My biggest creature to date.

Prepare to embark on a journey to Jamaica!

(Album takes about 5 minutes to view, and has music)
http://www.haskinsphotography.com/albums/langford/index.html

Catch photos in a 3 part post on the blog here.

Hi there and G'day from Oz,
I absolutely loved your album, and all the textures you used. The pictures were absolutely stunning - how exhausted are you?
Well done!
Krystal

Awesome work Nick. I am definitely impressed with your stuff. Really liked the background art and inserted shapes to add some interest. That is a heck of an album. That is for sure.

Exhausted? Slightly. Was in PS from 6:30 AM to 8:00 finishing up!
Chris...thanks man.

Now its off to design Phil and Nancy's Album...wait.....crap....I gotta shoot today.....err...

Very nice, very nice indeed! Loved it!

80 HOURS in photoshop?

You charge at least 2 weeks pay for these then right? lol

lol...yeah.....lets just say I'm glad our next destination wedding isnt for a while! This is a $9500 pre design. Will they take it? I can only offer.

Nick,

I also have to give you my "two thumbs up" on not only the great capture of this couple's wedding but also the way that you presented it in the album. I live everything about it. Great balance of images and design. As the others said, your backgrounds aree incredible! Heck, you could make money just designing backgorunds to the community!

All around, great work!
Bernard

Aww...dude thanks so much for the kinds words Bernard! You rock homey!

Amazing design, awesome photography! I can't imagine how they could NOT buy the entire design. Gorgeous!

Very nice, and while I LOVE the textures and backgrounds and swirlies, it's really the photos that make it a great album! I think it might have been page 58 or some where around there, but there was a page with a big black paint dot in the middle of the ocean, like a stray click with the black brush tool.

very cool, Nick.

I do have to say as a fellow PS junky... get Kevin Swan's InDesign tutorial. You would have gone through that design in 10 hours... max.

If only I hadn't forgotten the damned shortcuts...

Shane, I'll believe that when I see it man because I would have loved to design 70 spreads in 10 hours....does that allow thinking time? I'm a hot key junkie, most of the time comes from sitting there figuring out how I want to lay down the spread. The actual work takes a very short amount of time. I've heard about InDesign...but isnt that just a layout program? Still do all the work in PS right?

um lemme check... you spent 80 hours designing a large album your not sure they want??
WOW! *takes hat off to ya*

I must say - this layout could have been done in Photojunction (new version) in about 8 hours. (ok maybe not 8 but considerable less)

Love to hear how you go with it... I hope they ask for more pages

Amazing jobby on their wedding photos...!

Jonathan

I'm not sure they want? Gotta give them something they didnt know they wanted.

I checked out Photojunction, just not enough control for me. The actual building of the spread takes maybe 10 minutes. Everything I do is done by actions that I have recorded. I really cant see how its possible to design a 70 spread (140 page) album in 10 hours....thats only 7 minutes a spread! Thats assuming you just pull random photos and drop them in. I sit here for a good half hour figuring out what photos would fit best to compliment the design.

If somebody can pull off this design in 10 hours.....I'm at your feet man!

Checked out ID, and yes it does make sense, being a layout program. BUT...I see too many, "oh you want to do that, you have to do it in PS, but they are tightly integrated." Thats just more work. Export in PDF's only? I export the split spreads into jpeg pages, and I export the whole spread at 800px for Album Showcase. Converting all these PDF's to JPEGS will take way to much time.

Actually, the InDesign->PDF->JPEG export doesn't take all that long. You export the PDF from Indesign. Then you open the PDF with Adobe Acrobat (Pro, not the reader) and export the JPEGs. It's very automated.

What a marathon! Great job, Nick. And best of luck with the sales presentation...and the 200 change requests (kidding!)

If you use CS3 you can export hi res jpegs directly from InDesign and you don't have to do the pdf step.

InDesign is a layout program which is best at that than PS. So if you want control InDesign is the tool.

I recently gave it a try, bought Kevin's DVD... well worth every penny... and my next album I will do it on InDesign.

I think you should give it a try.

I don't understand how you could design such a monster album in the times mentioned without a huge collection of templates and VERY little thought on image selection. Doing a spread in 8.5 minutes doesn't allow for a huge amount of thought process. Also, with the custom graphics and backgrounds that Nick does, that would add time. I know Nick does every album completely custom based on each client so that is probably why his take so long.

