Wedding Albums

jung

I just got my feet wet in my first wedding and now I want to find a software to create a wedding album for my friend. I know about lumapix and I would love to find a program that does the same thing but cheaper.

Does anyone know of any software that would work?

THanks,

Jung

JAMoore

I can only help so much as I am still looking for a printer myself. In my experience thus far, many printers have their own proprietary software / design tools to use. For high quality albums I've been looking at AsukaBook and Forbeyon.

I have yet to find a decent quality 'budget' printer.
I got a sample book printing from lulu.com and even though the interface and design tools are nice, the quality of the product is quite sub-par.
Blurb has their own software as well, but again quality is inconsistent.

For many of these printers, you might find that you want to design your own in photoshop instead of using the printer's design tools for cost and more flexibility.

Hope this helps...
now lets see what the seasoned pros have to say...

Jeff_Milo

Check out this thread Wedding Photo Books. There is some very good information there

Swartzy

I love this program..and it's not only for albums. I create business cards, invitations, promo's, you name it. As far as I'm concerned, it's the best and works right within PS

http://www.albumds.org/

Jeff_Milo

Its the best program I have been able to find for the iMac.

smurfy

try my canvas through smugmug
Since they partnered with smugmug, I've had quality issues with two non-premium My Canvas photo book type albums. I'd looked for reviews, but found very little. But both smugmug and the MC people were telling me that those were not for wedding albums, and the premium books were done by a diff printer. So I went ahead and tried the premium album more as an act of faith based on Smugmug's partnership than any positive reviews. The resulting album, a premium velvet cover book, 20 (very thick paper) page lay-flat for $199 (extra for more pages) is really nice workmanship. It is not a consumer-level book, and the design options are almost as good as the new Asukabookmaker released in March. It is nice to not have to go into PS every time I want to use a background image and make it transparent, or put a mask on the edges of an image. The time saved in designing it was a huge factor in my giving this company a try.

But stay away from the cheaper My Canvas books for wedding albums-those are done by a a different printer and the quality is nothing like the premium ones. There were quality issues that should have been spotted immediately, so I don't think there is much quality control on the non-premium books. They even were packaged completely differently than the premium for shipping. It's like two totally different companies under one name...one is like Picaboo or Shutterfly, the other is like Asuka.

Here are links to two albums I designed completely in their program, even the masks, frames and transparencies:

http://godburnphotos.smugmug.com/gallery/7022688_ojqix

http://smugmug.mycanvas.com/Flash/Viewer.aspx?fp=M7v6sgLBy5o%3d

You can check their website through the shopping cart on your smugmug site.
But one con about them: no presentation case or box, which for this price is a rather big drawback.

dangin

i've used lumapix as well and think it's a pretty easy to use design software. not quite as robust as say doing it by hand in illustrator but it does a fine job, especially for more traditional designs.

as far as albums go, i've gotten a few bay albums in the past few months and have had good success with them. i'm checking out a company local to me here in chicago called echo. i'll be putting in an order for a sample album next week. i'll report back in a couple of weeks and let y'all know how it turns out!

medinaphoto1

Asuka is too expensive- for the same money you can get a finao album www.finaoonline.com which is much more substantial and 4,000% nicer.

elizabeth_Luna

I use Graphistudio.

They sent me a sample album and even the parent album - they also offer a discount to create the same album with of course your images it comes with a briefcase. All samples are free!

You can also use there software to design the album.

beetle8

does anyone have feedback on kiss, or Capri?

filmphoto

I'm a graphi user so I now use their software [bugs an' all - I hope it gets tweaked soon] for album design with them.

However, I did see that PJREMIX is now free, which is a stunning deal and it's a good, easy to use album creator if you like that simple style

PandyaPhotography

graphi
I use graphi, here is my latest book







I have had no issues with this company, although others have.

sources

Jeff_Milo wrote:

Its the best program I have been able to find for the iMac.

It looks good. How do you get your album printed? Who does the best job? I've done one album with Blurb and was not pleased with the quality.

Jeff_Milo

sources wrote:

It looks good. How do you get your album printed? Who does the best job? I've done one album with Blurb and was not pleased with the quality.

Like others here I prefer to use Graphi Studios. They are the best I have seen. When I have budget concious b&g's I lean towards Asuka Books, Millers or Kiss.

Also, Graphi now has very easy to use album design software for both PC & MAC you can download from your trade area. If I am doing a Graphi book I use there software now, AlbumDS for all others. Someone also told me that Asuka either has new software out or it is comming out soon for their books.