Successful work-around for printing Aperture books.

I recently was faced with the same problem that many Aperture users have come across since Apple stopped supporting Photo Book printing directly from Aperture. After some attempts at contacting local photo book printers, it was clear after seeing an Apple book I made last year that they all rated Apple photo books at a a higher quality than they could provide, and also they required the use of their own software. PrestoPrint was an option I considered but postage to Australia was going to add over $100 to the cost of 10 books. I found that trying to reproduce the resulting book that I had been happy with in Aperture was not possible with any other templates in various software apps, including the Photos templates, although this was my preference given the apparent higher quality. Eventually I tried the work flow outlined below and the resulting books have arrived and they are perfect, just as if they came straight out of Aperture.

1. Find the "Save PDF to folder as JPGs" option from the Aperture print menu:

If the option isn't present on your system (apparently sometimes it isn't), follow the instructions on this page:

https://photoapps.expert/help/faqs/common-aperture-questions-issues-and-rep/work flows-save-pdf-to-aperture-save-pdf-to-folder-as-jpeg-ar.html

2. I duplicated the workflow, found in the folder: Macintosh HD/Library/PDF Services and changed the output from 200dpi to 300dpi by opening in Automator, then used this to create a folder of JPGs that were identical to the Aperture photo book pages. *Make sure that "US Letter - Borderless" is selected in Paper Size.

3. I created a new book project in Photos and used a template with a dust-cover similar to that in the Aperture book template I had chosen - in my case it was the Monograph template for the Classic (hardcover) 28 x22 cm which matched the Aperture Large hardcover Modern Lines book template. Any template that has full page image layouts should be OK.

4. I changed all the pages in the new book to full page image (from the page layout options tab, changed the background colour to match the Aperture book colour (black in this case) to avoid any bleed issues.

5. Imported all of the JPG page images from the folder exported from Aperture into the Photos book project and organised them as per the original book. Set the images to "Fit Photo to Frame" by right-clicking the image. The dustcover and flap images needed to be added individually in the new book project but I had picked a template that matched well.

6. Bought the book!

The resulting books were just as I had hoped they would be as if they came straight out of Aperture. This method will allow other choices of software in which full page image printing is possible.

I hope that helps.

Regards, muzz63