These are where I downloaded the actions that are now in Photoshop. Everyone who will need to create spreads should download and install these. Rename them to suit you. 

Actions- 

Single Spread
http://www.psdcovers.com/mag005/ 

Double Page Spread
http://www.psdcovers.com/mag004/

 

Open Starter File

- Note: the one I gave you has all Spreads created from July/Aug- I would create a new one for each Issue so the files don’t get to bulky

From your Issue PDF, open the pages you need to turn into a Spread (full or half page) in Photoshop. Copy and paste them into a new layer in your Starter File. (put them into the month folder where the other Spread layers live)

Resize them so that they fill the page, without covering the “page lines” at the bottom of page. 

If it is a single spread, turn on the “xtra copy” layer at the top of the layer palette. This is so the curved page has some content. 

 

Before you implement the Action:

If your file has any other spread layers (in your month folder), delete them. Only one spread should be in file when you do your action. Otherwise, some weird results can happen. 

Don’t delete any of the layers that the file comes with. 

 

Action!

In your actions palette, click “STEP 2 ••• Add Color!” on the action you want to use (single or double)

Ignore Step 1, you don’t need.

Photoshop will do its thing, and a new Photoshop file will open with your new Spread created. 

From here you can either resize and save a version of this large image (in case you ever want to use it at a larger version than the is being used on the site, or just to have for fun.)

 

OR, to save time and steps

Just take a screen shot of your new image, and paste into a photoshop file that is the correct size for the main image on the site (see all_sized_for_web.psd). 690 × 423. Scale to proper size, save for web, done.

(Just make sure you are taking a large screen shot and scaling down)

I have given you a file called all_sized_for_web.psd

This is where I keep all the spreads at web-ready size, organized by month, and save out for web here. 

Turn on guides, and you can see how the spreads that are already in there line up with the guides.

This just makes it easy to, resize the images similar to all the others for consistency.

There might be a better workflow for you once you try a few, but all the elements are here to get you started!