I'm totally confused...

In photoshop I created a 5 x 7 inch document and made a design.
As I wanted to know how much would be cut off (bleed area) I downloaded a sample template from the Zazzle's Guide Files section http://www.zazzle.com/custom/guidefiles .

The template, however was much larger then my document. When looking at the file size in Photoshop, the 5 x 7 inch document is 6.543 x 9.097 inch. When resizing the sample template as a layer on my design, then it still does not match. I double checked if my file was 5 x 7 inch and it is.

What am I doing wrong?

It's easiest to open up the template file from zazzle in photoshop first and then create your design instead of doing it the other way around.

Thanks for the reply both!

I've always used PS to get the size and made sure I had some extra space around the design. So far this worked just fine, but in this case I wanted to make extra sure.

If I copy the Zazzle guide files template to a new document, the size is 1963 x 2790 pixels

When I create a 5 x 7 inch file in Photoshop, the size is 1750 x 2450 pixels

That's quite a difference and the original will be upsized for printing, meaning quality loss!.

I think she is talking about the 5 x 7 inch invitation guide file here.
Both the vertical and horizontal are incorrect. I haven't checked all of them but everyone I did check is wrong.

The 5x7 vertical invitation guide file is 1963 x 2729 at 300 PPI. That means it measures 6.5433 x 9.0966, certainly not 5x7 inches. It's not even proportional correct. If you size it down and constrain the proportions it comes out to 5 x 6.951. If you make it that size, upload it and try to fit it to the design area without cropping it will be short on top and bottom. If you make it fit then you lose some of your design on the sides.

If you upload a file that is exactly 5x7 at 300 PPI or 1500x2100 it fits correctly. I made a test design 5x7 with an 1/8 inch border so I could see if it centered correctly and it appears it does.

So the guide file IS incorrect. The correct size should be 1500 x 2100 at 300 PPI.

There's probably a lot of them that are wrong. It looks like on some of them they just added something like.133 inches to the width and height when they should have done it by percentage instead. You can't just add a fixed dimension to both height and width and have it come out proportionally correct, unless it's a perfect square.

For example, the guide file for the 8.75 x 6.50 invitation is 8.883 x 6.633, they added .133 inches to each size instead of increasing it proportionally. If you wanted to make it proportional so it fits the design area properly it should be 2625 x 1950 at 300 PPI. If you wanted it a little larger, let's say 150 pixels wider on the width, then it would be 2775 x 2061 at 300 PPI or 9.25 x 6.87 which is 150 wider and only 111 pixels on the height. Doing it proportionally means it will fit the design area correctly without cropping one of the sides.

Until there fixed using the guide files for invitations is not a good idea if you want your design to fit properly. Best bet is to make your own. Multiply whatever size the design is by 300 and that's how many pixels it should be. If you increase it for a bleed area then you have to do it with the Constrain proportions button checked, don't just add the same pixel amount to each side unless it's a square.

Hope that all makes sense, I probably made it sound way to complicated then it is.

I don't know, maybe you guys are right but i uploaded the vertical 5/7 guidefile into the design area and it fits exactly.
It seems so strange to me that zazzle would have wrong guide files up for so long?

Just to clarify, this is the invitations. The greeting card guide file that is 5x7 is proportional correct.