from a recent email from Asuka....

1.) The design software that AsukaBook is in the process of developing will hopefully be rolled out next spring! Another option for you, for now might be, AutoAlbum from our partner company Kubota Image Tools.

All you do is prepare your standard image and save it as a .tif, .jpg, or Photoshop file. Tell the software which image you want to place in the numbered layout location, and click play--the software grabs the images, sizes them perfectly, applies any special enhancements, and completes the page. This is available at the website listed below.

http://kubotaworkshops.com/store/cart.php?...category_id=258

2.) The leather books, the bigger EX albums, and our new website will all be rolled out by early July, we hope. I apologize for the delay in this. We have been waiting on our new website to be done, before rolling out our new products, and wouldn’t you know it, we have run into glitch after glitch! Thanks for your patience in this!

michael

I wish they were set up to accept InDesign pdf files. Hello? Is anybody listening? InDesign is a PAGE LAYOUT program. Like, duh.

+1000





[rant]

Why does every company need to create their own proprietary design interface?????????



Why? Really?


There are 8 or 10 different design systems out there and every one of them are crude attempts at a smooth free flowing design system.

There is a *reason* the entire page layout industry uses InDesign.

Magazines? check.
Newspapers? check.
Book publishers? check.
Every highschool yearbook in the country? check.
Packaging design? check.
Billboards? check.
Newsletter production? check.
Brochure design? check.

Wedding album photography? Nope. We're going to re-invent the wheel. Differently. With different proportions. And differnt keystrokes. And different implentations. And different file formats. For every album manufacturer. So EVERY photographer has to pull their hair out and jump through needless hoops of copying the industry standard output, one page at a time, via photoshop, and pasting it into some other back-aqward system to order the actual book.





If you manufacture albums, STOP coding software. Come up with a way that the multitudes of people can use the same industry standard software to submit designs in the industry standard ways. The rest of the entire print world has this figured out, except apparently wedding album producers. Let us embed images and send you either a single InDesign file, or export it all as a large master PDF and we can send that. Problem solved. Everyone's life is easier. We can leave page layout up to the people at Adobe who have been doing it forever, and we can leave album manufacturing up to you. If you can code these over complicated and under efficient systems, then *surely* you can come up with some way to accept an Id file or a PDF.

And really, honestly, and bluntly - InDesign is not hard. It's incredibly simple if you only learn the parts you need. It's MUCH more intuative than any of the other design systems out there.

[/rant]


Ahhhh.... deep breath.

Thanks Jules. I feel better now.

I haven't done albums yet, but +1 to Kevin. Besides, you'd think that letting people use industry standard software would make better business sense - users are happier, and you eliminate the cost of supporting your proprietary interface

I would imagine since it's being designed by Asuka for Asuka products, it will be very simple to use and will take care of all the variables to make designing books for their printing process a breeze. Or maybe not.

Actually, the page layout/print industry is dominated by Quark Xpress, but InDesign is (and I'm glad for this) got them beat on so many levels. It's only a matter of time for the designers to be heard by the buyers and make the switch.

Quark got complacent and there going to eventually lose their market share. My 0.02...

Actually, not anymore.

Definitely not anymore. Where do you get that figure?

Anyway, PLEASE PLEASE PLEASE put in the word for us Michael... Asuka needs to be able to accept PDF files or something... some way to make it easier for us to design in InDesign. Photoshop is horribly frustrating to design an album in, and I'd be ordering a BUNCH more albums from Asuka if I could do them in InDesign.

+100000!!! I just spent two hours (yes, two hours) designing two little tiny 5x5 20-page very, very simple books for newborns. As soon as there is a competitor who offers the same quality product (I know of the options and don't like them nearly as much) and values my time more, I'll probably switch.

And the 4-6 week turnaround time is just plain silly.

In my best Dr. McCoy voice:

D*mm*t, Jim--I'm a doctor not a graphic designer!

Has anyone used Red Boot Design to do layout for Asuka? Or other options?

I've wanted to try Asuka but am--apparently like many others--put off by having to design the album in PS.

--Michael

DEAR ASUKA,
We love your quality. We love your printing. We love your book printing options.

But we will find a company that supports pdf files created in InDesign. Why? Because that way we can design a book, a BOOK, not a single spread, in one document the way books are supposed to be designed. You are a BOOK printer. We are BOOK creators. Give us what we want or we will go elsewhere. Oh by the way, we DON'T want yet another album design package that "grabs" images and puts them into some predetermined layout scheme. Yuck. The last thing I need is more junk on my computer. I want to use Creative Suite because I paid for it and it's a GREAT set of programs with GREAT page layout software.

I don't understand the problem. Why can't you just give us what we want?

So I agree 1000%.

I don't know why album companies have to be so dumb with not accepting .indd files, or at least the press ready pdfs to their specs...

I think they are mainly scared we might screw up and not do the pdf conversion correctly, but I mean come on...

I still use indesign for album desing and just export the pdfs or .eps spreads from indesign and drop them into the idiot templates then send it off.

