album completion during high season

<p>Good evening all, it's the high season for weddings, and I'm photographer/owner/janitor of my business if you get my meaning. I'm very happy with how quickly my turnaround is on the post and posting of weddings. It's all being done by myself.<br>

I am however stymied when it comes to the albums. I would rather get them out within weeks of the meeting with the clients, but find the amount of time needed to complete the design, few modifications, etc puts my timeline way back when it comes to post processing.<br>

As of this moment every client has been very aware that I'm currently a one man show, it's not hidden in any way, and are quite accepting of waiting until the off season to receive their albums.<br>

Thing is, I don't want to have them wait that long, in part because I don't want the end of the season to be filled with weeks of album design, but also I want to create more value to their experience with me. A quick album turn around would be the best of what I'm thinking about at this moment.<br>

I know some of you outsource this process, Chris Whitcomb suggested a nice company named doodledo?<br>

I was wondering who y'all sent your work to, and how you give input to that company in regards to the differences in design that each bride wants? I can do a wide variety of designs based on how they want their work done, I've been blessed with wonderful clients and great images, I just want to not turn a successful season in photography into a huge bottleneck of albums?<br>

Again, it's just me doing it all at the moment, but I'm aware that a number of things will be delegated, must be make that, to keep this a smoothly running business.<br>

So, your timelines for albums? Your suggestions for companies to outsource to?<br>

Thanks,<br>

Daniel</p>

<p>There is really no company that does quality albums that has a turn around time of less that 1-2 weeks. You have to consider in lab time for the actual design and creation of album and then unless you want to pay good money for "superfast" delivery you only option is a 2-3 week turn around time which is common for Wedding Albums. You can try:<br>

<a href="http://www.finaoonline.com/">www.<strong>finao</strong>online.com/</a><br>

blurb.com<br>

mpix.com</p>

<p> </p>

<p>I have been using a software to create my albums. It's not the cheapest but it has cut my album design time down considerably. It's called <strong>Lumapix fotofusion</strong> . You can save page templates or album templates which is soooo handy.</p>

<p>What I do is save my templates based on what images are in it. For example 3 vertical and 2 horizontal, so the file name would be 3V_2H_001, 3V_2H_002, etc. So as I design more and more I have more templates to use and I just have to choose my images that are going to be on the same page and viola I have 7 different templates for 3 vertical and 2 horizontal. I also print off the template and make a small quick reference book of just those so I can just flip to the correct tab and see the template quickly instead of having to open them up every time.</p>

<p>I save all the albums as well so if I do want to go back and use it, you can just switch the images out. I save two copies of the album, one with all the images and design work, and then one with just the layouts and nothing else. I haven't done that yet as I haven't had any need to rush. Also, I enjoy designing each one personally, but if you are in a pinch it's really handy.</p>

<p>You really have no idea how easy it makes it. It doesn't damage the files or compress them every time you need to re-size it in the layout. You can make adjustments like change the opacity and increase color, make it B&W or sepia. You also get free elements to use on your layouts when you buy the Professional Photographers package, and trust me you need to. In the elements they have different papers you can use as backdrops but mainly I love the sloppy frames as they size perfectly to your frame, so it could be a 3.7x8.6 frame and the sloppy border will be applied without any issues.</p>

<p>Go to their website and watch their video. OOO oooo, I forgot you can also edit the image in photoshop and it will automatically apply your changes to the image in your layout. So if you noticed you missed a pimple, you can photoshop it out and when you go back to the layout it will be the just recently edited image. It is great, I can't say enough. Also you can export your pages as a PSD so you can open it up in Photoshop and have all the separate layers, so you can add extra design elements or do extra editing, but you rarely have to do that. I honestly can continue forever as to what it can do so I will stop. Just visit the website and view their video that describes all the features. It might take some time for you to go and save all your templates but two straight days spent doing that will solve that issue, and you will make your design process soo much easier, quicker and you'll have happier customers without having to take a cut on your profits.<br>

http://www.lumapix.com/index.shtml</p>

 

<p>D. D. - I've seen the demo for FotoFusion, and it looks fantastic. However, the one thing I wondered was, how does it handle the "safe edge" and gutter lines of the Asukabook template files? Have you designed an Askuabook album using FotoFusion? If so, how did it go? How did you do it while still keeping the border lines the output JPGs?</p>

<p>I think fotofusion has some already built in album templates for Asuka. Here is a link I found regarding their albums using fotofusion. It doesn't really fully relate to your question, as someone was having issues with page sizes, but there are a few answers that explain how the album design works for Asuka albums. From reading the link in the canvas size window you can select by album manufacturer and then choose asukabook. Also the fotofusion support would be very helpful as well, if you're still having issues.</p>

<p>I use Zookbinders and I have a safe edge that changes depending on what size of album I print. For a smaller album the safe edge is 5/16ths. So when I made my album template I just changed the safe edge to .3125 and it puts the guides there. As far as your output you can export it as a pdf, psd, jpg...whatever you want. If you find it easier to output it as a psd then to open them all in photoshop and do a batch conversion to a jpg.<br>

http://photography-on-the.net/forum/showthread.php?t=346051</p>