Fundy Album Builder is great. It isn't a stand alone piece of software though. It works as a plugin/extension to Photoshop. It will greatly speed up your designing of albums though once you know how to use it.
Same goes for Albums in Design which is an extension for InDesign. Works pretty much the same way.
I use fundy SOS. Don't know what I would do without it. I outsource a lot of albums for my sanity's sake. But, anything I don't send out, I use fundy for, including building my blogs. The flexibility is amazing... Perfect for someone like me who's math skills aren't real strong. I used to do it by hand and getting things equal and even could be a huge time suck. With fundy though, I'm only limited by my creativity. If I can lay it out in my head, I can lay it out with fundy in just a few seconds. One more click and I can add my print sharpening actions while placing the image.
I started with PageGallery and then picked up Fundy Album Builder so that I could design the odd page myself when the templates in PageGallery did not do the job. The software works as describes, but I found a few things lead me to look elsewhere. It is awkward to browse through files for putting into a page, at the moment you can't use MiniBridge so if you want a to put an image it you have to go through the file browser of the operating system or have Bridge open and flick between it and Photoshop. It is also the same for the album pages, there is no organizer in-buillt so you have to sort that out yourself.
When it comes to aligning images together there are no automatic tools in Photoshop to this, for example have equal spaces between a group of images or aligned vertically, you have to set up your own guide-lines which is a pain.
The last thing is I find it was a bit slow, compared to other software as you have the actual images open in the page as opposed to other software which has referenced thumbnails.
I tried GraphiStudio's software, but you have limited function with album pages, you can only take very low resolution images into other software for slideshows etc. It is also a bit buggy, after finishing one album design I could not access it any more and had to start from scratch again with a different piece of software.
I then started using Photojunction, which is free and quiet a complete piece of software.
I was able to open my album pages designed with PageGallery and then save those pages as templates, so in theory you could with a bit of time get all the templates from PageGallery into Photojunction. Is also has good organizers for both images and pages and looks of useful things for aligning images. It also links up with albumexposure.com so you can put the album pages on-line for your clients to approve.
Photojunction is produced by Queensberry, but you can use it with other album producers, it can do digital storybook design, matt type albums and duo designs.
I still use Jorgensen's JAD software for their Matted albums, but I could have just saved the money I spent on that software and their samples and gone with Queensberry.
If I was to do it again I would still start with PageGallery as I think the templates are great for starting with, I would then go with Photojunction and maybe do both the digital and matt albums with them as it is great to just have to know one piece of software for the album design.
I'm also looking at Indesign, it is expensive but being Adobe you know it will be kept up to date and you are not at the mercy of an album supplier's software. Also I use Lightroom so the ratings/Lables can be seen in MiniBridge.
Where Indesign could really come into its own it when it comes video and stills you could design some interesting stuff for iPads etc to go with the more traditional units.
Fwiw, I thought photojunction was the buggiest album software ever.
You can align items vertically, across the centers, etc... With the move tool, select the items you want to line up and look in the tool bar. The options are right there. Little boxes with lines through them noting what alignment they offer. No guides needed.
I put all my album images in one folder and add them from there. Did you watch fundy's video about how to prep for album design? I do a slightly less structured version of that.
jolahern wrote:
I started with PageGallery and then picked up Fundy Album Builder so that I could design the odd page myself the templates in PageGallery did not do the job. The software works as describes, but I found a few things lead me to look elsewhere. It is awkward to browse through files for putting into a page, at the moment you can't use MiniBridge so if you want a to put an image it you have to go through the file browser of the operating system or have Bridge open and flick between it and Photoshop. It is also the same for the album pages, there is no organizer in-buillt so you have to sort that out yourself.
When it comes to aligning images together there are no automatic tools in Photoshop to this, for example have equal spaces between a group of images or aligned vertically, you have to set up your own guide-lines which is a pain.
The last thing is I find it was a bit slow, compared to other software as you have the actual images open in the page as opposed to other software which has referenced thumbnails.
I tried GraphiStudio's software, but you have limited function with album pages, you can only take very low resolution images into other software for slideshows etc. It is also a bit buggy, after finishing one album design I could not access it any more and had to start from scratch again with a different piece of software.
I then started using Photojunction, which is free and quiet a complete piece of software.