Is it just a difference between custom and semi-custom (templates)? I know very little about design so this post is more of a figuring out the industry standard methods and not an attack on anyone.

how many books will you break it into?

Chris,

I went to InDesign for a while. I need to go back to it. I can tell you there are several advantages. You can either start from scratch or use past designs. Each job is custom and you have full control.

The main difference is that you can have all of your layouts open at the same time. With Adobe Bridge open, you can drag pictures into boxes you've created. It's faster because in PS, you are opening full-sized images. InDesign uses proxy images. So, you are able to work much more efficiently and quickly with smaller files.

So, nick could make all the little designs he wants for backgrounds in PS, open them in InDesign and it would still be faster. Once you get one page done, you can drag it to another page, move design elements around, and viola... custom page in two minutes.

The downside: you need to learn InDesign commands. Once you learn these, though, it's really fast. I don't work for Kevin Swan... I have nothing to gain by telling you this. But if you're spending 80 hours on a book... I don't care how big the damn thing is, you are going to KILL yourself when high season rolls in.

If you could do the same thing a little faster, why wouldn't you?

What did you go to since then? Photoshop?


Robin,

You use FotoFusion right? Since you are an album expert, do you think most beginning designers making basic to moderately complex albums should stick with something like FF or PJ? Or is it better to go just straight to InDesign since it gives all the control you need anyway?

Bottom line is that 2 hours per page is a long time ... I'm not doing pages as complex as Nick.

So, yeah, I'm in Photoshop now... stupidly. But if I had the design skills that Nick has, I would want to streamline the process.

And I'm not sure I would suggest buying InDesign just to try. It's very expensive. But a lot of people bought the whole creative suite with Adobe and they just let InDesign sit there.

But if you are curious. I think InDesign has a free 30 day trial through Adobe. Then Kevin's tutorial is $59. There's a portion of the tutorial where you'll just be like, "oh... that's why I need to be doing this."

Photoshop is built for photos.

I think you misread Nick's original post. It isn't a 40 page album, it is 140 pages. 2 hours per page would be 280 hours for design.


Good to know about InDesign though. I'll check out Kevin's video. We are actually going to redesign our own wedding album for a KISS album and then use it as a memory and sample to show clients.

sorry for generalizing.

1.75 hours for one page is a lot of time. That's two straight work weeks.

Maybe I'm wrong. Robin, does it take you 1.75 hours per page with whatever program you use? Since you run an album design company, does that seem like a reasonable amount of time?

Sorry to threadjack you here, Nathan. But I think it's a good discussion.

I don't understand the math here. 140 pages / 80 hours = 1.75 pages per hour not 1.75 hours per page. Either way it may be considered too slow, just want to get the numbers straight.

The album is great..where did you find all the beautiful textures for the backgrounds?

there are a lot of programs that will get the job done. i'd use the tool that allows for the best design. fortunately, as you design, you either get a lot faster, or you learn that it's not for you. photoshop is pretty slow, but design isn't always a race ~ in any case don't let your tool be one you hate. use the tool that's best for you.

my concern with a large album is maintaining consistency and then making the books printable. i think, just for handling purposes, this could become 3 albums. if you have ever lifted a large album, you'd probably agree. they are very heavy and can be awkward, and you ultimately want people to enjoy them!

thanks for straightening that out. And yes, it's still too slow.

You seem kind of cranky with me. Is it something I said? Do you have stock in Photoshop?

No. Sorry math is my "other" thing as an engineer. No crankiness towards you. I am really sorry if it came off that way. I apologize Shane.

Don't apologize... Engineers are smart! That's why I'm a photographer.

My point is that if you're spending an hour a page, you're going to spend a 40-hour work week on one album. If you average between 30-40 weddings a year, that's a lot of work weeks spent designing albums. If you don't find a way to outsource the design or work more efficiently, you are going to hate life.

I typically spend four hours on a 40-page design in Photoshop. So, it's not killing me, but I know I could do it faster. Now, my designs are nowhere near as complex as Nathans, as I've said. But I bet he would be happier if he could do the same thing in less time.

But that's just an opinion.

