Weekly Discussion Thread: Album Layouts / Designs

Agnieszka

Sorry I didn't post a weekly thread last week, I was fighting with my internet connection, no comment :scratch

Hope you're all going to participate at this weeks thread though


Let's talk album:

• are you willing to share some album layouts? Feel free to post some here, or share a link .... whatever works best for you :thumb
• What style are you trying to achieve?
• Do you let your customers choose the pics for the album, or do you select them yourself?
• Who are your favorite album crafters? (I know this has been asked already many times, but thought it would be nice to have everything in one thread)
• Are you using a special layout program, or do you create everything by yourself?

:lynnma

>> Shhhhhhht. Wanna see the other weekly threads? Click HERE.

mmmatt

Agnieszka wrote:

Sorry I didn't post a weekly thread last week, I was fighting with my internet connection, no comment

Hope you're all going to participate at this weeks thread though


Let's talk album:

• are you willing to share some album layouts? Feel free to post some here, or share a link .... whatever works best for you
• What style are you trying to achieve?
• Do you let your customers choose the pics for the album, or do you select them yourself?
• Who are your favorite album crafters? (I know this has been asked already many times, but thought it would be nice to have everything in one thread)
• Are you using a special layout program, or do you create everything by yourself?

Good timing Ang! Just got an order for an album for my crazy Jewish wedding yesterday. I am currious if it is typical to include the formals and general reception shots in the album or mostly just the "wow" stuff? I am letting them deceide the above, and also letting them pick the shots but they understand that I have creative license on this and I won't be able to use everything they pick due to orientation and design flow or whatever. I told them to let me know the top 100 or so and 10 must haves, and then to expect that I would probably use only 50 or so in their 20 page album. More than likely though, I will end up designing 30 or so pages and see if they want to upgrade the page count. there was so much going on at this wedding I can't see properly telling the story on only 10 spreads.

I'm excited as this is my first full album. I will be printing with Vision Art because I have a free gift certificate from them and the ones I have seen from them are gorgeous. I am planning on designing the pages in PS.

Matt

Agnieszka

mmmatt wrote:

Good timing Ang! Just got an order for an album for my crazy Jewish wedding yesterday. I am curious if it is typical to include the formals and general reception shots in the album or mostly just the "wow" stuff? I am letting them deceide the above, and also letting them pick the shots but they understand that I have creative license on this and I won't be able to use everything they pick due to orientation and design flow or whatever. I told them to let me know the top 100 or so and 10 must haves, and then to expect that I would probably use only 50 or so in their 20 page album. More than likely though, I will end up designing 30 or so pages and see if they want to upgrade the page count. there was so much going on at this wedding I can't see properly telling the story on only 10 spreads.

I'm excited as this is my first full album. I will be printing with Vision Art because I have a free gift certificate from them and the ones I have seen from them are gorgeous. I am planning on designing the pages in PS.

Matt

Hm, I definitely include family photos (I'm suffering trough them for a reason, haha!) In a 30-34 pages album I'd say I have in average ....

- 6 pages with photos of the bride getting ready (+ details & shots with fam & girls)
- 2 pages (haha) of the groom getting ready (with some shots of all the guys)
- 4 pages with ceremony pics
- 2 pages with after-ceremony candids
- 4 pages with family photos
- 2-4 pages with with with the bridal party
- 6 pages with photos of just the 2 of them
- 4-6 pages with detail shots of the venue & reception shots (mostly first dance / parent dances / cake cutting + random candids of their friends & family)

For a 30 page album I tell them to choose 120-180 pics, so 4-6 per page and do full size prints of their favorites
I will actually use most of the ones they selected, if I won't like the photos they chose there is always a good way to persuade them to pick other ones instead, but generally the ones I really hate don't make it onto their CD anyway, so .... haha ...

Since it will be your first album (right?), I'd say don't go too crazy, and try to have a clean design throughout the whole album. I'd keep it simple, just so it doesn't look agedc in a couple of years and people won't think ... gosh what a "2010" album ... yiikes Classy & simple age better

Don't know anything about Vision Art, but do share your final results, I'd be really curious to see it

urbanaries

Agnieszka wrote:

Hm, I definitely include family photos (I'm suffering trough them for a reason, haha!) In a 30-34 pages album I'd say I have in average ....

