i use lumapix fotofusion to design my albums, and i'm so excited about the new version!
V4 will allow you to save files as .psd files!
right now it's still in beta, but hte upgrade will be free if you just bought it, and even though i bought my verson several months ago, there was a discount on the upgrade, so its worth cheking out!

i LOVE lumapix. super simple and great tutorials.

it is PC based, but if your mac runs windoes, you're good to go!

i LOVE lumapix so much that i spoke to the ceo last week, and i'm an affiliate! so if you want to try a free download, just check out

www.bellissimadesign.info for the links!!!

i get points if you go through my link.
the download is free, you only pay for it if you want to activate it.

Yeaaaa Robin!!! I was able to upgrade fro free just like you said with no problems!
THANK YOU!

Just FYI- if anyone's bought fotofusion since September it's a free upgrade- this is absolutely PERFECT!

Fotofusion....ROCKS! I bought it a while back after using PageGallery and trying other template based programs. ...but this one is TEN times easier to use. I learned how to use the software, designed a 40 page album (from scratch...no template pages), and uploaded to Asuka and placed my order...ALL in 6 hours from start to finish.

The thing I like most about this program is it's simple and quick customization. Anyone hate thick keylines found in most templates? Image shadows too large or small? It's ALL customizable...and very quickly so.

SAMPLE


EDIT: One more plust is that images can be rotated right within their placeholder...so if your horizons are slightly off, there is no need to fix anything in photoshop....in fact your images can be adjusted with sliders...conrast, saturation, pretty much anything.

great job, kevin!
you are going to LOVE v4 - download the beta version, since you already have the software. it's awesome!

i guess should put up a few samples, too!

sample 1
sample 2
sample3

hey...can i steal your matching keyline technique? lol i like those a lot!

question for you....what albums do you use and what have you found to be the best page dimension and safe zone for trim lines? i think the new version allows you to choose based on manufacturer...but thought i'd ask anyway.

That's awesome Robin...thanks for posting.

Do you know if the upgrade will be automatically installed (as the program checks for updates) when it's available?

Thanks!
Bentley

Cool. The psd files explain why LumaPix dropped the ProLab upload service at the beginning of this year.

Me too! Oh and if you bought it anytime after Oct 1 I believe they are going to honor the free upgrade:)

Heather

No- it's not! You have to upload the new version and install it.

I'm totally loving the new version -- I upgraded to it just before the end of the year and it totally rocks!

Of course, my albums aren't nearly as purty as Robin's, but I'm still learning!

Here's one: http://www.lifespringphotography.com/album...naAndrew_Album/

Leann

That's an awesome album. In fact, I love it! Well done, one of the best designs I've seen in a while Go Fotofusion (and you!)

Wow, Leann, is that a new version of ShowIt? I've been out of the loop lately, but that definitely is a different interface. Cool album too.

Hi Nate, thanks for the complement on my album!

Yeah, it's the newest version of ShowIt -- still in beta. It looks really slick, doesn't it?

oooooooo, yes it DOES look slick, I can't wait!!!

Here's an album I finished last night. I'm so totally enjoying the new version of FotoFusion!

Robin, thank you so much for recommending it at OSPKY this summer!

Leann

i try to keep critical elements 1" from the edge.
whcc prints with a slight bleed, and then the apges are trimmed .

we use art leather , leather craftsmen and zookbinders for fluch mount albums.




i do not think so. i think you need to download the new version, any upgrades to it will be found when you open the app.




great job, leann!
i'm glad you tried it! i still have to figure out the new version. i'm afraid to open anything in it right now, bu ti have a guest book i need to do, and i think i'll try it then.

Hey Robin,

One more question. 1" sounds like good enough room, but I guess what I really want to know is if you want to end up with a 10x10 album full bleed, what dimension do you start with for the pages you create in FF? 10.25x10.25 for example? I know that depends somewhat on the company you use, but it feels a little too wierd to order a 10x10 album and submit exactly 10x20 spreads...leaves no room for error in mounting. Perhaps a 10x10 album has pages that aactually end up at 9.75x9.75 and so there's no extra room needed in the FF canvases.

So after all that rambling thought...do you build extra room into your canvas? I think it's called Bleed Inflate in the canvas settings.

Thanks for reading and answering!

Kevin

Most album companies will trim the edges a little so yes, your "10x10" album is actually a bit smaller than that. The cover may be 10x10, but the pages aren't.

ah man.. you guys rock with the albums!! can't wait for the new showit to come out. looks like i need to buy the showit web 2.0 (including free upgrade to 2.5, so i've heard) and FF. wow that's almost $500 in software right there.. yikes~ time to save up.

