Questions about albums

[michelle_logan2]

Hi I am currently building my wedding portfolio by doing 'craigs list' or word

of mouth wedding contracts. None of my contracts are over $700. I believe I

am on my 15th or 17th wedding. I currently provided cds in leather type cases,

an engagement session with 1 8x10 print, and an album from mypublisher.com

 

I would like to provided a higher quality album from like Asuka but am

not 'fluent' with photoshop.

 

Any help on this? Do you believe mypublisher is good enough quality? Or

should I have outside help design for asuka books?

[bill_clark___minnetonka_mi]

Become 'fluent' in Photoshop.

 

Constant learning process.

 

Necessary ingredient to be a successful photographer in the 21st Century. Or hire

someone who can do it for you. Then do you want/desire/capability to do the sales and

marketing? And get the extra gigs to support your staff? Can't do that on $700.00

weddings!

 

Ideas to think about and help you.

[jeffrey_blake_adams]

Talent is just the price of admission. Well-tuned presentation and marketing win the day.

 

try pictage.com they will design the albums for you, J

[david_schilling___chicago_]

Higher quality albums and digital fluency comes at a price of $ and experience. Would suggest that you attend a trade show and/or local WPPI or PPA convention to see the products and meet the vendors. NAPP also has several workshops at various locations throughout the year. Course, after you have the training/experience/quality you'll have to compete with the Craiglisters offerring to shoot weddings and provide a DVD disc of all the images for $700.

[edward_brewington]

Amen to what brother Dave Schilling said.

[phil martin]

Hi Michelle,

 

I agree with Bill Clark about becoming fluent in Photoshop. You can find many tutorials, guides and help on the internet. If you can't afford the latest version of Photoshop, start with Photoshop Elements 5.0. This version opens RAW files, has a version of curves, has tools to fine tune skin tone, and many other useful features at an affordable price.

 

If you can find Photoshop Elements 5.0 bundled with Photoshop Premiere Elements you will have another great tool for editing videos and burning DVDs with slide shows you can make in Photoshop Elements.

Last I checked both were bundled and sold for under $150.

 

For coffee table books I use MPIX.com for the best price and very good color fidelity. The book creation software is free (though the download is slow). Making a book is simple... start the program, import your pics into ready-made templates and you're finished in no time.

 

I created and bought a 12 page softcover book to show clients for 20 dollars and 4.95 shipping. I finished the book Tuesday night and it was in Friday's mail. Very good packaging and really nice color reproduction too. Try one and I'll bet you'll like it!

 

I just checked the mypublisher.com site and it looks interesting. Are you satisfied with their product?

 

My partner and I usually book lower price weddings cause we know that 3000 dollar weddings are not what we'll be seeing. Our feeling is that even those who can't afford a huge wedding still deserve the very best we can do for them. A bride without a lot of money (and you can tell) is still the most important person on her wedding day and we do our best to create a tiny masterpiece for her.

 

Best - Phil

[michael_duff1]

Michele, great question. Plesae shoot for a good quality album. The best album out there by far is PICTOBOOKS. Pictobooks.com.Great looking abum and good customer service.As many people have said.You can design album in Photoshop or buy Pixel Creator software from Pictobooks. Good Luck

[michelle_logan2]

Thanks everyone for all the responses! Mypublisher.com works for my $700 brides. Like Phil said even brides on a budget deserve to feel special and get a talented artist like myself. I do want to expand my business and provide higher grade albums. So because my 'career' dreams are important to me I will take a class in photoshop and learn as much as I can. I will also check out all the album links you guys told me about!

 

Thanks!