Wedding Albums

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poison9579

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marie
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A friend has asked me to do the photos for her wedding but wants them in a nice album but i dont no where to look for a really nice album has any one got any ideas thanks
 
BarryDawsib said:
ignoring the album, do you have any previous experience of weddings?
I may as well be the first to ask.
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Come on Barry, that's not what the OP is after. Please can we not have this thread derailed before it's even got going.

To the OP, Loxley are a good starting point. There are the Belissimo for the photobook type and the Artemis for the more traditional style.
 
The Loxley albums are amazing, if it were me I'd use them again and again. However, you pay for the quality so it depends on budget.
 
fabs said:
Come on Barry, that's not what the OP is after. Please can we not have this thread derailed before it's even got going.

To the OP, Loxley are a good starting point. There are the Belissimo for the photobook type and the Artemis for the more traditional style.
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they are really very good - they've also just started doing a traditional matted album. The plus side is for a one off theres no start up costs as with many album companies. The downside is they aren't the cheapest
 
boyfalldown said:
they are really very good - they've also just started doing a traditional matted album. The plus side is for a one off theres no start up costs as with many album companies. The downside is they aren't the cheapest
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And many thanks to you for your original recommendation for Loxley :clap:. The bride & groom (plus the vicar) rave about the album.
 
HCK said:
it can depend on what the B&G budget is, but Loxley are a quality supplier of albums.
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and a supplier of quality albums:)
 
fabs said:
Come on Barry, that's not what the OP is after. Please can we not have this thread derailed before it's even got going.
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its a relevant question, if they have no experience in weddings and you are openly throwing professional grade products to them and the stigma/learning curve involved in producing it.

would it not be a good idea to find out the facts including the details of the job and making an informed recormendation based on their skill and understanding?
 
Loxley are great, but you'll need to understand how to design an album that will look good - have you thought about just getting them an album from WH Smiths or Paperchase? I'm not meaning this in a sarcastic manner, rather that when doing something just for a friend, then you may find that our idea of a good album as pros is much higher than what your mates expect of you doing them a favour.
 
I went to Focus on Imaging just to show the Mrs what the Loxley albums looks like. We are getting married in May and the photographer is giving us all pics on a CD/DVD at full res so going to design my own.

She agreed and totally fell in love with the Bellisimo Classico........ They will be getting an order from me in June..!!!
 
BarryDawsib said:
its a relevant question, if they have no experience in weddings and you are openly throwing professional grade products to them and the stigma/learning curve involved in producing it.

would it not be a good idea to find out the facts including the details of the job and making an informed recormendation based on their skill and understanding?
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ZoZo said:
Loxley are great, but you'll need to understand how to design an album that will look good - have you thought about just getting them an album from WH Smiths or Paperchase? I'm not meaning this in a sarcastic manner, rather that when doing something just for a friend, then you may find that our idea of a good album as pros is much higher than what your mates expect of you doing them a favour.
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I understand what you guys are saying but the Loxley ROES software is quite easy to use and their customer service is excellent. It would not be difficult to produce a very good album at the first attempt, I will be doing so myself very shortly.
 
fabs said:
I understand what you guys are saying but the Loxley ROES software is quite easy to use and their customer service is excellent. It would not be difficult to produce a very good album at the first attempt, I will be doing so myself very shortly.
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My albums look good, but that has nothing to do with the software I use, it's because as someone who does this for a living I know what makes an album design look good. And that starts with shooting for the album. You're absolutely right that it's easy to put random images into an album, but that just ain't album design ;)

Mind, I used to think I was good at it before I needed to make a good living out of exceptional images in an exceptional album design. :lol:

Look, I'm not trying to pick a fight, and I honestly don't want to start an argument, but maybe think of it this way - both you and I own a pair of scissors, but there is no way that I'd set up as a hair stylist over night without learning the skills of the trade. And ain't no way you're cutting my hair :eek:
 
ZoZo said:
My albums look good, but that has nothing to do with the software I use, it's because as someone who does this for a living I know what makes an album design look good. And that starts with shooting for the album. You're absolutely right that it's easy to put random images into an album, but that just ain't album design ;)