Thanx Robin..This is hot!!!!

well thanks a lot Robin, Ive been hard at work all day and was looking forward to an early night, its 22:30 here in England and now Ive gone and downloaded this program (through your site of course) had a quick play with it and its so adictive I will probably be up all night with it.
Seriously it looks great, all I have used so far is photoshop for layouts and this looks so much quicker.
cheers steve (needing sleep)
ps which version do you recommed the studio one?

definitely go for the studio version... if you want to do more than one page that is!

I saw FotoFusion at PPE and loved it. I downloaded it yesterday and was a bit disapointed to find no "align multiple object to vertical or horizontal center" and no gridlines. I also want CTRL + UP/DOWN to control image saturation. I called them and they put it on the list.

If you have 2 objects that are different sizes and you want them to both be vertically centered on the page, how is this done? I'm thinking of making a gridlines image in PS and just dropping it in.

Also, no CTRL (or whatever) drag to resize while maintaining aspect ratio. Press the "A" key before the drag to have the image stay in it's current aspect ratio. Just press "A" again when done.

Other that that, It's awesome. Let's see some more Album examples!

-TM

I totally agree about gridlines. It's be much better too if the "0" point was in the middle of a two page spread instead of on the left.

you can use the white index arrows on the top and left to align images by hand. I know this would be a lot better if you could click on 3 images, and align them as appropriate, but it's better than nothing.

Hi Michael,

The arrows are great, but if the two images are different sizes they won't line up, right?

-TM

Yea, I guess I like my designs to be a little geometric, so I don't have that issue.

funny there is a post on this topic today. Chris and I finally decided that we need to spring for this program. Does anyone know if there are any discount code available right now?

Hi, Jen

Robin had a discount code right after OSPW, but it has expired. I recently purchased the Lumapix FF Version 4 and tried to use the code. I think it credited Robin for the purchase but did not give me the discount.

Doesn't matter, though. For the price, it is an awesome design program. I am lovin' it!! And Robin is the album guru, IMHO!!!

Thanks Bruce! yeah, I remember that code, and we wanted to get it then, but just didn't have the cash at that time.

And I have to agree with you, Robin is the album guru!

I bet they had a special at wppi. I would call them up and see what you can get.

I'm excited that Parallels for Mac was recently updated (majorly) and now has some really cool features.

I'll be working with Lumapix FF ver 3 next week (instead of InDesign) to see if the Parallels workflow with USB hard drive is a viable option.

If so, I may have to reinvest in Ver 4 if they got all of the bugs worked out for the Mac.

troy - v4 is the bomb! i've been converting all my albums over while i design.... they are a little slow to move, but i jus tsent 2 to print and they came out of v4. very nice, indeed.

it's had an update or two since the release. not perfect, yet, but i love it! ya'll seem to find the link, but i'll see if they'll hook me up with a code for you all.
i'll post it here in the next day or so, if i get a deal for you.

http://www.bellissimadesign.info/

please don't trash my little .info, yet, i've been working on so much stuff. yikes!

Thanks Robin!

So Lumapix works with Asuka? Awesome. Are there templates available for all the different album companies in the software?

Bellisima,

What formats does Lumapix export as? Just want to make sure KISS can support designs done in Lumapix!

Robin,
Don't know if you're still checking this thread, but thank you so much for recommending it. I'm in a coffee house right now finishing my 4th album in 2 weeks. I love this program. You can do so much with it, I'm not sure I need Photoshop anymore.... just kidding. But seriously, if you shoot well out of the camera you can make a book so easy. My only question is, when you send it to your customer which I'm about to do, is there a way that it displays to them like a book and they can turn the pages instead of getting a bunch of jpg's? Did that make sense?

Mark

Good question.

You can export in a few different formats, including PSD, PDF (multi page pdf even), JPG, BMP, TIF, and PNG.

I hope this covers the proper file formats that KISS uses!

Leann

I am not sure if I am missing something (completely possible, but unsure) . I had downlaoded the trial of Lumapix some time ago and tried several times to create a few things and I didn't like it all.

I want to like it because I need simple and fast, but I felt like I was struggling woth it quite a bit....

Perhaps I am just doing a few things wrong.....any insight?

Which version of the software did you get? the cheap, middle or extreme?

Basically, load a directory of images.