Dido

(Love it Love it Love it!)

So with Kevin's tutorial, you can drag and drop from Bridge into InDesign. Working the photos in PS and layout in InDesign. Would that speed it up or slow it down? If your machine is fast enough, could you have both programs open at the same time?

Great work!

Belissima, your right on....the concept is 3 books...little....big....little. If she condenses into one album, thats where I find the trouble. Not many places bind an album that large....waiting for the OSP'r who orderded from Couture to post pics of the Himalayan album.....freaking love that thing! Anyhow, the client was freaking ecstatic when she saw it.....said it was her dream album....is talking to her hubby about it, and more than likely will take the entire set. Out of 70 spreads, she only requested changes to 12 of them.

To clear up some confusion, I spent about 80 hours brainstorming and building....with 70 spreads...a little over an hour a spread. That is my average...down from 2 hours a spread when I first started designing.

I spend a long time for several reasons; I do not use templates, it's all free hand, and completely personalized to each client. With that album, she's a bubbly and happy person...so that means that it called for bright colors..yellow being her favorite. Take 45 minutes of that hour, and that's the thinking phase. I put A LOT of thought about each image that goes into a spread, keeping in mind certain small tidbits of info about each client...ie, the love for her brothers....her favorite colors....the way she dislikes his sisters.....their vows....special moments that happened with family that they have never seen before. This way, each client is getting something truly unique. If I'm not happy with a spread.....sometimes I just delete the entire thing and start over.

For me....album design is an art....just like when you start to draw something....dont like it....you throw away the paper. Writers? The write....dont like the paragraph....rip it out of the typewriter and throw it away.

This is not directed at anyone here that has responded, so please guys do not take this the wrong way...but it seems that it's the "American way" to just get it done, and get it out....as long as it's "safe." I just cant, and will not settle for "safe," seeing as how theres a slew of new photographers every frikking year.

About the actual work on a spread? Maybe 10 minutes tops...once it's visualized. Those white boxes? Actions I recorded. The gradient overlays? Actions I recorded, and faster than ID. Splitting into pages and saving for online web show? Action. Textured BG? Action. Everything is based on something I've done before. Oh...and I do not design with full size images....thats a waste of resources, especially considering they will not be printed bigger than 2x2 (the full spread photos are full size)! I use resized images for the albums, and time flies once I start building.

About ID....I did do some research on that...and I will stick with PS. You know what....how about a race? Somehow...someway....one person in PS....one person in ID....same images.....same design......that will solve it! But really...there are several extra steps to be taken in ID, PDF to JPEG for instance....that adds more time. From a reliable source, ID is great for text documents...and does work well for albums....just so happens. I have another monitor with a window open with all the designed spreads....works for me.

Anyhow, Shane....yes....if I could make the process go faster, I would be more than happy to know how!

Besides....just wait till we start building our own albums for 2009..talk about time!

BTW...thanks for all the kind words guys!

Honestly, nathan, it would have taken me four years to design an album like yours. I'm just commenting on the time factor.

I had the same thoughts about working all my images in Photoshop - that it would be lazy to use lightroom. But now I save time and my images are more consistent. It's your responsibility as a professional to make sure that you are doing things efficiently. I turned 10 hours of PS editing into four hours of lightroom editing. If I want to go back and add textures, I do it. It seems to be working OK for me.... cough... agwpja.... cough...

As far as PS v. InDesign... if you just spend the 60 bucks to watch the tutorial, you'll see live how much faster it is. I don't care what kind of gradients you're doing, it will be faster in InDesign. Magazine editors lay out photo pages all the time. Do you think they do it in Photoshop?

Sorry that your thread got turned into a debate... your album spreads are gorgeous.

sooooooooooooooooooooooo, the backgrounds are actually actions? do you create your own patterns first?

Lol.....I have an action to lay an image across the BG.

About the textures....since so many have been asking..most are my own, and about 20% are from Flickr. Most are actually black and white, with color overlays suited to taste.

http://www.flickr.com/groups/textures4layers/

I emailed the admin to make sure it was ok for me to be using these, and as long as I'm not packaging and reselling them (the actual textures themselves), then it's cool to use them in book designs.

Have fun with that place. I hit it at least once a week to grab some fresh stuff.