Abstract: Embodiments of the invention assist a human pre-press operator or designer to produce layouts of photos in a multi-page book. Some embodiments operate autonomously, given only high-level configuration parameters such as number of pages and number of images. Other embodiments operate interactively, preparing an automatic layout and then accepting manual adjustments to the selection of images and their arrangement on the pages. An embodiment may produce a computer-readable medium for use in a subsequent printing process, or may produce the finished printed book itself.

Abstract: Automatic photo-album layout methods create printed pages by assigning each image in an ordered series of images to a position on one of several rows (or positions in one of several columns). Images in each row (or each column) are scaled so that the widths of the rows (or the heights of the columns) are equal, while the heights of the rows (or the widths of the columns) are unequal. The rows or columns form a rectangle, which is centered in a rectangular drop zone, and a physical page is printed containing the array of images as arranged and scaled. Other transformations may be applied to the images, the rows or columns, or the array of images in the drop zone prior to printing.