- 6 pages with photos of the bride getting ready (+ details & shots with fam & girls)
- 2 pages (haha) of the groom getting ready (with some shots of all the guys)
- 4 pages with ceremony pics
- 2 pages with after-ceremony candids
- 4 pages with family photos
- 2-4 pages with with with the bridal party
- 6 pages with photos of just the 2 of them
- 4-6 pages with detail shots of the venue & reception shots (mostly first dance / parent dances / cake cutting + random candids of their friends & family)

For a 30 page album I tell them to choose 120-180 pics, so 4-6 per page and do full size prints of their favorites
I will actually use most of the ones they selected, if I won't like the photos they chose there is always a good way to persuade them to pick other ones instead, but generally the ones I really hate don't make it onto their CD anyway, so .... haha ...

Since it will be your first album (right?), I'd say don't go too crazy, and try to have a clean design throughout the whole album. I'd keep it simple, just so it doesn't look agedc in a couple of years and people won't think ... gosh what a "2010" album ... yiikes Classy & simple age better

Don't know anything about Vision Art, but do share your final results, I'd be really curious to see it

Hey Ang....would you be willing to upload a spread of yours? I've always been curious how you fit so many images into a spread layout. I average about half that, but I like to run pics big.

met

Agnieszka wrote:

Don't know anything about Vision Art, but do share your final results, I'd be really curious to see it

Vision Art is a company out of Marshalltown, Iowa. The owners are friends of mine and several of my friends work there. They work strictly with photographers. They use to do design work too, but the printing side of the business was booming so much that they just focus on that now.

http://www.visionartbook.com/

Here is the link to the public side of their forum where people have uploaded samples. You have to register to access the pro side obviously.
http://www.visionartbooks.com/forumdisplay.php?f=1

Qarik

urbanaries wrote:

Hey Ang....would you be willing to upload a spread of yours? I've always been curious how you fit so many images into a spread layout. I average about half that, but I like to run pics big.

+1

Agnieszka

urbanaries wrote:

Hey Ang....would you be willing to upload a spread of yours? I've always been curious how you fit so many images into a spread layout. I average about half that, but I like to run pics big.

Sure thing!

As I said, I prefer to do "simple" designs, no crazy borders, no tiled images ... just not my style, so things are very straight forward. I think this couple chose in average 5 pics per page, 36 pages:

P.s. don't kill me because of the family pics, this was a backyard / garden wedding, and I had no good shady spot for huge group shots + it was terribly windy that day ...






































ALL pics were chosen by the couple, so it was just a matter of putting them in the right spot. I actually just ordered a copy for myself, so I finally have a full wedding album (of just one wedding) to show to my clients.

HERE is an other sample, though I did some minor color corrections after she gave me the final "ok", which I didn't upload to the gallery anymore. All of their photos were chosen by the couple, I just included some few additions. I wasn't too crazy about the front page, but thought I could live with it

And NOPE, I didn't use any templates .... just good old photoshop

Moogle Pepper

Oh...

mmmatt

Agnieszka wrote:

Hm, I definitely include family photos (I'm suffering trough them for a reason, haha!) In a 30-34 pages album I'd say I have in average ....

- 6 pages with photos of the bride getting ready (+ details & shots with fam & girls)
- 2 pages (haha) of the groom getting ready (with some shots of all the guys)
- 4 pages with ceremony pics
- 2 pages with after-ceremony candids
- 4 pages with family photos
- 2-4 pages with with with the bridal party
- 6 pages with photos of just the 2 of them
- 4-6 pages with detail shots of the venue & reception shots (mostly first dance / parent dances / cake cutting + random candids of their friends & family)

For a 30 page album I tell them to choose 120-180 pics, so 4-6 per page and do full size prints of their favorites
I will actually use most of the ones they selected, if I won't like the photos they chose there is always a good way to persuade them to pick other ones instead, but generally the ones I really hate don't make it onto their CD anyway, so .... haha ...

