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Please read the following description of this product before ordering via the "Buy Now" button at the bottom of this page.

These Photoshop templates can be used to create calendars in the style of my 11" x 14" Avian Poster Calendar or my 5" x 7" Avian Desktop Calendar. Please take a moment to view and read a description of these calendars found at the following links :

11" X 14" AVIAN POSTER CALENDAR FOR 2010

5" X 7" AVIAN DESKTOP CALENDAR FOR 2010

Photoshop provides many attractive fonts which make great looking calendars but these fonts are proportional which means that the width of the characters vary. This variation in width of the letters and numbers makes the process of laying out the calendar text quite tedious and time consuming. These templates will eliminate the text layout portion of the calendar design process and allow you to concentrate on the more creative aspect of adding your images to the calendar pages.

The templates are designed so that you can create a calendar for any given year (past, present, or future) by doing a minimal amount of customization consisting of turning the visibility of various text layers on or off. You will also have a choice of five different Photoshop fonts for creating your calendars. Samples can be seen by clicking on the font names below :

Also included is a template for an Index Page in the format seen here :

11" X 14" INDEX PAGE

The templates will save you much time and aggravation but you will still have to invest the time to select images that are compatible with the calendar format and modify them as needed to fit the aspect ratio of the calendar pages. This will require a reasonable amount of Photoshop expertise to crop, resize, add canvas, extend backgrounds, and perform whatever other operations may be needed to accomplish the task.

If you intend to produce 11" x 14" calendars, there are a few technical and logistical issues that you should know about in advance. These calendars are often displayed in standard 11" x 14" acrylic box frames such as those found here :

ACRYLIC BOX FRAMES

The interior dimensions of all of the 11" x 14" acrylic box frames that I have found on the market are actually a bit smaller than 11" x 14". If this is your intended display mechanism, the pages should be made no larger than 10 7/8" x 13 7/8", which will require some trimming as this is not a standard paper size. This is how I produce my 11" x 14" calendars and the templates are created with that in mind. If you would rather not deal with trimming, there are some paper manufacturers who will do custom trimming for an additional fee. More information about paper and printing will appear in the template instructions.

Another way to avoid the need to trim is to choose a different type of frame that will accommodate a full 11" x 14" print. There are numerous possibilities in this regard including these :

FRONT LOADING FORMAT FRAMES

BENT ACRYLIC FRAMES

If you decide to go with an option that allows for a full 11" x 14" print, you can easily expand the templates an extra 1/8" in both dimensions by adding canvas in Photoshop.

The 11" x 14" calendar templates also assume that the pages are to be printed with a 0.25" margin all around the image. This is not an issue with most commonly used standard photo printers like the Epson R2400 or 3800. However, many large format printers (24" or wider), such as the Epson Stylus Pro 7880, require a minimum bottom margin of greater than 0.25". In the case of the 7880, the minimum bottom margin is 0.56". In other words, it is not possible to print anything on the bottom 0.56" of a page. Therefore, standard 11" x 14" paper cannot be used to produce these calendars on these types of printers. I use 11" x 17 " paper (trimmed to 10 7/8 " 13 7/8") to produce my 11" x 14" calendars on an Epson Stylus Pro 7880.

The text layout provided by the templates will be similar to that seen in the majority of my 2010 Avian Calendar pages, with the month, days, and dates appearing as a block taking up almost the full width and approximately half the height of each calendar page. Custom layouts such as that used for February 2010 in my 11" x 14" calendar are not supported. Changes to the layout in terms of moving the text to the bottom of a page or compacting the text horizontally or vertically as desired are facilitated by the fact that each day and date are placed on a separate Photoshop layer. This will also make it easy for you to make small tweaks to the layout if desired according to your taste as many compromises must be made to make the text layout visually appealing and some of the nuanced choices involved can be somewhat subjective.

The templates package contains a total of 80 template files in TIFF format. It is delivered as a compressed archive readable on both Mac and PC platforms. The archive will also contain a file with instructions for using the templates as well as a few tips regarding Photoshop, printing, frames, packaging, and calendar design. Once you place your order and complete the payment process, you will be given a download link so that you can immediately receive your templates and start working on your calendars.

The templates package is priced at $20.00.