Mind, I used to think I was good at it before I needed to make a good living out of exceptional images in an exceptional album design. :lol:

Look, I'm not trying to pick a fight, and I honestly don't want to start an argument, but maybe think of it this way - both you and I own a pair of scissors, but there is no way that I'd set up as a hair stylist over night without learning the skills of the trade. And ain't no way you're cutting my hair :eek:
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I'm not trying to pick a fight either Zoe, just pointing out that it's not impossible to put together a wedding album without copious amount of wedding experience.
 
As much as I love the Loxley products and the ROES interface, I also find the Sim2000imaging albums very lovely and their software very intuitive and their customer service second to none. The fact that they are on my doorstep is an added bonus!
 
fabs said:
I understand what you guys are saying but the Loxley ROES software is quite easy to use and their customer service is excellent. It would not be difficult to produce a very good album at the first attempt, I will be doing so myself very shortly.
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Use LDP rather than ROES for album design. Its much more flexible as a design interface.
 
fabs said:
I'm not trying to pick a fight either Zoe, just pointing out that it's not impossible to put together a wedding album without copious amount of wedding experience.
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It might not be impossible Marc but I'd say based on experience that it's unlikely.

It took me a year to start to fully understand shooting for the album, how to select the images for the album and what would actually work together to make pages that have the impact you invisaged right back when you shot them.

It's one of the reasons that choosing album suppliers IS such a big deal. I don't want to have to think about which kind of album am I going to have to shoot for today.

You also need to be aware of the different requirements of the various printers. Do they want RGB or CMYK? Do they want an embedded colour profile? Do you know what a bleed area is and how to work with images on full pages? Do they require JPEG's or TIFF's and at what size and dpi?

Which colours work together and which clash? The colour wheel does help here but keeping complimentary images working within a time line is not as easy as it looks.

It's why the photographic industry have awards just for album design, it's a skill in it's own right.
 
fabs said:
I'm not trying to pick a fight either Zoe, just pointing out that it's not impossible to put together a wedding album without copious amount of wedding experience.
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Nothing is impossible, Marc, but being good at something takes time, practice, experience. :D

Just as amateurs are tired of the professional wedding photographers putting our points across about needing the right kit, insurance, experience, etc, we too as professionals are tired of people thinking anyone can do it. We've been on the journey, we know it's hard to become good, but sadly there are many people who just don't value the hard work we put in and think it's easy to shoot a wedding and make an album.

But I guess when there are more court cases of successful suings of wedding photographers like last year's then some people may be a little less willing to shoot a wedding for free or next to nothing just because they own a camera. ;)
 
OK, people seem to be missing my point here. This isn't about wedding photography itself, it's about producing an album. My point is that it is not impossible to put together a decent album using the Loxley packages, I didn't say it would be easy.

We also shouldn't be comparing producing an albm to actually shooting a wedding. If the album isn't right, it is easily redone. No-one is saying that the OP will be able to put together an award winning album, but are we saying they shouldn't do one at all?
 
fabs said:
We also shouldn't be comparing producing an albm to actually shooting a wedding.
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That's the point we are making though Marc, the two are intrinsically linked!

I will shoot certain sequences because I know they will make a good double spread in the album. I know how to shoot them, I know how much space I need around the subjects and I know the expressions I'm looking for at the time of shooting. I can see the finished page before I've even pressed the shutter. I will go hunting for specific shots because I know they will make a double spread in the album, I will shoot certain candids because I know I can group a certain number in a template that will balance well with something else I just shot.

An album is not just a piece of software for sticking a collection of random pictures together. Or at least it shouldn't be. ;)
 
OK, I'm obviously not putting myself across very well.

To put it simply, let's assume that the OP doesn't have an issue with shooting the wedding as she hasn't asked for any advice in that area. So she just wants recommendations of where to source a nice album. I, amongst others, have suggested Loxley as the albums are lovely and the software/customer service will enable them to produce said album. This is the point I am trying to put across.