Since it will be your first album (right?), I'd say don't go too crazy, and try to have a clean design throughout the whole album. I'd keep it simple, just so it doesn't look agedc in a couple of years and people won't think ... gosh what a "2010" album ... yiikes Classy & simple age better

Don't know anything about Vision Art, but do share your final results, I'd be really curious to see it

No worries Angie, I won't ho it up. :tuesday It will be "simple yet elegant" and in similar vein to what you just posted here (not nearly as good I'm sure!). I do like diffused/reduced opacity images as backgrounds though and like yourself full page spanning images with complimentary images within the spread. My plan is to keep to theme on each spread and try to tell the story. I'll post here as I go during the onset to get opinions and make sure I am on the right track. I noticed you don't seem to mind putting a page split right through the brides face. NBD? Looks all good? It has been my thought to avoid that even on a flushmount.

I did do a guest book from their engagement photos and they loved it, so I have a feel for what they want. Actually, if people aren't offering that now to their clients it is a great moneymaker. I printed with Blurb so it wasn't cost prohibitive and people raved about it. Every time I looked that way people were looking through it and talking about the images. B&G have passed many compliments to me about it and it sold the Album I'm starting on now.

Matt

Agnieszka

mmmatt wrote:

I noticed you don't seem to mind putting a page split right through the brides face. NBD? Looks all good? It has been my thought to avoid that even on a flushmount.

Oh nono ... no folds right on anybody's face. I don't mind if the photo doesn't end exactly at the split (think it's kind of boring if it always does), but of course you need to watch where exactly the fold is

Sounds like your guest book was quite a hit Well, feel free to post your layouts here, would love to see

mmmatt

I thought so but it looks like the split on the 2nd spread is right through her face!

Here is the guest book I did. This was meant to be simple. the colors were to match her bridesmaids dresses and the backgrounds and borders were either photographs or samples from photographs as texture. These are not spreads except for the f/b cover. The spreads were photos on the left and blank page on the right for signing. This was done as an 8x10 so I didn't want to clutter up the pages with a lot of photos, and I did use some bordering because I was terrified I would chop something off! Lastly these were client previews so there were some color/text/layout tweeks before printing.








this is what I did on the side opposite the picture pages










































OK... That was a lot of cut'n n pastin'! Note the Pat fury rip-off shot? Ha!

Matt

Agnieszka

Oh, I like it mmmatt! What a cute couple!!

urbanaries

Ok Angie. that's IT! I need to hijack your Photoshop skills...and I've been working in that program for the better part of 12 years. You make it look SOOO easy! I don't know how you line things up so evenly and easily in Photoshop, I'd need Quark or InDesign to keep things so even steven without spending hours on each one. Do you use masks? do you "delete" parts of images after you rasterize them to make them fit? Or use a layover CS plugin like Album DS?

In short, could you pretty please show us a snap of one of those layouts' layers? WITH CHERRY ON TOP???:D

Agnieszka

urbanaries wrote:

I don't know how you line things up so evenly and easily in Photoshop, I'd need Quark or InDesign to keep things so even steven without spending hours on each one. Do you use masks? do you "delete" parts of images after you rasterize them to make them fit? Or use a layover CS plugin like Album DS?

Oh my!! I feel honored, but I'm serious there is no special secrety-secret. I am super lazy, so I only work with 8 guide lines (4 safety margins / horizontal + vertical line of the spread + the 2 vertical center lines of each page) / assuming it's a double side spread. + the arrow keys (oh yeah! ) and that is it, I promise!

AND IT'S ALLLL DONE IN PHOTOSHOP, no plugins, no masks, nothing ... just make sure you re-size the pics before you drag them into your layout.

Ok, let's see .... my computer actually also automatically snaps photos so they are automatically aligned. Might be a setting that you don't have turned on, not sure ... the only thing I saw that you might want to click is VIEW > SNAP (in Photoshop)



I'll be happy to show you what I do, but don't expect a magic button

1. My guidelines:


2. The pic oon the right side goes in:
Ok, I had the pics already in when I took all those snapshots, BUT .... I knew I'd want to do a big pic on the right, and 4 smaller ones on the left. So I thew in the big pic and re sized it by hand. Yes, it goes a bit over the center edge. I don't care when it does that (it depends on the pic), in this case I like the "panoramic" photo, so I left it as it was.