Indesign makes my web/e-mail pdfs real fast to make for proof and talking with clients, and I can switch crap out and make changes without breaking a sweat or worrying about having the .psd file and how to best make those changes etc.

Please PLEASE start supporting InDesign all you Album Company big whigs.

If you are doing flushmounts obviously InDesign is great, and CS3 will finally output high res jpegs.

Also InDesign is the new Quark. Quark what? Designers have dropped that for the most part and just convert Quark docs. over to InDesign now.

they do it because once you get used to their software and it fits in your workflow, it'll be much harder for you to switch to another album company and start all over. They're evil!

Praise the LAWWWD! You're right on the money.

Accepting American Express would be a good way to open the client base up a little too. There are too many other album companies that do take AMEX to use ones that don't...

OT: I was paying for something this weekend and mentioned to someone in line that I had really wanted to pay with AMEX when the person taking my card said "Nobody takes American Express."

When I hear that it absolutely drives me nuts. If our small business takes American Express then why doesn't everyone?

ohh, i'm exicted they are offering an album design program !!! yah. this makes me very happy.

so excited for the leather options too...

thanks for the updates.

I totally agree with Kevin! It's such a pain to prepare the files for Asuka.

We have found out that if we setup the InDesign file correctly that we can output JPEG files that will be accepted by their program but it's still such a pain.

And what drives me even more nutz is the fact that you have to stick to the specific page counts! That doesn't work when we're predesigning books and then giving the couple an option of Leather Craftsmen or Asuka!

So I sent the link to this thread to Asuka as an FYI, and this is the response I got back.

Japan, huh?

From what I understand, Japan is where the books are all printed. I could be totally wrong on that. But... Kubota runs the Asuka office out of Bend, Oregon (where we're from) but his staff there deals mainly with design, layout, making sure the files are all the way they need to be, handling customer service, and then they are sent off for printing. Red Boot Design is also one of the Kubota companies and they function our of Bend, as well. Japan is where the parent company is located, Bend is where the USA office is.


I don't know if you were even asking a question - but I thought I'd try to clear up the Japan part.

Hope that helps...

Asukanet Japan is the parent company and they do over 200,000 books a year for professional photographers and designers in Japan.

I don't find it that big of a problem placing my album pdf (exported from Indesign) into the Asuka jpg templates and saving to jpg. It gives me one last chance to look over each spread before going to File checker to output the final pdf. Yes, it does take one extra step, but is not a deal-breaker by any means. The quality of the books has been GREAT from files converted from Indesign.

Hi everyone,

This is Kevin Kubota, I am the managing rep for Asukabook USA. Thanks very much for your feedback on using InDesign to create layouts for the Asukabooks. We definitely take all your wants and requests very seriously and want to make sure that everyone understands our reasons for doing things. Unfortunately, with forums, a lot of random pieces of rumor and gossip start to flow and it's really not fair to those on the other side of "the mob", so to speak. We really do want this to be the best, and easiest to use book company out there for you! We really aren't trying to make it difficult - there is so much more to it that most people just don't take the time to try and understand - so I would like to try and help here.

Myth #1: We don't support the industry standard, InDesign.
Although InDesign is a great page layout tool, it is actually not industry standard for most photographers. Photoshop is owned by almost every photographer in the world, and these are our primary clients - Photographers. We also cater to designers, and we love them too, but Photographers are the bulk of our business. So, in essence, we have picked the easiest and most common piece of software to work in - that most every photographer already owns. We would certainly love to support everyone's favorite software, but we can't do that - yet.

Now, that doesn't mean we want to ignore users that prefer inDesign by any means. We just have to prioritize our expenses and projects. We have developed special software (File Checker) to check and package the JPG files that Photoshop produces. It also adds special XML ordering information then produces the PDF file. This is not something that inDesign can do by itself. We would have to create a new File Checker program to process the .indd files, and package them into the PDF format our press needs. A normal PDF file from InDesign is not compatible with our press. This is not an inexpensive or easy process - if you've ever had custom software developed, you know what I mean. It is something, however, that we've discussed and hope to implement in the future - we just have to prioritize where our time and money is spent.

Another reason that we initially offered support in Photoshop is that it allows the user full control of effects, blends, layers, etc that may not be easy or possible to do in other layout programs. Keep in mind that most of the books submitted are just images - very little, if any, text - so a true page layout tool is not really necessary.

Myth #2: Turnaround is 4-6 weeks.
We actually promise in 4 weeks and usually deliver sooner. This is because our books are printed in Japan, and this is also why the quality is unmatched in the industry. They have proprietary press profiles and systems in place that have been in use for years already in Japan. Why not turn this in to a selling point for your clients? Tell them, "We have custom made books, selected for their quality and imported from Japan, and therefore they take a bit longer to create." I use this approach with my clients all the time. I share with them that I am creating a custom product for them, not a mass produced clone, and this takes a little more time. They appreciate it even more and are willing to wait another week or two.