Throw a few in a group

Create a canvas or page

Hit your F key, which puts you into frame mode - click on the canvas and click hold & drag to make a box that you can drop the image into.

drag and drop an image into the frame. The image will have two handles in each corner a blue and a yellow. One resizes the box or frame the image is in... and the other resizes the image.

That little floating pallet with the big T in it is your tool box. Click on the outside edge of the box in the tool pallet, and you'll get the shadow menu. Click the edge of the box and you'll get the stroke or frame menu, click in the box and you'll get the image menu.

Lots of options to play with. It's frustrating at first, because it doesn't have the same workflow we're used to with the adobe products. But, once you learn the system, it hums along quite nicely.

I just wish it was more stable on the mac.

thanks Troy, I am not sure what version it was....is all I know is that after trying it about 5 times, I said forget it. I was trying to design an Asuka book, couldn't get the pages to size right and other issues (it has been a while) maybe I just need to get back on the site, download a new version and go from there. I would love to do predesigns for my couples, but just hate the time it takes in ps

Thanks for the very descriptive information! I just love this place

Tawnya,
I've got 16 years of graphic design program background so I took to it pretty fast. The first time I heard Robin talk about it, she said "Your first book will take you 40 hours to design." Ok, well mine took me about 8 but now I do a book in about 4 hours. I'm using version 4, the new one. It's operation is a little different but once you get the hang of it, it's really cool. If you download the trial and call me on the phone, I can help you with it some. I love teaching people how to do stuff so it's fine with me. I just really think it's easy and worth every penny. I'm working on how to show the pages more effectively to my clients. I think I'm going to use ShowIT cause I just got off the phone with the Lumapix help line and they don't have a turn the page viewer like I was asking about in my last post (that's for K.C. I guess.)

Anyway, I'll post my slide show in a bit to show you the one I made this morning. Took me 3 hours.

Mark

hey guys - they have released a number of versions since this post started, so if you haven't done it in a while, download the new verison.


the extreme verison allows you to design an entire album at once. the others do not allow such large designs or large pages. if you are going to use it, you've got to go extreme, or - like me- you'll upgrade it the same day.

Yeah Robin, I just went Extreme right off the bat. Love it. Thanks again and again. Ok and again.

Hi Robin,

I can honestly say that I miss FotoFusion here in "Mac-Land" I'm even considering re-paying for the new version if I know that the mac issues have been ironed out.

A new version of Paralles for the Mac is out, and so far working well with the few other programs I use.

Any word on how much improvement they've added to extreme Ver 4 since March?

Getting the PSD output with layers was the major issue I had, as well as some software crashes.

I won't know about the software crash issue until I have it on my machine and running

Hey, Troy

I've been curious about using FF in Parallels, since I have a Mac laptop but have recently upgraded my PC workstation specifically to continue using FF. I'd be interested to hear more of the issues you were having.

With Bellissima Design Solutions now up and running, it's critical that we remain stable for the incresed productivity. FF has been running pretty good on my new PC, but like you, I'd prefer using the Mac (which I use for all other imaging).

Tawnya, as Mark described, it does take a little playing around with the features and interface, but once you grasp it, it is an awesome design program.

Problem #1 is that on a MacBook Pro, with only 80 gigs of hard drive, I had to keep my image files on a portable USB hard drive, which really slowed the system down. Parallels ver 1 barely supported USB, Ver 2 supported USB2, but it was a pain to connect the drive to Windows every time I wanted to start FF. Each version of Parallels makes this issue less of a problem.

Problem #2 was the output to PSD files. I kept getting garbage, with a red overlay on every page, and flattened images in the PSD files. The entire point of PSD was to have layered images so the lab could better correct the page files.

Problem #3 was that I had to keep a PhotoShop lisence going for Windows, so I could have immediate access to alter the image from the FF layout, directly into PS by just right clicking. There are work arounds to go from the Windows enviroment with FF to the mac side with PS, but it's soooo much easier to just right click on the image, and select "edit image" so it pops up in PS and I don't have to go hunting for it.

I dumped FF after I had to redo an entire album in Ver 3, that I had just designed in Ver 4, so we could at least output the files without them looking like they just came from a bordello, with the obnoxious red cast.

Thank you, Troy. I feel even better now about upgrading the PC. I really love FF and plan to keep using it.

Yeah, I love my Mac, but there are two pieces of software that I have built my entire worklow around: FotoFusion and Q-image. Neither has a great replacement on the Mac, or at least one that isn't three times as much.

I've been soooooo close to selling both Mac's and going back to PC just to get my software back. But I'd be throwing away a lot of money just to switch back.