3. The 4 pics on the left page:
Next up, is putting the 4 pics in. I usually like it when they're super aligned, so in this case I knew they would all need to be the same height. I re sized all photos, and made them 4 inches high, then I dragged them in one by one. Now, as I said, my computer align-snaps them automatically, so I put one rigth next to the other (let's say we're talking about the upper 2 pics on the left page). I like to have a little space in between, so I check at what % I am currently zoomed into the page ... it's 18% ... ok, so I click on the layer with the photo on the top right, and push the arrow button twice to the right.
Then next pic, it's 4inches tall, so I can just drag it in (I check my zoom %, it's still 18%), so I can just drag it it, right below the top left pic so the 2 left sides align. Then I hit the down-arrow button twice, and voila, same spacing .... and last put not least I'll do the same for the last pic.

I mean, yes, you could make it all with guide lines, but hey, I don't want to spend *that* much time on each page .... it's much easier like this ... works for me anyway



4. Centering the 4 pics:
So now we have the 4 pics on the page (somewhere on the left), and the big pic on the right (which should be perfectly aligned).
I like it when the spacing around all the pics on the left page is the same, so I create a quick rectangle (here in red). This is the space where the pics should be centered on. watch out, and don't include the space where the page will be cut off (so space minus safety margin) ... alrighty, so since the right pic goes a bit over my center line, I need to re-adjust the vertical line of my page, so I push it a bit to the left (if you're on the rectangle layer, the guide should automatically snap to the center line once you're "in the right area")

And then I just select all layers (4 photos) that will be on the left page, and snap the center to the center of the 2 guides. And that's it

Alrighty ... I did some special cropping to them, so in MY case the 4 pics don't have the same height (as you can see / the center spacing doesn't align with the center line), BUT since I had to do the special cropping I don't care much as the eye will most likely not see THAT part, but it would see if the spacing around the 4 photos would not be the same.

So then, I just need to delete my red rectangle, and I am DONE. Next ...


Here's an other one I did with just the double-arrowing ... :


I like having a mental 2" grid ... so most of the pics were either 4x2, or 4x6, 4x8 .... you get the message. You'll just have to re size them a tiny little bit ... as if you have a big pic next to 2 little ones it won't quite work as easily (as the big pic has obviously no spacing, but the 2 small pics next to it have a little spacing line n between them (sorry, it's hard to explain) .... in that case I'd just use guide lines to help me re size the big pic, but it's nothing fancy ...

mmmatt

Angie you are such an asset to this place. That is some good info!!!

Matt

Agnieszka

mmmatt wrote:

Angie you are such an asset to this place. That is some good info!!!

Matt

Oh goooooood, I am SO glad to hear this was helpful! Thanks Matt.

jeffreaux2

Agnieszka wrote:

Oh goooooood, I am SO glad to hear this was helpful! Thanks Matt.

Sheesh.....I woulda never thought you were "shooting from the hip" with your layouts, and always had you pegged as using templates, or a dedicated program. My "shoot from the hip" doesnt look that nice!:D


But....Lightroom to the rescue!!!

By entering a custom page size in Lightrooms "Print" panel, you can set up a page for an album (In this case 11x8.5" Landscape-single spread)....then set margins etc and rows and columns. It is completely customizable....AND....by doing a "print package" type layout rather than a "tryptech" type layout you could also vary the dimensions of the images on the page.....although....I havent quite gotten the hang of THAT route.

Everything lines up automatically and borders are evenly spaced. Its a SUPER fast method, but you arent allowed any wiggle room for the ordering of the images. The will appear in the layout in the order they were shot. I dont know that this can be altered.

By reducing the "Page size" it could be used to produce inset composites as in Angies example rather than page filling composites. Just shrink the page size in LR and then export it....and open it onto a PS project of the correct page size.......make adjustments as needed.

