YOU VERY MUCH!!! It is very useful! I wish you creative success and great sales!

[@HeatherCashArt]

You're so welcome! Thank you for the kind words ☺️

[@nadineb348]

Thanks again heather. Another amazingly awesome video! I learnt so much

[@HeatherCashArt]

Aw thank you!!! ❤️

[@lydiamccord8562]

Thank you for sharing this with us!!!! I just learned that instead of having to add all guidelines individually, you can go to select all art boards in layer panel and go back to view, guide and new guide layout and put in your numbers and all art board will have the guides added at the same time. Thought I’d share this new discovery. 🙃🙂❤

[@HeatherCashArt]

Amazing thank you for sharing!!

[@zari146]

Thank you! Your video is pretty helpful specially for beginners.

[@HeatherCashArt]

You're welcome!! Thank you for your kind words ☺️

[@shewliroy2406]

Thank you Heather for this knowledgeable video. This video is very helpful for beginners , God bless you..🙂

[@heidimccarthy5127]

Great explanation! You make it so easy to understand!

[@HeatherCashArt]

Aw, thank you so much!

[@chansofancy]

Wow. I think this was one of the most helpful videos I’ve seen on KDP regarding bleed and page layout. Thank you! I’m looking forward to more videos on it and I would love to see how u got the text to curve in different directions and how u lay out the text.

[@HeatherCashArt]

thank you so much!!! here is my video that shows you how to do all of the page layout - curved text, drop shadows, etc! kzbin.info/www/bejne/pnybpayHjJx1hsk

[@chansofancy]

@@HeatherCashArt awesome! Thank u

[@lindabelcher7502]

Life saver! You are an excellent teacher. Thank you!

[@hihionlymeknowwhoIam]

Thanks for the very useful video, Heather! I’m just wondering: is it possible to create these art boards on the IPad version of Adobe Photoshop?

[@lolittasherwood2632]

Thank you! This video is very helpful!

[@HeatherCashArt]

You're so welcome!!

[@mckenzieartistrytt]

Thank you sooo much! After creating my art by images it was such an uncertain nightmare to use word to get pdf, can't thank you enough

[@HeatherCashArt]

Yay! You're welcome!!

[@eleniandreas1]

Great stuff, thank you Heather ..🙏🏻🙌do I have to do the last bit .. two page view, as I can see all my pages on the art board ?

[@HeatherCashArt]

No, you don't have to! It's just to check over everything. But you'll be able to check it when you upload it to KDP anyways 🙂

[@eleniandreas1]

@@HeatherCashArtahhh right! Thank you Heather 🙏🏻👍🙌❤️

[@eleniantoniou8287]

So helpful, thank you Heather 🙏🏼❤️How do I create the outside cover, front and back, do I start a separate art board ? 🤔

[@HeatherCashArt]

Hi! I would just do the cover as its own separate file.

[@HeatherCashArt]

Also, here is a video to show you how! kzbin.info/www/bejne/ipLSnKqfa8dgZqM

[@terrellujah]

Thank you so much!

[@HeatherCashArt]

You're so welcome 🙂

[@triciablair]

Thank you, Heather. Very clear and concise. Can you answer a question for me? I've designed my 32 page picture book so that pages 1 and 32 are actually the front and back covers. Will this be a problem in getting a heavier, glossy stock for the cover or do I need to rework the 32 pages and do a separate upload for the cover? I haven't seen that addressed on the KDP tutorials. Thank you again.

[@HeatherCashArt]

Hi! Thanks for watching! So glad you like my videos! You will need to do the cover as a separate file, because that is the way Amazon KDP wants it formatted. Let me know if you have any additional questions!

[@triciablair]

@@HeatherCashArt Hi Heather! Thank you so much for your prompt reply. Does that mean I need to add 2 pages to the book to make up for the cover being separate or will the entire count be 32 pages including the cover. Thank you so much. This is my first attempt at print on demand.

[@HeatherCashArt]

@@triciablair Hi! Yes you will need to add 2 more pages. The 32 pages is only for the inside pages, not the cover. But, they can be blank FYI. Hope that helps!

[@triciablair]

@@HeatherCashArt Thank you so much for cleaning that up for me.

[@HeatherCashArt]

@@triciablair of course!

[@inbedduringcovid3005]

Love this. Thank you. Hope you start a help desk or something. Because I use so many programs. I think the biggest issue I have is when im told to add an extra .125. I go to the already made cover and add it just nothing changed. Just the red mark came around and I tried to stretch it out but after saving and reupload multiple times I still saw white space at the bottom. Have no clue why. I put in the numbers the template gave but I see I may need to go to that section you showed because the template be hit and miss for me

[@HeatherCashArt]

Hi! You can email me your file and the specs and I will take a look! ☺️

[@AC-eb5wj]

Hi Heather, I'm so glad to have found your channel! I'm laying out my first picture book and your channel has been super helpful to me :). I've been having some issues saving my artboard files to anything other than a large document file in PS. My document is 54 pages/artboards at 300 DPI and a 6X9" pg. size. When I try to save the artboards, the only option I have in PS is PSB file format, since the file size is just over 1GB. Have you ever experienced an issue like this when using artboards? If you have, any tips you could share would be very appreciated! Thanks! Ash

[@HeatherCashArt]

Hi Ash, Yes I have experienced that - it is ok to have it saved as a psb file though. You will still export as a PDF (not save as - actually export art boards to PDF) But also, one thing I've found is that it will be a psb file if the dimensions of the document (ALL of the art boards laid out) is 30,000px wide or tall (if I'm remembering the amounts correctly). So if I rearrange them so that I have less rows and more columns, and check the canvas dimensions via image size, then I can get it so that it is less than 30,000px wide or tall and then I can save it as a psd. Hope that makes sense!