So are you saying she should try to put an album together at all?
 
I'm going to have a rant here 'cos the patronising tone of some of these posts is making my stomach turn over! :razz:

If Marc wants to design his own album, how about offering some advice about HOW to do it rather than tell him that you've got to have years of experience and built up a mass of arrogance before you can design one!

Ali's the only one who's given sound advice regarding the things you need to think about when choosing and designing an album but some of the stuff mentioned prior to that is just arrogant self-gratifying waffle.

Si
 
But Simon, I didn't think you liked harsh, blunt comments being made - didn't you say that manners doesn't take much? ;) :lol:

So OK, Simon, here's the advice, which I didn't see any point in repeating as Ali had said it, but you'll see we're both on the same page:

Firstly, when photographing the wedding make sure you photograph in such a manner that you are shooting for the album. Work out well before you shoot which images will go where, what direction people need to face in, how they will be positioned on the page, what heights they will be in relation to each other, continuation of lines so that images work well together, colours that will be complimentary, which images will work together on a B&W spread. Ensure you have the images that tell the story on a spread so that they will all work together without having to tell the story out of order, or confuse a page with images that are not meant to go together (eg, you can't have the bride getting ready on one page and the groom standing in the church on the next - this isn't common sense, it's the kind of mistakes I have seen and will probably continue to see as long as people think that album design is easy)

Next, go and research design concepts, about how the various design elements work together in terms of colour, concept, positioning and sizing, in terms of the way in which the ratios work together, rules of diagonals and storytelling.

Next, familiarise yourself with the design software or templates you intend to use, and get used to how to use them and how to make them work together - too many images on one page can appear to be messy, so check out about how you tell the story with the number of images on a page - eg, when you are showcasing your candids of guests having a laugh and enjoying themselves you can afford to have a more chaotic page, but it also needs to be followed by something easier on the eye. Whereas portraits of the bride being contemplative will not work with more than about 2 per page as the number of images on the page will distract from the emotion.

Now start practicing on designing albums, make a lot of mistakes, and after about 20 or 30 albums you may find that your album designs are ok.

I guess that's a start in offering advice -the final bit of advice would be that this skill, just like that of photography, and creativity, will not develop over night unless you have some previous experience with design of brochures of images. Even graphic designers can struggle because they are used to designing with text and images and not images alone.

Anyhow, that's my advice, and I'm sorry that my professional knowledge that I share here for free offends you.
 
fabs said:
OK, I'm obviously not putting myself across very well.

To put it simply, let's assume that the OP doesn't have an issue with shooting the wedding as she hasn't asked for any advice in that area. So she just wants recommendations of where to source a nice album. I, amongst others, have suggested Loxley as the albums are lovely and the software/customer service will enable them to produce said album. This is the point I am trying to put across.

So are you saying she should try to put an album together at all?
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It's not that you're not making your point clear, it's that as you don't shoot weddings, (at least, that's how it's coming across) then you haven't got the knowledge of what goes into what we do. So the easiest solution for someone who is shooting for a mate is to either use something like Blurb or get a slip in album from WH Smtih.

Best route though is to speak to the bride about what her expectations are before sourcing an album that is way beyond what she meant by 'nice album'
 
ZoZo said:
It's not that you're not making your point clear, it's that as you don't shoot weddings, (at least, that's how it's coming across) then you haven't got the knowledge of what goes into what we do. So the easiest solution for someone who is shooting for a mate is to either use something like Blurb or get a slip in album from WH Smtih.

Best route though is to speak to the bride about what her expectations are before sourcing an album that is way beyond what she meant by 'nice album'
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OK Zoe, you make a fair point about the bride's expectations and I'm probably guilty of making the assumption that the OP would be doing this as that is always my approach. I have shot one wedding, hence my comment that I will shortly be producing an album. As such, I have done a lot of research including ensuring that the bride has had plenty of input. Maybe I just assumed everybody works that way (wrong I know) and that is good advice to pass onto the OP.
 
