March 14, 2009

by Gavin Seim Updated 11/09:

Images stuffed into mat pages, then an album covers is becoming less and less attractive to clients. If you’re designing wedding, event, or portrait albums you’ve probably played with making layouts in Photoshop or another program to then have printed as flush mount albums like Kiss or Asa Books, You might have also used press books like the ones from WHCC. Once you have a good design there’s loads of choices, but it’s the design that’s the challenge.

As many people know the service and support of Adobe has gone in the toilet in recent times and while they need some competition to slap them back on track, their software is still great. Today I want to talk about In Design CS4 and how it relates to album deisgn. I’ve tried various tools for album design, some of which worked really well. When it comes to crunch time however, I’m finding In Design is the king.

I learned the basics about using ID for albums from a video that Kevin Swan made. And now gives free on the Kiss books site. Not required but it was sure a great crash course and I use it often to hone up my knowledge. The bottom line is that it’s fast, easy and powerful. Once you get the hang of it.

In Design was not actually designed for photographers to make albums. Rather it’s the industry standard for designers doing layouts on magazines and other published material. It turns out however that it works a treat for doing albums. Bear in mind it’s not a photo editor. What ID rocks at, is laying out pages and doing it fast.

I cringe when I think of doing individual pages in Photoshop. It’s not a page design tool and it’s tedious to do layouts with. What I love about ID is that the entire project is contained in a single file. All images on the pages are referenced to the original files on your computer similar to when one makes a web page. You can edit and change you design in one place and when it’s finished just export the final file as a PDF of JPEG’s. Kinda like the way we use Lightroom.

indesign-3

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March 5, 2009

p1010452

This is called Album. While I know there’s loads of portable viewers, this one caught my eye. A $200 unit, with a 7″ screen, available in a few different colors with more to come. It has 4GB built in storage and reads from SD cards as well as a usb connection.

It’s very simply with three main nav buttons, a removable leather cover, and a built in 2.5 hr battery. The images on the 800×600 screen look clear, and I would feel trendy handing this to a client at a wedding consultation for them to browse some images. The leather cover can also be used as a stand to make it sit like a digital frame.

It appears these are currently selling direct from the manufacturer. There’s only a few colors now but they say more to come. Here’s their website.

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February 13, 2009

Most of us know about print templates in Lightroom, but the cool secret is that you can make multi image page layouts too.

This article over on Seim Effects give the details, as well as a set of FREE layout presets to get you going. I’m pretty stoked about the new possibilities of making multi image layouts right from Lightroom. While it won’t replace In Design for my full scale albums, it’s so fast at making quick attractive layouts for things like Press Printed Books. Check it out.

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January 21, 2009

The big PPS Winter/Christmas contest ended on Jan 1st and the winners have just been chosen:
Special thanks to this years sponsors. Stop by and visit them:


I wanted this contest to be totally fair. First I gathered all the entrants email addresses into a single list, including doubles for those who earned double entries by linking to PPS. Then I randomized and numbered the list using Alpha B, and then used a Web number picker to choose winning numbers for more than $2000.00 in prizes. Thanks to all who entered and congratulations to all who won, you’ll be contacted soon.

Even if your not on the winners list, watch your inbox. All entrants will receive a special free effects pack from Seim Effects that has some brand new effects in it including the new Golden Sun presets. You can also fan Seim Effects on Facebook for more specials and freebies.

Stay tune for the next contest by watching the site. You can also become a PPS fan on Facebook. That way you’ll be notified when contests come up. Don’t forget click thru and check out the great products from our sponsors. You may want to buy them anyways since their all so cool.

An The Winners Are…. (insert drum roll here)

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June 15, 2007

Click Button To Listen, PPS #33 Album Print & Bind Companies and Options Audiocast

To download mp3, right click above link, and “Save As”
Podcast subscription feed is http://feeds.feedburner.com/prophotoshow

Subscribe in itunes

Album Print, Bind, & Supply Company Resource Guide. (Also see) Part1 – PPS #32 Album Design Software
Here’s the notes from the show on all the Print, Bind, & Design companies we talked about. Go to their sites and see all the trends and traditions to see what suites youe style best.

Asuka Book is a popular coffee table style album, and you can also find similar albums from WHCC, Digi Labs, & Illumina books from Apollo, as well as one I forgot to mention, Millers Press.
Some popular flush mount storybook albums include that have lots of options include PictoBooks, Zookbinders, and Some neat styles from Laguna Albums who also offers design services.
More simple flush mount storybooks albums include Black Tie albums from H&H, and the new kid on the block, Kiss Wedding Books who also has some great simple style.

Graphi Studios offer some really large sizes, and even metallic pages in their unique storyboard type designs, but you’ll have to pay for the elegance.

Some options in the more traditional covers, and mat pages include Art Leather, and Wooden Nickel who have many styles available and can send you printed information. Also check out Leather Craftsman which offer some beautiful covers, though a bit more high end. Note that these companies also have flush mount styles as well. Also check out JLee albums. They are basic, but handcrafted and a reasonable price

As for smaller albums, and proof albums you might check out Rice Studio Supply, for their peel and stick wallet albums, and their Quick Stick Album Also the Together Book will take your 4×6 prints, and put a hardbound cover on them

Some more consumer oriented choices of coffe table books that are less expensive, but not usually as feature rich include MyPublisher, Photoworks.com, & Printmyphotobook.com.

Have fun looking at all the options. Here’s a few sample images…

ZookBinders
9296a8e9be88711b21860a05b5bdb27e.jpg

Graphi Studios
book_homenew2.jpg

Asuka Books
asuka.jpg

Other Show Notes…
Mike emailed asked about software to make DVD slideshows, and I recommended iphoto, and idvd for the Mac, and Pro Show Gold for the PC. Show it web was also mentioned, but for online slideshows. They do offer a DVD making service from the show it slideshows, but it’s not cheap.

Best… Gavin Seim

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