nigerianitmare wrote:

It is obvious that sboerup don't know much about Indesign.


Not the point of the conversation. None of us were born with the complete knowledge of all available software. That is the reason for this thread to gather opinions on Album creation software. Not which is better or worse. But which is preferred. We all had to learn. PS, ID, FFusion .... really doesn't matter.

Spence was right ... until the the most recent version of ID ... not everyone has been able to take the time to get up to speed. If you don't prefer to use a specific software, you probably will not be inclined to keep up with new features.

butchM wrote:
nigerianitmare wrote:

It is obvious that sboerup don't know much about Indesign.


Not the point of the conversation. None of us were born with the complete knowledge of all available software. That is the reason for this thread to gather opinions on Album creation software. Not which is better or worse. But which is preferred. We all had to learn. PS, ID, FFusion .... really doesn't matter.

Spence was right ... until the the most recent version of ID ... not everyone has been able to take the time to get up to speed. If you don't prefer to use a specific software, you probably will not be inclined to keep up with new features.

The reason I made my comment was because he talks like he knows a lot about Indesign.

As Photoshop assumes you're a photographer, InDesign assumes you're a designer.

Lord Fluff wrote:
I already did actually Jonathan - then hit a page asking me to fill in all my details and register. Bah.

Really? I thought I had it set to no password or registration.. Let me see if I can fix it.

Jonathan

Jonathan - it worked fine for me.

For my first project, i used fotofusion, and it seems that for fast album layout is a good tool. Anyway, after reading your opinions, i will give a try to indesign.
Do you know any tutorials available excepting kevin Swan?

The latest Photo Fusion works very well for me. There is a learning curve to it, but once over it I can breeze through a design. I have also used it for pamphlets and other marketing handouts. I am sure that CS3 can do the same, but for those who do not know CS3 well I think FF will serve them well.

I have to recommend ...
www.spc-international.it/store/product_info.php?products_id=394

what do you do about printing the albums...haven't done any albums but am interested.

thanks.

MIke Mahoney - nice pictures and nice looking album spreads.

- InDesign - more or less the way to go.

If you are gonna bother learning something - learn the right thing.

I have the DG Foto. Not many people use that. The software is a bit tricky than what I'd wanted,but I love it anyways. Templates are better than any other album software. I do have all their extra templates,maybe that's why I love it. It really seems like the software is for wedding photographers, so all of their templates are wedding related

Hi,
I haven't used any of the 4 alternatives you suggest but I have used Photoshop for creating albums and once you get the hang of the few techniques required it can be very fast. Plus you already own the software for image editing - so why complicate things by learning new software?

With Photoshop you can either buy templates or create your own. I started out by creating my own designs and then changing the photos for blank placeholders and saving the layouts as templates for future use. After you've done that a few times you find yourself re-using the same layouts over and over again.

And if you want something different you can pick out a layout and then change it around a bit. I would stick with what you know and concentrate on your designs rather than on learning something new.

Cheers

Max
www.albumdesignforum.com

Edited by maxd on Aug 01, 2008 at 07:13 PM GMT

Ok - We use PG 3.5 and love it but we take the layered files from the final album and tweak them in PS CS3. This saves an enormous amount of time. I can design a 40page album and tweak it in no more than 3 hours. Obviously if you are charging 10,000 than you should probably learn InDesign etc...

I have FotoFusion, but if I could afford InDesign right now, I'd buy it in a heartbeat. I used Adobe PageMaker, which is a forefunner of InDesign, and it was great.

You're right liza, ID is Pagemaker on steroids and then some .... worth every penny.

Has anybody tried AlbumDS? It's design to work with PS.

am i the only one who believes in simplicity in album design? i havent had an album order but i would do 1-2 images per page except for certain things like bridal party headshots but even then i would keep everything in neat grids.

i think overlays and other crazy stuff are cheezy. here is an example of something i did in photoshop in 15 min.

For some of the brides, this is a bit too simple.
Otherwise, i like it!

i tend to go for a high-fashion style... go check out the louis vuitton website or prada... its all very simple. also go look at the WPPI album winners. the first place album winner only had photos on the right side of the spread and they were all centrally placed with no borders and only 1 photo per page. its about the images not the design gimmicks.

I'm totally with you on that serg...too many people try to make up for images that are lacking by using all kinds of text, crazy layout, flourishes, etc. simplicity is so underrated.