No drop shadow options......or fanciness...just simple stroke options in LR.

I have toyed with the idea of doing some layouts in Lightroom with solid black images on a white background....and then use the resulting export as a mask for a more customizable approach in photoshop. Ive thought about it....but havent had time to follow through with that idea.





Sheesh......seeing these on the web next to Angie's beautiful images makes me queasy!!!

Agnieszka

jeffreaux2 wrote:

But....Lightroom to the rescue!!!

Haha! See. Told you! Your version sounds even easier than mine I'm sure there are a gizillion ways to do layouts (and I'm sure mine is not will work best for most of the people, haha, BUT it works for me )

Thanks for sharing your ideas & layouts Jeff

Mox

Angie, your work inspires me. Not just the album layouts, but your photos - they always feel so bright and fresh. They're a pleasure to look at!

Agnieszka

Mox wrote:

Angie, your work inspires me. Not just the album layouts, but your photos - they always feel so bright and fresh. They're a pleasure to look at!

Oh, thank you lust

But please share some of YOUR layouts, tips & ideas, there are soooo many ways to approach *album design*

Mox

I've only covered a couple of weddings as a second shooter so far, so have yet to design an album. But hopefully soon! *fingers crossed!*

Agnieszka

Mox wrote:

I've only covered a couple of weddings as a second shooter so far, so have yet to design an album. But hopefully soon! *fingers crossed!*

Well we take anything we can .... sometimes putting album layouts / collages together (even if it's just for yourself or your blog) is a good "exercise"

Mox

Excellent suggestion! I'm heading out of town tomorrow, but starting Monday, I'll consider it an assignment. Thank you.

BlueSkyPhotos

Agnieszka wrote:

Oh, thank you lust

But please share some of YOUR layouts, tips & ideas, there are soooo many ways to approach *album design*

Hi,
I used Photoshop for my very first album and it was too painful and too slow for me. I think partially it was my fault not knowing PS very well. Since then I switched to Fotofusion by Lumapix and never looked back. The full version cost about $300, but to me it is a great investment if you make a lot of albums. They have a free demo that you can play with before purchasing it.

Agnieszka

BlueSkyPhotos wrote:

Hi,
I used Photoshop for my very first album and it was too painful and too slow for me. I think partially it was my fault not knowing PS very well. Since then I switched to Fotofusion by Lumapix and never looked back. The full version cost about $300, but to me it is a great investment if you make a lot of albums. They have a free demo that you can play with before purchasing it.

Sounds like a great program. Show us some samples, I'm sure many on here would be interested in learning more

met

jeffreaux2 wrote:

The will appear in the layout in the order they were shot. I dont know that this can be altered.

I found a way around this when I was creating Lightroom layouts. If you make a quick collection of the images that you are using for the layout, you can rearrange them on the filmstrip at the bottom in the order you want them to appear on the page.

urbanaries

A big THANK YOU to our resident goddess Agnieszka for sharing her yummy behind-the-scenes creations lustbow

Here are a few I did in Photoshop....looking forward to finishing the rest of this sample album with Album DS. These spreads took wayyyy too long!

1.


2.


3.


4.

Agnieszka

urbanaries wrote:

Here are a few I did in Photoshop....looking forward to finishing the rest of this sample album with Album DS. These spreads took wayyyy too long!

Ohhhh, delicious beauty! Love these spreads!!!

urbanaries

full album
And another one, done with GraphiStudio's software. I like their simpler layouts, they sure did go quick, too bad everything else with GS is like pulling teeth.












































(awesome main bride image in this spread shot by our very own SHIMA

tenoverthenose

Here's a recent album that I put together for a client. I predesigned it and only ended up changing out one photo!

http://patrickpikefilms.com/darkroom/share/?n=kyra8667

Agnieszka

tenoverthenose wrote:

Here's a recent album that I put together for a client. I predesigned it and only ended up changing out one photo!

http://patrickpikefilms.com/darkroom/share/?n=kyra8667

Just wonderful (presentation included)

Thanks a lot for sharing!!