I'm starting the design for my first Finao album. This is probably a completely rookie question, but I called Finao to get some direction, and apparently most people just use their templates as a guideline and design in PS.
Is that what you Finao users do? I thought there might be a program software out there to do it in.
Yep, that's what I've been reading. And I do have it, so I guess it's time to learn it, and harness it. Thanks for the feedback. Are you using Finao, Tony?
Friscoron, I use Fiano as well and really like them but I think on my next one I am going to give West coast a try. I have been using photo-junction for my designs as it is free. I really need to spend more time with Indesign as I tried it once but never got the hang of it. You will be pleased with Finao especially if their turn around time has improved as their latest announcement stated.
You could give LumaPix FotoFusion a try. It may not be as fancy or flexible as InDesign, but it gets the job done, and it's fairly easy to learn. It's less than half the price of InDesign, and their support people actually answer the phone.
Ron, I just opened up fotofusion to see if Finao is loaded in there and it is which means all of the sizes including bleed & trim are already formatted. I use fotofusion for album design but I have not printed with finao to date, I have however printed with other companies and designed in fotofusion. I do not own InDesign, so I have no experience with it yet. Fotofusion does everything I would want it to do. I design each album from scratch, I do not use templates. For me I use that as a selling point that every album is unique in design. You have to come up with a system on how to layout your spreads and designs.
Most photographers have no design experience. Trying to tell them is like talking to a wall because they think if they are getting paid then they are designing and at a professional level. Which is why so many album designs are crap.
So start with the premise that you are a crap designer and should leave it to the professionals. Now if you absolutely know that is not true then sure, go ahead and use a graphics program.
Otherwise outsource or get a template program such as YSI. or Fundy Album Builder or Yevant's Page Gallery or whatever.
