Which on-line Wedding Album to use?

pszilard

I have a PRO account with SmugMug, and still can't believe the great features they provide. I am in the process of setting up wedding photography, and saw the SmugMug link to creating your own album, using Zoho Design. This link however then goes to choosing your album publisher.

This is where I come unstuck! Which one??? I have some experience with Blurb Books, but nothing for the "traditional" Wedding Album.

Where could I find out some guidelines on which service to use?

Perhaps people could share who they have/are using and why?

Thanks in advance,

pszilard

pszilard wrote: »

I have a PRO account with SmugMug, and still can't believe the great features they provide. I am in the process of setting up wedding photography, and saw the SmugMug link to creating your own album, using Zoho Design. This link however then goes to choosing your album publisher.

This is where I come unstuck! Which one??? I have some experience with Blurb Books, but nothing for the "traditional" Wedding Album.

Where could I find out some guidelines on which service to use?

Perhaps people could share who they have/are using and why?

Thanks in advance,

Is my question unreasonable or stupid? How come not a single reply? (I'll just go and hide under a rock now...)

ssimmonsphoto

pszilard wrote: »

Is my question unreasonable or stupid? How come not a single reply? (I'll just go and hide under a rock now...)

I think you aren't getting a reply because there are a ton of discussions about many of the different album companies already in this forum. Determining which one you'd like to use is, in my experience, incredibly difficult. My biggest piece of advice is to never PAY a company in order to use their product. I once bought a sample album package from a company in order to have the ability to order albums from them. The company wound up closing the plant that I was working with and never informing me of who to talk to. I wound up dealing with another plant within the company, but I still felt very "played". Since then, I never deal with a company that makes me pay to even work with them.

Brieyasmom

agreed
Just scroll through wedding forum and you will see discussion threads all about albums , what people are using, what they like and dislike. I got a lot of great tips when I wanted to make my first album. I ended up going with whcc but I since have seen a discussion about how any consumer can now go in and see the pricing so I am wondering if I should change up some. The album I got from them was BEAUTIFUL though!

Hope this helps.
Heather

Art Scott

Happy Fish Design.......I have not used them for album design even thought
that is what they started out doing I use Happy Fish for my wedding post processing....

here is their link: http://www.happyfish.com

Shulvy

Art Scott wrote: »

Happy Fish Design.......I have not used them for album design even thought
that is what they started out doing I use Happy Fish for my wedding post processing....

here is their link: http://www.happyfish.com

They are good but they don't make books and that is what the original post is looking for.

What options do you have for album makers if you choose to go with the "smug mug approved" design company?

ShepsMom

The design of the album is the biggest pain in the butt, once your pages laid out and looking good, select an album company that you want to work with and upload the pages to them. Not hard to do. There are tons of companies who are ranging from not-so-good to extremely awesome!
I did my albums with some of these (not all): Graphi, WHCC, Black River Imagine, Millers, MPix Pro, Bayphoto, Finao, White Magnolia, Pictobooks, Asuka Books, Zookbinders, blah blah blah..... the choices are unlimited.

ETA: Happy Fish charges what, $9 per side or something like that?? If you don't want to do you own design, sourcing it out is the way to go.

Art Scott

Shulvy wrote: »

They are good but they don't make books and that is what the original post is looking for.

What options do you have for album makers if you choose to go with the "smug mug approved" design company?

yes yes I realized this after I hit submit and was on my way to a funeral.......HappyFish is a great DESIGN company and they just need to know what book company will print to design to their specs.......so sorry my screwe up.......

smurfy

I tried MyCanvas a couple of years ago when Smugmug first partnered with them, but all but the priciest books were poor quality, and the ones that cost a few hundred dollars were too small. (8 by 8 or 8 by 10, I think. ) Blurb is just horrible unless the quality of the images just doesn't matter to you.

Since then, I haven't use 'smugmug apporved' book makers, but went with album makers my clients can't access on their own.

Since you are in Australia, it seems like it will an extra cost for you to ship books from American companies affiliated with Smugmug. You could just download Photojunction for free and use their software to design for any bookmaker you choose.

Mitchell

I continue to be impressed with Black River Imaging. I've now done 3 albums using their new Cascade software. Very easy to design and excellent quality with quick turnaround. These are photographic prints not press-printed.

It can be quite pricey. One of the albums I made was $540 (my cost), but it was beautiful and they loved it. I charged them $1500 for the album.

Kinkajou

Always a fan of WHCC. You can get a book with pages that are thick like cardstock and lay flat or you can get a standard book. Worth looking into, I think.

Shima

I've been using Bay Photo for a year or two now, big fan of their work, and they have great customer service. I started trying them out because of the smugmug partnership, and stuck with them because of their great quality. I design all my albums using LumaPix FotoFusion though and then I just sent Bay Photo the JPG's to use in the album.