wedding albums / Montage

[phildemon2]

Hi there Forumers.

I use Spicer hallfield albums and am looking into including a digital story book type/range of albums ones where the pics are the pages.

I went to a event in Sheffield and saw several types of albums and the montage package being used, also I'm sure there was a similar package for designing the digital/story book pages.
When visiting a shop in Rotherham I was told only their Montage package was the only the only one being demonstrated that day and digital story book images had to be created in Photo shop.

I'm sure i saw a demonstration where a image was opened as a faint background image then several others were placed over - the final result goes to print through their own lab and as with montage simple to use.

Is there a package to design pages for digital art books - or is photoshop the way to go - as said in the Rotherham shop.

I'm looking at Glorious Books as the Rotherham shop deals in these - have any of you used this company?
Anyways - Happy New Year.

[lostmysnorkel]

Hi Phil,

I use the Spicer Hallfield 'Montage' software to design the overlay albums.

For digital story books, there are a number of packages you can get.

I use 'You Select It' (YSI) from Martin Schembri

There's one that Yervant sells, also 'Pixel Creator Pro' will do similar.

The downloadable ROES from Loxley Colour will provide some templates with a little customisability I think.

Also, Graphistudio (the book printers) have their own software in Beta at the moment, 'Leonardo', although I believe that will only send the files to them in Italy.

[phildemon2]

Hi there lostmysnorkel thanks for the reply.
I'll take a look at the YSI package and also montage.
I don't do a reportage package but will now look at this option with montage. I currently provide packages that are candid/formal 24-70 8x6's / 10x8's - not a mixture of sizes.
I'm needing to expand my package range album styles etc

I downloaded some templates from Glorious Books and tried to create a Story book look using lares(doh) layers - I'll just say i'm working on it:russian_r.
It might have to be a drag n drop n upload to lab process 4 me - but i bet this takes some time to get used to.

Anwyays - onwards and upwards......
Thanks again

[Alan W]

I have got my finger out this year and I am going to offer storybooks at long last having researched them for far too long. Graphi originally cornered the market here in the UK and then Sim2000imaging launched a range which were cheaper but quite inferior to Graphi (sim2000imaging are now up there with the best). Others then started to join the bandwagon and the massive growth in popularity started to hit the photographic printers who made the prints for the traditional layover and slip in albums. Despite some saying that storybooks were a fad and would go out of fashion it looks like they are the way forward and are here to stay.

Now some of the traditional printers are offering storybooks too and all this has ended up a whole range to choose from with manufacturers competing against each other. This is great news for us photographers because the early Graphi stuff didn't come cheap and this is recent history so the clients expect to pay a premium. The market is now awash with high quality and very affordable storybooks and as long as we don't start to offer them silly cheap to the client (as someone inevitably will) we will be able to maintian a very high quality product with a good margin of profit.

Getting back to the question, some manufacturers realised that not everyone had the necessary photoshop skills to make montages so offered different options to help.

Loxley offer a free downloadable programme as mentioned by Snorks where you just literally drag and drop your images into a large selection of album teplates and you can add drop shadow, stroke and change images to mono and vary the opacity. So for example (what I think you are asking about) you could have one large image as a faded black and white or sepia background with four colour images laying on top of it. The software allows you to design all the pages of an album then save them as jpegs to show your client. Once your client has agreed with the design the order is sent online and the album is back within 7 days. If the client wants to change any of the pages they are saved kind of like PSD files and you can go back into the progamme and change what you want.

Sim2000imaging now offer free montage software, a friend of mine has tried it and he is very impressed. You register and get a 30 day trial to have a play with it. Once you make your first order they give you the code to make it the full version.

I am going with Loxley and have almost finished making my own montages in photoshop. This is only because I prefer my own designs.

My advice would be to attend either the SWPP Trade Fair in London next week and/or Focus in Birmingham and go and see the products for yourself, see what programmes they offer and try to narrow it down to one.

