Let's wrap up this Problem reporter series and stop ignoring the elephant in the room… Who needs a problem reporter anyway? After all, as we confirmed at the webinar it drives some people nuts. Well I'm glad you asked! I should start by saying it's not an unusual concept. Try googling "pre-flight", for example, and check out the Wikipedia and Adobe listings in particular. What the pre-flight process does in the printing industry is ensure that digital files sent for printing are all present, valid, correctly formatted, and of the desired type. Why? Because, if they're not, the job can't be done. That's what the PJ Problem Reporter is about. So why don't other album design programs have anything like this? Because the developers don't make albums! These are not their problems, just stuff for you and the album maker to sort out. Before the webinar I asked the Dev Team to give me a complete list of things the problem reporter checks for (see below – it's a vendor-specific list, so your mileage may vary: this is a Queensberry checklist). Once you take out the things that would literally stop the album being made you're left with a few warnings that you may incur extra charges (nice to know) or that your album may not look the best for various reasons. It makes more sense to learn how to avoid these problems than to ignore them. There's a lot to know about making a real-life album, especially a customised matted album. But you don't need to "know" at all, because the Problem Reporter keeps you on track while you learn. The webinar is about showing you how to work with it. We reckon it's an hour well spent. Cheers, Ian

The Problem reporter checklist

There’s information missing or a step incomplete Album set-up incomplete. Cover design incomplete (missing images). Layouts have not been exported. Title aperture missing. Title text incomplete. Studio preferences incomplete (Email and Studio Name). Supplier preferences incomplete (Account Number, FTP Username, Password). Something’s gone wrong with the images The high-res file for this image is missing The low-res file for this image is missing. The HR and LR files no longer match. The high res file seems to be smaller than the low res. The album can’t be made unless changes are made Too many layouts. Too many panoramas. Too many flips and wings. Apertures too small. Apertures too close. Aperture too close to the page edge. Can’t have apertures on the spine of wings and flips. Aperture is empty (needs an image). The high res exports are out of date. Wrong lab settings used for this supplier. Exports need to be PSDs for this service. Panoramas must have apertures across the spine. Apertures across the spine must extend at least 25mm each side. Can't do Cut Ins on (eg) 'Fill Full Page' apertures. Not enough images to design an album. Not enough layouts to design an album with this many images. The finished album may not look the best Aperture size and crop may cause pixelation. Apertures are not quite aligned. Apertures have similar dimensions but are not exactly the same. Spacing between apertures is not quite the same. Image is used more than once in the album - OK? You may incur extra charges Your layouts don't comply with your lab's specifications. You’ve asked the lab to edit images for Print-Ready service.