Thursday

Product Feature - The Album Builder

This post is a fun one because it's being co-written by Noelle and I. I will be the BLUE text and Noelle will be Orange. Okay, me first...  


We both recently started using the Album Builder and no joke it's one of my most favorite tools (and super TIME SAVING) tools to date! Because it's saving each of us so much time and making our lives so much easier, we couldn't wait to tell you about it too! 
If ever there was a time that I just happened to run into the right person at the right time, the Fiano booth at WPPI was it! I was in the booth browsing albums when I saw 2 guys taking pictures with their iPhones of an album. When they looked done, I asked if I could see it. They told me it was their images, I smiled and gave an 'oh, awesome' and started to flip through. I immediately realized these images were taken in the great North West and asked where they were from, turns out they are in Portland too! 


Well as fate would have it, we ended up on the same flight back to Portland. I sat in-between Fundy and Focht of Left Turn Studios and we talked the whole flight home. Fundy pulled out his laptop to show me some of the awesome stuff they do - and - awesome in an understatement! Three of the things they showed me are my current favorite products (you know the type when you don't know how you lived with out it before) it's  the Mobile Fotographer-Studio Management, Touch Flow (but those are another post) for today, we want to tell you about the The Album Builder!


When I won the album certificate from Vision Art at WPPI the first thing I said to Leah was:


"Leah, I need to find some album templates!"


But Leah kept telling me no, (she does that sometimes). She kept saying that templates are too confining and that I would constantly find that the template wouldn't match how many pictures or sizes I was needing to fit for the layout.  She said that I'd find that when I'm trying to use a template sometimes it's hard to get the portrait photos to match the number of portrait boxes and then sometimes you have to leave out a good photo because it doesn't match the layout of things.


Oh...  I hadn't thought of that before but at the same time I knew I needed it simple and templates seemed like the obvious solution.  Then I thought about hiring out the design work.  I heard that Jasmine Star doesn't like designing albums so she hires out but after looking into the cost,that adds more then I can justify to my bottom line. With Leah making some strong arguments against album templates and hiring out tooexpensive the only option seemed to spend countless hours working at building albums from scratch. Not appealing!


Then the clouds parted and the sun shone down, and there might even have been some singing.



When Leah told me I had to get this Album Builder I thought to myself, "Really?  Do I really need it?"  But I trust Leah and I trust the man behind the product, so I got it.  Let me tell you what!  It is amazing!  You install Album Builder in Photoshop, where I make my albums, and it takes the major mechanical thinking out of it.  I'm a photographer/artist first so when I have to think of size of photos, to how many photos, to the size of the album, well all those ratios just hurt my brain.  I have to do lots of thinking and lots of trial and error.  With Album Builder I type how many photos I want on one page or a spread and it'll do it for me.  Then I just drag and drop my photo, without having to resize it, and it's done.  THEN if I want to add an action to that particular photo I can do it in Album Builder!  I can change the coloring of the background with a click and there are NO templates that I HAVE to stay with.  I can change how many pictures I want, and move the collage or row of photos anywhere on the page.  It gives you endless possibilities and the freedom to choose just how you want it.  I cannot even say how much of a time saver this is!  Album Builder will cut your time making albums, I personally believe, by 75% or more.  And as a photographer we are always in need of more time.  I firmly believe every photographer that offers albums, especially wedding photographers, need this product. 


I try to avoid wedding photography, my work is as a portrait photographer but albums are every bit as much a critical part of my business as they are for a wedding photographer. I want all my clients to have an album or an image box so that I know they have a tangible keepsake to remember this time in their life. I'm passionate about it so it's easy to sell, in fact 90% of all my clients order albums or image boxes so I do a lot of albums! I have been designing all my albums from scratch (you know from above why I don't like templates and I'm too neurotic to be able to let someone else design it for me). But despite how much i love handing over an album to a client,  I couldn't stand how long it took me to put it together, but I just didn't see a good alternative. Designing an album typically took me between 5 and 7 hours and as much as I don't want to admit it, sometimes longer, time consuming for sure!


Last week I had a mom call, she wanted two Senior albums in time for their graduation open house which was in 2 weeks. I needed to design 2 different albums for two girls and have them ready to send to print the next day if I had any chance at getting them in time. I was dreading the process until I realized I should try my new album builder. Each album only took me ONE HOUR to build!! So ummm yes, I'm a huge fan!  



The coolest part is that there is a 2 week Free Trial so go try it for yourself! You can thank me later! ;) 
And you will! :) 

4 comments:

  1. Oh wow!!!!! Thanks Leah for sharing this! I will download it tonight and play with it over the weekend. I use KISS & WHCC, so I will have to test how it will work with their lines.

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  2. Tira!! I have the answer for you! I LOVE when that happens.
    It's only because I had the same thing come up and was needing a template from WHCC and guess what they are here for you and many other companies templates are also, to get them just go to Album Company Presets under Resources (http://fundysos.com/resources/album-company-presets) and it will tell you the steps but if you scroll down you will see the WHCC logo and you click on that!

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  3. Awesome! How did I miss this post? Oh wait, this was my birthday and I was on a plane. THANK YOU! I am already in love and I haven't even visited their web-site yet.

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  4. I can't believe you missed a day Kalli! Okay, totally joking, you can have ONE day off! Hope you had a GREAT birthday and went somewhere fun. I can't believe you didn't choose Portland! ;)

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