[Mike D]

Hi Phil
You might take a look at the Lumapix web site and watch the very detailed video tutorials regarding montage work, the product is called Foto Fusion and I believe it is now in version 4.1. I find it very helpful for montage creation, far more user friendly than DG Foto Art, which is fine but probably too many templates that are a bit yucky!!
I just completed a 24 page album yesterday and it took about three hours, bear in mind of course that the bride herself had given me her own page designs taken from her proof images, so I had to do a little alteration here and there, I then converted them to PSD and Jpeg format, and took them into photoshop and created a pdf file which I emailed to the bride for her to examine the work and let me know of any corrections that she requires, and once complete I download them to Loxley's for printing, this album incidentally was Mario Acerboni so the prints will be 9" x 9" and will slip into the album where the overlays would have gone.
If you intend to use Loxley's Bellissimo albums the same procedure applies where you size your pages to the album you require and, create your pages and then download them to Loxley's for the album to be created for you.
I am finding that my brides are increasingly going for the A4 reportage style ablum with a mixture of traditional overlays mixed with full A4 pages created with Foto Fusion, if you are interested and would like to see a pdf file then PM me and I would be more than happy to forward one to you, hope this helps. Mike

[phildemon2]

Hi Phil
You might take a look at the Lumapix web site and watch the very detailed video tutorials regarding montage work, the product is called Foto Fusion and I believe it is now in version 4.1. I find it very helpful for montage creation, far more user friendly than DG Foto Art, which is fine but probably too many templates that are a bit yucky!!
I just completed a 24 page album yesterday and it took about three hours, bear in mind of course that the bride herself had given me her own page designs taken from her proof images, so I had to do a little alteration here and there, I then converted them to PSD and Jpeg format, and took them into photoshop and created a pdf file which I emailed to the bride for her to examine the work and let me know of any corrections that she requires, and once complete I download them to Loxley's for printing, this album incidentally was Mario Acerboni so the prints will be 9" x 9" and will slip into the album where the overlays would have gone.
If you intend to use Loxley's Bellissimo albums the same procedure applies where you size your pages to the album you require and, create your pages and then download them to Loxley's for the album to be created for you.
I am finding that my brides are increasingly going for the A4 reportage style ablum with a mixture of traditional overlays mixed with full A4 pages created with Foto Fusion, if you are interested and would like to see a pdf file then PM me and I would be more than happy to forward one to you, hope this helps. Mike

Thanks Mike
Phew-there seems quite a few albums/printers etc to go for, i think i'll nip down to the focus exhibition in Birmingham to check them all out.
Research, research, research!
First off will be the Loxley web site for printing and albums, two birds with one stone, sounds good to me.
Thanks again.
Phil

[GlenJDiamond]

The online printing sites that print coffeebooks usually give details of the page dimensions. You can use these dimensions to create a new document in photoshop and then layer to your hearts content.

I use a cheap photobook (£40) for 40 pages, hardback. The quality of the printing is good. I use photoshop to design the pages and the cover. The loxley at 40 pages would cost you somewhere nearer £200. Depends on what your clients are happy to pay for. The loxley is a better quality book. I don't think you can print on the outside of the Loxley book as that is a leather style cover with perspex protectors..and each of the pages is really chunky (like the kids books that toddlers train their teeth on!!).

I use http://www.albumfactory.co.uk/uk/ , the FUN photobook hardback. Cardboard size - 21 x 27,5 cm, portrait. That is a bit larger than A4 for each sheet. Albumfactory also do a softbacked version that is really nice because it is like a glossy magazine. The clients are really happy with the look and feel of these even though I stress to them that they are getting the cheap end of the market and that quality definately improves with the more expensive albums. I do like the fact that you can create images on the cover of their books. Remember that anything you can do in photoshop (including text) can be saved as a jpg.

Basically, I do the photobook as a "nice to have" rather than an essential part of the service.

The other thing that I have noticed is that the Loxley prints - you can print across two open pages and their printers will not lose any of the middle content of the split image. Whereas, I have to duplicate my images onto two layers and move some of the image across the middle to accomodate the printers because they suck the image into the binding (I think this is called the "bleed amount"). Then I have to crop each half of the double page, save as jpgs and restructure the one page template from albumfactory to get my photoshopped pages to fit. This is a lot of messing around. Apparently they are working on a new piece of software that will allow printing across pages using their templates - but I'm still waiting and suffering!!! Looks like the more you pay, the easier it gets! When albumfactory get their @rses in gear I will then be able to produce a double page in photoshop and simply save as a jpg without phaffing around with the bleed amounts and crops!

[phildemon2]

Just been looking at the Montage site - through Spicer Hallfiled.
They do allow you to create story book albums - The bloke in the shop told me that it was just for positioning photos using the overlays.
The pdf shows a walkthrough of montage.
www.spicerhallfield.co.uk/montagepv/MontageWalkthrough_v2305.pdf
Still my options are open looking to download Loxley design programme (Free)
Thanks Phil