Planning:

The first thing you need to do to prepare for creating digital flush mount albums is research. Look at what is out there. Pour through as many albums as you can. Examine the designs. Look at what backgrounds people are using. Look at the photos which are being included. You cannot make a storybook album if all you have is 100 posed group photos.

Organize your photos. Create several folders titled with different stages of the event using a 2 digit number so they can be sorted chronologically. A typical wedding could look like this:

Place your photos into their corresponding folders. You should have a good balance of photos in the folders. If you have only 1 cake cutting and 15 first dance photos, you should probably reconsider your photo selections. If you are allowing the couple to choose the images for the book, you should explain this concept to them and coach them accordingly.

There should also be a folder for background images. These could include close ups of the stained glass windows, the bodice, the bouquet, the table settings, or anything else which identifies the event. If the bride is choosing images, the photographer is still going to be responsible for providing these backgrounds. These background images become optional design components as opposed to the chosen images which should all be included in the layouts.

Layout:

Depending on the layouts, choose about 4 to 5 images per spread. This allows for single panoramic prints and more dense collages. An album with 16 spreads would take about 70 images. Keep in mind that the more photos you include, the busier your layouts will be. At this point, you have already done the hardest part of your album creation.

This format will guarantee that your storybook will indeed tell a story. It will keep the flow of the actions and give all the necessary elements to create a masterful album. If you are submitting these files to us to design, simply copy these folders onto a CD or DVD and submit them along with any personal notes and an order form and we will do the layouts for you. Once our designer has finished the album, you will be emailed a proof of the spreads to approve.

If you want to do your own layouts, there are quite a few template and graphics programs you can work with. You can use PictoTools, PhotoJunction, You Select It, or work right in Photoshop to create your panoramic spreads. Try to avoid placing elements too close to the edge of the canvas. When the final binding is trimmed, it becomes easier to see imbalances in a design. A 1/16" difference in margins is much more apparent when a stroke line is very close to the edge of a page than when it is 1/4" away from it. The same principal is true with balanced/inverted designs. If you are laying out images geometrically, placing them at least 1/4" off the proposed edges will come out looking much better than trying to get them 1/8" off the edge. There is no problem whatsoever with bleeding your images off the edge of the paper. Once you finish your layout, you should save it as a layered file at 254 dpi. Most programs seem to leave you with .psd (Photoshop) files. If you flatten it into a .jpeg, we will have trouble doing an adequate color correction.

Printing:

If you are having these spreads printed at your local lab, please have them trim at least 2 sides for us. We also recommend letting them spray coat the photos to protect them from fingerprints and dust while in transit to us. If you are submitting prints on Metallic paper, we can only bind panoramic spreads without coating the paper. If you are submitting inkjet prints, the prints MUST be coated before we get them and we can only do a split bind service on them. Please send us thumbnails of the layouts so we can see the order of the spreads and number them on the back of the prints. We also suggest sending us the layouts on CD or DVD as backup. Any number of mishaps can occur in a binding process. If we can reprint a damaged spread as needed, we can be sure to maintain a consistent turnaround time. If you are having us do the printing, burn the layouts onto a series of CDs or DVDs. These files will be quite large so it usually takes 3 CDs to handle a full album design.

If we are printing the album, we will color correct the images and liquid laminate the pages. Color correction is very important. Many photographers spend a lot of time doing this in their studios. Very few of them have the necessary equipment to do it well. Not only do we have the hardware and software to calibrate our monitors to the printer and paper, but we have the experienced employees who know about color and how it relates to printing.