I was able to open my album pages designed with PageGallery and then save those pages as templates, so in theory you could with a bit of time get all the templates from PageGallery into Photojunction. Is also has good organizers for both images and pages and looks of useful things for aligning images. It also links up with albumexposure.com so you can put the album pages on-line for your clients to approve.
Photojunction is produced by Queensberry, but you can use it with other album producers, it can do digital storybook design, matt type albums and duo designs.
I still use Jorgensen's JAD software for their Matted albums, but I could have just saved the money I spent on that software and their samples and gone with Queensberry.
If I was to do it again I would still start with PageGallery as I think the templates are great for starting with, I would then go with Photojunction and maybe do both the digital and matt albums with them as it is great to just have to know one piece of software for the album design.
I'm also looking at Indesign, it is expensive but being Adobe you know it will be kept up to date and you are not at the mercy of an album supplier's software. Also I use Lightroom so the ratings/Lables can be seen in MiniBridge.
Where Indesign could really come into its own it when it comes video and stills you could design some interesting stuff for iPads etc to go with the more traditional units.
Thank you so much for an elaborate answer. I was about to buy the Fundy Album builder but now I hesitate. What about Lumapix FotoFusion? That should be real easy and fast..?
jolahern wrote:
I started with PageGallery and then picked up Fundy Album Builder so that I could design the odd page myself the templates in PageGallery did not do the job. The software works as describes, but I found a few things lead me to look elsewhere. It is awkward to browse through files for putting into a page, at the moment you can't use MiniBridge so if you want a to put an image it you have to go through the file browser of the operating system or have Bridge open and flick between it and Photoshop. It is also the same for the album pages, there is no organizer in-buillt so you have to sort that out yourself.
When it comes to aligning images together there are no automatic tools in Photoshop to this, for example have equal spaces between a group of images or aligned vertically, you have to set up your own guide-lines which is a pain.
The last thing is I find it was a bit slow, compared to other software as you have the actual images open in the page as opposed to other software which has referenced thumbnails.
I tried GraphiStudio's software, but you have limited function with album pages, you can only take very low resolution images into other software for slideshows etc. It is also a bit buggy, after finishing one album design I could not access it any more and had to start from scratch again with a different piece of software.
I then started using Photojunction, which is free and quiet a complete piece of software.
I was able to open my album pages designed with PageGallery and then save those pages as templates, so in theory you could with a bit of time get all the templates from PageGallery into Photojunction. Is also has good organizers for both images and pages and looks of useful things for aligning images. It also links up with albumexposure.com so you can put the album pages on-line for your clients to approve.
Photojunction is produced by Queensberry, but you can use it with other album producers, it can do digital storybook design, matt type albums and duo designs.
I still use Jorgensen's JAD software for their Matted albums, but I could have just saved the money I spent on that software and their samples and gone with Queensberry.
If I was to do it again I would still start with PageGallery as I think the templates are great for starting with, I would then go with Photojunction and maybe do both the digital and matt albums with them as it is great to just have to know one piece of software for the album design.
I'm also looking at Indesign, it is expensive but being Adobe you know it will be kept up to date and you are not at the mercy of an album supplier's software. Also I use Lightroom so the ratings/Lables can be seen in MiniBridge.
Where Indesign could really come into its own it when it comes video and stills you could design some interesting stuff for iPads etc to go with the more traditional units.
michaelbennati wrote:
Thank you so much for an elaborate answer. I was about to buy the Fundy Album builder but now I hesitate. What about Lumapix FotoFusion? That should be real easy and fast..?
Hope my post did not come across too negative about Album Builder, it is all too easy to point out the negative things and not mention all the great things about a piece of software.
All the software mentioned can be downloaded for a trial so I would not hesitate, download it and give it a try, along with the other software. But if you have the time, download one software, get to know it, design an album, then when the trial for that runs out, try another piece of software. If you are very savvy in Photoshop you could love it. If you want to continue using PageGallery and want to just design the odd page then it is great for that, you can then add it into the album in PageGallery by inserting it as a full spread.
Also the producers of the Fundy Album Builder are very responsive, I recently asked about the fact if you edited an image after putting into a spread it would automatically flatten the image which I did not want. Within that evening Fundy had responded with a fix. And I see he has responded here to say another problem I had with alignment has been dealt with in the latest version.
Bring on fixing the MiniBridge problem.
You can download a trial of Lumapix. It really speeds things up and has a lot of flexibility. I find it really user friendly, but they have video tutorials to help you out if you happen to get stuck on something.