Myth #3: We use proprietary software so you can't use other album companies. We are evil.
We actually created our templates originally in Photoshop because we didn't want anyone to have to use proprietary software. Photoshop is already owned by most all of our clients and potential clients. We are now working on creating proprietary software, as you may have heard, but this software is FREE to our users, and why would we spend considerable extra expense and time to make it design for all other manufacturers when it's given away FREE? Our sole purpose of creating this software is to help make it easier for less technically inclined users to create an album in Asukabook. We want to make it easier for you, that is our only goal.

Myth #4: We force you to stick to specific page counts.
Actually, this is true, but it's for a specific reason. Because this is a book printing process (the same process that makes these books so popular and different from traditional albums) - not an individual page album, like Leather Craftsman, they have to be printed in signatures - meaning 4 pages of the book on a single sheet. They are then stacked together and bound in the middle. This is how ALL books are normally printed and it's why you often see blank pages in some other types of books. It is not physically possible to print and bind only one or two pages. Also, the number of pages you add affects the cover spine depth. We cannot effectively have covers for every possible combination of page sizes, so we focus on the sizes are most useful and common. With other book printers, you may be able to specify an odd number of pages, but they will add in the blank pages to fill the signature anyway. We prefer to let you design on those pages or at least know that you have the option.

Bottom line, I thank you for your feedback and want everyone to know that I will personally take this information back to the mother ship and push them to work on a system to accept native InDesign files. I speak for everyone at Asukabook when I say, "we want to make it as easy for you as possible!" It is not in our, or your, best interest to make anything more complicated. If you are successful, we are successful. We're on your side, really.

Please feel free to contact me directly if you have any specific questions.


Live Aloha ,
Kevin

--------<>-------
KevinKubota.com = Photography
KubotaImageTools.com = Tools & Training for Photographers
Asukabook.com = Coffee Table Books for Photographers

Thanks, Kevin, for your detailed response to this thread. I read every word.

But I have to say, as a professional graphic designer and photographer who uses both programs extensively, there are many things you can do in InDesign that you can't do in Photoshop. Plus, it's just far easier to design a BOOK in a program that lets you design BOOKS. I don't design books one page at a time. I like to look at the whole thing, all at once, as one big package. Each page flows into the next. Each page has master elements and styles that replicate exactly from one page to the next, and if I change the style on one page, I want to be able to automatically change that style on every page easily. I understand your time and money constraints, but I also see that you are developing a new system for templates. I would much rather see THAT time and money spent on setting up your system to accept pdf's directly from InDesign. Thank you again so much for taking to read the forum and respond!

Hi everyone,

One more update. There is a plugin for InDesign that will allow you to export your layouts as JPG files with full resolution:

http://www.tripletriangle.com/aboutrw.php

Then your layouts would be ready to drop in File Checker, just as though they came from Photoshop.

What we need to do is provide you with ready made InDesign page templates so that you don't have to create the sizes yourself, and I'm going to get this done for you asap. I've already got people working on it.

The downside is that the plugin costs about $169. There may be other plugin options out there, and I'll keep searching. It's not the best solution yet, but until we can reprogram our File Checker to accept InDesign PDFs directly, this is a workaround.

Hope that helps

Kevin Kubota

Jules,

Thanks. I agree with you 100%. I think InDesign is a great layout tool, and much easier for a full book. No argument there. Again, we want to be able to support every piece of software, but we have to take it a step at a time.

The unfortunate truth is that we have many, many more users who do NOT use InDesign and who want a very simple book layout program - that is free, so this is what we've focused on first.

I do realize the importance of InDesign to our users, like you, so I am personally going to push the mother ship harder to support it better.

Thanks again for your input, it's very valuable to us - and me.
Kevin

Thank you so much for taking the time to respond, Kevin. I'm looking forward to the simple layout program.

michael

Thanks so much, Kevin for responding! I think we can all agree that we love Asuka products, and we're excited for the direction that things seem to be going.

I'm looking forward to the InDesign templates you mentioned, that's a great starting point! The way you explained the Photoshop vs InDesign rational makes perfect sense, I hadn't thought about it that way!

Thanks again

I thought of one more thing, we could probably create Photoshop actions/droplets that would take your InDesign PDF files and convert them to the proper JPG format - ready for File Checker. This should help a little bit more too.

If we combine the InDesign templates, and this action/droplet, you would have a pretty easy solution to using INDD with Asukabook...for now.

I'll have someone start working on that right away too.

Kevin

That would be so awesome! It would, in fact, rock the house!

Thanks, Kevin for getting people on this!

One more update...

Apparently CS3 InDesign will allow full resolution JPG exports from the pages, whereas CS2 and prior only allowed low res - thus the need to export PDF and convert to JPG in Photoshop. If you have, or upgrade to, CS3 InDesign then you can export your JPG pages directly at the proper resolution. Just remember to check the res. as the inside pages and the cover require different resolutions. Then you should be able to just drop the JPG pages on File Checker.

Now we just need to get you templates for InDesign and you should be able to do it just as easily as in Photoshop. Stay tuned...

Aloha,
Kevin Kubota

I heart you!!
I heart Asuka!!
Candy

hi kevin-

what about ordering different proportionally sized formats? ex: 10x10 and 7x7?

is there a way that people can just order those without having to resize, resave and reupload?

please advise...

best,
//ed