[@AC-eb5wj]

Thanks for your help Heather :). I'll give that a try! @@HeatherCashArt

[@AC-eb5wj]

Hi again Heather, I'm so sorry for all of these questions, but I'm having another technical difficulty. When I print the pdf proof (from Acrobat), the illustrated pencil drawings are printing too faint, yet the title block is fine. The document prints perfectly well from PS or as a saved file on my computer. I'm wondering if you've ever experienced this issue as well and if you know of any solutions for it. Thanks!@@HeatherCashArt

[@HeatherCashArt]

@@AC-eb5wj Hmm, no I haven't experienced that. But if you upload to KDP and everything looks good in the preview, then it is probably fine.

[@StraightUpFood]

Hi Heather, I read in the KDP info that fonts and images should be imbedded in PS; but it doesn't look like you are doing that. I am learning as I go here, so just checking. I'm doing a full-color photo book. Thanks!

[@HeatherCashArt]

Hi! It might say that you need fonts embedded so that they will show up properly, but really the best method is to have everything flattened. That will ensure 100% that it shows up in KDP the way it looks in Photoshop. Does that make sense?

[@StraightUpFood]

Yes, thank you! :)@@HeatherCashArt

[@lesmorris6388]

Hi Heather, great video.. This is my first time trying to publish a book ...I followed and have uploaded to amazon, yet my pages are in the wrong order when I preview them in the print previewer.. Tried a few things but not working ... Any help would be much a appreciated...

[@HeatherCashArt]

Hi! Check out the pinned comment for this video, I explain the fix! Basically you need to reorder your layer folders that are in the layers panel. Bottom one will be first, and top one will be last, etc

[@lindaguerraxoxo]

I'm wondering if you can create an action that creates the artboard pages with the bleed guides so that you could just click it and create your whole book layout more quickly.

[@HeatherCashArt]

I do use an action to create all my guides on all my artboards. But not to create the artboards themselves. I guess I figure it's easy enough to press the little plus sign 😝

[@lindabelcher7502]

Thanks!

[@HeatherCashArt]

OMG thank you so much for the super thanks! I just saw it!! Yay!!! 😊😊😊😊

[@eleniantoniou8287]

Hi Heather, hope this is not a silly question.. is the first page (Artboard 1) the inside front cover? can add an image, as you say it needs to be blank?

[@HeatherCashArt]

Hi! Not silly at all 🙂 the first page is not the inside of the front cover. It is to the right of the spine. So when you open up the book, the inside of the front cover is on the left, and the first page is on the right. Does that make sense? You can add an image to that first page. But you can't add anything to the inside of the front cover. Hope that makes sense!

[@eleniantoniou8287]

Thank you Heather for your speedy reply! 🙏🏼❤️🦋

[@HeatherCashArt]

@@eleniantoniou8287 you're so welcome!!

[@christel4000]

Hi love thanks for this tutorial. It has been really helpful. However I find it very difficult to resize the image inside the artboards even if I followed the instructions. The illustration remains smaller

[@HeatherCashArt]

Hi! Thank you so much for watching! Do you have snap to edges on?

[@christel4000]

@@HeatherCashArt hi love. Thanks for replying. I do.

[@HeatherCashArt]

@@christel4000 hmm, it is hard to know what is causing the problem without seeing it in action. If you could send me a screen recording it would help. I use loom for sending screen recordings to others. You can email me at [e-mail]

[@HeatherCashArt]

Or actually, another option would be to click that lock to constrain proportions, and then type the final dimensions you want in the box, instead.

[@christel4000]

@@HeatherCashArt that would be great Heather. Thanks. And if I have to import pdf to text. The text remains small. So what should I do?

[@thedaisydale]

Can I just do a two page spread instead of having them separate? My illustrator is doing them two page wide.

[@HeatherCashArt]

When you upload your PDF to KDP, they will have to be two separate pages in the PDF. So they can be created as one long spread but will need to be broken up into two pages before uploading.

[@inbedduringcovid3005]

Can you explain guides please

[@HeatherCashArt]

Yes! Guides are lines that you can make that just help you line stuff up. They don't get included when you save as jpg or any other flattened image file. They are just to help you with your layout.

[@WBPayne]

PS doesnt want to remember my guide settings. Pain

[@HeatherCashArt]

I've since learned that you can actually create all your artboards, THEN do new guide layout, and select for it to be created on "all artboards". Then you only have to do it the one time!

[@WBPayne]

@@HeatherCashArt I was wrong. It keeps changing my setting from inches to px. So .125 in keeps showing up as 37.5 px. Had to do some online searching. Same measurements.