Hi

I want to design my first KISS wedding book and downloaded the templates from their website.

But now what is the fastest way to design them? Do you use Gary Fong's Album Designer or just do everything manually in Photoshop CS3?

Would be nice if everybody that already did a KISS (wedding book, I mean could quickly share his workflow.

Thanks!

Best,
Daniel

Daniel,

I'm in the process of making one right now for a wedding I shot in June. I have some of the same questions as you. It's taking me a loooong time. I made the first three spreads totally manual in CS3 and then got Fong;s Album designer. That's saved some time but still taking a long time and having to use my imagination. Looking at other's designs has helped.

I asked this same question over in Texas Photo Forum in this post. Some good suggestions over there. I'm in the process of evaluating Lumapix and YSI. They're both pricey for me but might be worth it if my designs generate one album sale.

-Jim

Alright, I don't mean this to sound snotty but you're overthinking this. Just pick the images you want included, imagine in your head or draw out some designs on paper, figure out the dimensions the images need to be (should take under 60 seconds) and start making 8x16, 10x20, or 12x24 spreads.

You could even skip the part about dimensions and use Free Transform to resize your large images directly on the spread. It may not be the best way to do it, but it could work. And then you really don't have to think about anything. Just create.

I should say that I don't do busy layouts with 84 images on a page with borders and nonsense so I can design a book in about 90 minutes, once the images are selected.

That's how I did it. I hope that helps.

Also keep in mind that the strength of the images and the flow are more important than the mechanics of making the pages. Make them however you want, just make them look good!

Hi Matt

Thanks for your input!

What's the disadvantage of using Free Transform (I was thinking about doing it that way)? A quality loss?

I'm no expert, but yeah... I would think that controlling the resampling via Image Size (and Bicubic Sharper or Smoother) would yield better results, rather than Free Transform. But again, that's based on assumptions.

Maybe someone can chime in on that.

I love photojunction for all my album designs. You start free form and then can save templates so next time you can easliy add your pictures and still have the freedom to change them. I used to use Page Gallery but a friend got me hooked on this... you can customize it to all the different album companies.. I use mine with Graphi, Asuka, Shared Ink, Queensberry, Leather Craftsmen, Willowbooks... it's very versatile.

Photojunction is indeed one of the best tools available for album design.

Thanks for all the tipps about Photojunction. I know it but was looking for another solution, because:

- Photojunction is quite expensive (even if it is included in the Queensberry starter kit) and you even have to pay it per YEAR!
- Photojunction is not available for Windows Vista so far. They told me that they have to completely re-write the program and it would take maybe two more months.
[- I know there are workarounds to let Photojunction work on Vista.]

Ok, thanks anyway.

Some other tips besides Photojunction? I was thinking more about Photoshop CS3 and how to do it just in CS3 the most efficient way.

I believe that that you can specify which resampling method is used by the transform method (Bicubic, Bicubic Sharper,Smoother) in photoshop's settings.

I personally like to create my albums in photoshop. I like to use smart objects so I can change images easily, and I do not have to worry about the resampling of images.

I just created 10x20" documents, added grids 1/4 inch from the edge, and started adding images via smart objects. 30 page album took me a couple of hours at most, I like VERY CLEAN, simple designs though. Maybe if I liked more complicated designs something like photojunction or indesign would be worthwhile.

Hi Adam

Thanks for your feedback. Your workflow sounds interesting to me.

I'm not familiar with smart objects. Can you tell me something more how you use it in PS CS3 to design the album?

I like clean and simple designs too. Don't need any fancy stuff

BTW: The links in your signature are wrong, just get the page of a search engine.

Pay every year? Wow...no thanks

I looked in CS3 and can't locate this. I do see that you can change the resampling method, but it doesn't say anything about when using the transform tool. Am I just not seeing it?

Thanks.

If you go File>Place it will "place" a smart object of the file you select. You can resize this object at will and it will resample from the original you selected.

You can then later go to Layer>Smart Objects>Replace contents and select a new file.

So for instance you "place" 4 images in your document resize them, then you decide you want to change one of the images you simply "replace contents", select a new image, and bam your done.



I believe the setting you specify in the Edit>Preferences>General>Image Interpolation is what photoshop uses when you do a transform.

I am recalling this from memory so I could be wrong.

Where is Scott Kelby when you need him.

First...

Designing pages in PhotoShop can be done. But the time you save after you learn how to use a design interface program will more than pay for the software in getting your free time back!

But it can be done better and faster for KISS book in Adobe InDesign.

Swan has a great how to DVD on his New Shool site. I really reccomend it and the InDesign.

If you're looking for a more cost effective solution, LumaPix has FotoFusion software for Windows. It's pretty straightforward, and they've got good tutorial pages on their website.

Out of the two, I prefer FotoFusion to produce layered PSDs --- But Swan has KISS set up so all you have to do in InDesign is export to PDF (high res -- I set my export up once, and saved it as a preference in ID as "KISS Export"). Then drag and drop that PDF file into the upload page in your KISS order screen --- very easy. One export step from InDesign and one upload!

PhotoJunction is a great program as well, BUT there were two major flaws with it when I used it about a year ago:
1. The window is a set size, and on my 1680x1050 display -- it was too small to use comfortably.

2. I don't like designing a digital album, where I have to pre-select a specific size and orientation (H or V) for each image before I can drop it on the page -- if they now allow simple drag and drop of images on the page, then grab a corner to resize and crop, then it would be a superb program.

Thanks, Adam

And what is the advantage in using Smart Objects over Free Transform? Sounds very similar to me...

+1 for InDesign

Design in photoshop can be a breeze once you build a set of actions and layer styles to make it that way. I started out with the Gary Fong Actions and liked them a lot. The auto drop feature is a great idea, but I'd rather place in RAW files and have that level of editing ability for tonal changes etc later on without any loss of quality.

To do this I had to do a bit of research, but the good man Dr Brown had the answer I needed. On his site, there is a free plug in for Bridge that allows you to select a number of images (RAW or whatever and then place them all as smart objects into a layout together.

Once they are in together I run a canvas size action, resize images to fit the layout as I like, style the edges and double check alignment. good to go.

Drop me a PM if you need more help. Good Luck! have Fun...

A note of warning on Photojunction...

Several of our clients (KISS) use it and we've seen problems where it will put a thin line in the layouts. The only solution seems to have been to either rebuild the entire book in Photoshop or do it over again in Junction. Their customer support hasn't been tremendous on the issue.

Had it only been one client, I wouldn't have mentioned it.. But three people have had the same problem in the past couple months.

$.02

Is the line placed where the gutter would be?

No. It's random.

With a smart object, it keeps the full size file in the memory. So, if you make the image small, then decide later you want it bigger, you can make it bigger agian without loosing quality.

InDesign works the same way, incidentally, but you don't have to load everything in full resolution to edit (like you do in PShop), and you can have all your pages in one document (unlike PShop).

$.02.

does anyone know if Lumapix is planning on offering a mac version of fotofusion anytime in the near future????

I emailed them that very question a week or so ago after reading a lengthy discussion over at Kevin's NewPhotoSchool thread about InD.

Their response was that if you're on a Mac, run Parallels or BootCamp to operate their software.

Incidently, I've just started playing with InD after watching the Swan video--believe me the basics he shares will have you up and going fast.

I did a three-page test in about 15 minutes after not having used a page-layout program since my Aldus PageMaker days.

KM

InDesign is definitely the way to go IMO. All I can say is GET SWANS TUTORIAL NOW!! I learned InDesign in 30 min.