I wonder what your perspective will be after you have designed your first album :D - if you want to compare yours against one of mine after you've done it I'll happily send you a pdf of an album so that you can understand better what I mean about it being a skill in itself, and you'll also see how I shot the wedding for the album because of how the images flow together.
 
Marie, can I suggest two of my current faves - Loxley and GF Smith. Price wise GF Smith are excellent - and the quality is excellent.

Give them a call (they're based in Hull) and ask them to send you a copy of their album design software.

For the record guys we don't know anything about the OP. She's probably got more artistic talent than most of us! So lets assume she CAN design an album and lets assume she CAN take a decent photograph.

Jeez, some of us are so quick to assume other photographers are somehow inferior - without knowing the first thing about them. :cuckoo:
 
ZoZo said:
...Anyhow, that's my advice, and I'm sorry that my professional knowledge that I share here for free offends you.
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:bang:

Hi Zoe,

Out of respect to the other members of this forum, I'll take my reply to PM.

Simon
 
Beat you to it, Simon, I've already sent you a PM as I don't think your personal attacking is helpful on the forum
Thanks
Zoe
 
ZoZo said:
I wonder what your perspective will be after you have designed your first album :D - if you want to compare yours against one of mine after you've done it I'll happily send you a pdf of an album so that you can understand better what I mean about it being a skill in itself, and you'll also see how I shot the wedding for the album because of how the images flow together.
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My first album will be a Loxley Artemis album with one photo per page in chronological order. The photos going into the album will have been chosen by the bride as is the layout. This is why I consulted wih the bride. ;)
 
And I thought it was going to be a quiet morning............ members can be so tetchy, what ever happened to a debate without slagging each other off.

My advice is, read all the advice given, personally I like being patronised if I am new or know nothing about a subject. After all, I would not be on here asking questions otherwise.



Ps I hope this thread has not scared the OP away.
 
Wow, it's amazing how a perfectly simple question can descend into a bitch-fest. Yet again. :thumbsdown:

Whilst album design is important everybody has to start somewhere and get their first one in. There have been some good suggestions here and if you are nervous about designing your album you might want to consider outsourcing the design element - there are a lot of good companies out there both in the UK and overseas who can do this for you.
 
ZoZo said:
Beat you to it, Simon, I've already sent you a PM as I don't think your personal attacking is helpful on the forum
Thanks
Zoe
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Hi Zoe,

I wasn't aware that it was a race! ;)

It's not a personal attack Zoe... It's called advice! :)
Si
 
DDP said:
Wow - I had no idea so many people were so inept at album design :shrug:. Clearly I am gifted because creating an album seems to come pretty naturally to me :lol:
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great response, just what this forum needs. :thumbsdown:
 
What an entertaining thread.

I use a Colorworld since their lab is local to me and they are excellent but you can't go wrong with Loxley.

On a side note, I'm interested to know how you guys shoot for the album. In my experience, the brides very seldom select the shots I expect them to! I find the skill in building a standout album comes once the shots selections are given back to you. Nothing to do with the shooting on the day...
 
Ah, well that comes from the approach you take in your selection part of the process. I give brides one of 4 options after they have viewed their images:

1. Leave me to design the album with no input from them
2. They tell me what's not to go in the album and then leave me to design it
3. They tell me their hates and their absolute favourite 10 images and then I design the album
4. They tell me the images they love and the images they hate and then leave me to design from there.

Most of my clients go for option 2, so that gives me free reign to create something beautiful for them to then proof.
 
tiler65 said:
great response, just what this forum needs. :thumbsdown:
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Oh sorry, am I meant to agree with everyone?

I do not agree with Zoe's post on the previous page in which Zoe implies that most people are inept at album design. Came pretty naturally to me, having been there and taken the photographs, so I don't see what all the fuss is about, and think the tone of Zoe's post is a tad elitist (unnecessarily so).

Does the longer response above meet with your approval or am I still getting the thumbs down for having an opinion?

ETA: perhaps the sarcasm didn't come across in my original post
 
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