Hi together,

Kevin Swan really pushed me over the edge and i started to use InDesign for my AlbumDesign. WOW.
I have bought the Creative Suite CS2 a while ago an i did not even realized, that InDesign was included:-) Shame on me.

Here is my idea:

How about a "One Template a Day" - Thread???

You give away your templates for free as an InDesign File and you get the Templates from everyone else for free in return.

The idea is to upload an Indesign File with only one empty template page.
In addition you upload a final spread you made with this template as a JPEG File, so everyone can imagine what the template looks like when it is used.

I am going to put all this templates into ONE big Indesign-File, give them a logical name like "02h - 02v - 04sq" or "10h - 00v - 00sq" so you can find the a template pretty fast.

I ll send this complete InDesign-TemplateFile to everyone who has provided a template for free to the community.

Since most of us do Square-Square Albums i recommend to start with a 14"x14" = 35cmx35cm Template.

If you use Text in the template you have to provide the name of the font.

Looking forward to your opinions.

Greetings
Juergen

Way to be a Love-Cat!

Great idea!

Would we just post these here, then?

I have a couple of albums I've been working on, but they're both 9.5x13 Graphi's.
I'm about to start an engagement sign-in book though, so I'd be happy to post a few pages (or even the whole thing).

For me, I would love this because I haven't even attempted an album yet but would really like to. Just don't know where to start with all the options out there (album companies & design software vs. do-it-yourself, etc.).

06H-00V-00SQ
14"x14"

Template: Download here

Click to view attachment


I just found out, that we can not upload Indesign-Files here. If you dont have space to upload, you can send me your file via email and i ll upload it for you.

So i did my homework for tomorrow.

00H-03V-00SQ
14"x14"

Template: Download here

Click to view attachment

great idea. Maybe we can have 1 place to send them too
Anyone have some bandwith and want to register OSPtempaltes.com or something similar?

Not trying to hijack this thread, but if you have photoshop cs2, you would still need to buy the complete program for InDesign correct? It seems like everyone is really enjoying this, is it worth to purchase and easy to design albums?

So do you have to have In Design to use them or are they PSD files. (this is my bonehead question for the day)
Also can we share anyold template or it has to be done in In Design.



What a nice idea. That is REALLY sharing.

Photoshop and InDesign are working together like a D200 and a SB800 (means perfect for Canon user:-))

In InDesign you do your Layout of the Album and your Templates.
In Photoshop you do all the work that is directly affecting the images.

So to have a perfect set you ll need both of them.



You need Indesign to use this templates.
The main goal of this thread is to collect InDesign Templates.

Of course you can share old templates:-)
As long as they are created in InDesign i ll include them in the big template InDesign File. But any other templates are welcome:-)

I have made my homework for the last couple of days:

Template: Download here

Great idea! i'm in! so are all the download here files the same so far? am i missing something?

Hi Wendy,
just download from the link on the latest post and you get all so far.

@All
I am still looking for more input:-)

CU
Juergen

New Version is online.

21 Templates at the moment.

Download here

Have fun.

Let me know what you think of it so far.
Do you think you can use this templates?

New Version is online.

30 Templates at the moment.

Download here

Have fun.

Let me know what you think of it so far.
Do you think you can use this templates?

Yeah exciting I just got indesign and I will be making templates this week. I will upload when I am done!

New Version is online.

40 Templates at the moment.

PDF PREVIEW
Download PDF here

Download ZIP here

Have fun.

Let me know what you think about the PDF Preview.
Is this usefull?
Should i reduce the colors?

Here is an album created with this templates:

Album Predesign

This was created for a friend of mine.
She did not belive that this kind of presentation looks good for her pictures:-)
Well.. right now she is on the best way to sell her first storybook.

btw. Creationtime for this album incl. upload to the web: 38 minutes

The images are not enhanced!

This is a really nice thing that you did -- to start this. You seem to be the only one contributing though.



I've used InDesign for years (not for albums so much). But here's my bonehead question for the day. Um, like how do you make a template? (Told ya it was bonehead.)

I ll keep this thread alive as long as i have new templates to share:-)

Kevin gives a great explenation of how to create templates in his video.
Since my english is pretty bad i am not sure how to explain it to you.
If you have specific questions, please let me know. I ll be happy to try to awnser it.

Where can I find that video? I did a search for "Kevin Swan" in the members section and came up empty. I would like to contribute but don't know how to build the templates.

Thanks,
Carl Stevens
www.artists-eyes.com

http://www.newschoolphoto.com/blogme/softw...eries-indesign/

I am just wondering if there is any way to export these as Jpeg files of 300 dpi resolution. Most labs don't print PDFs. is there something that I am missing here.

InDesign cs3 will do that.
Many places will print PDF's too, especially album companies.

But for now, export as PDF, open up acrobat (or photoshop, but thats a lot slower) and save as a jpeg. Its a extra step, but it works.

If this works it will save my butt on making albums. This would absolutely rock. Does it do anything bad as far as compression or color shift?

Thanks, I didn't know you could save PDF's back into Jpegs.

it works, didn't notice any issues really. But I don't know the PDF settings very well yet. Some reported (and I saw it happen too) black backgrounds becoming charcoal, and this seems to be a color space issue, as in the balck was in cmyk instead of rgb. You'll see it right away in the pdf

Juergen


the templates rock! Haven't tried, just looked at the PDF, and they will be a huge time saver.
I'll upload some soon, just have to fill in the image placeholders with something.

Thanks for a great idea and follow through. I'm thinking of (well actually already started) a lightroom presets sharing idea.

Thank you...
your reply is on reason to continue:-)

When you download the ZIP File you will find the 1-10.gif in the folder.
You can use those to include in the placeholder.

Looking forward to see your templates. I am gonna include them into my Indesign-Template file if this is ok for you.
Guess we have to figure out how to give credit to the supliers.

When I export, I don't do any color shift. I leave everything in the space the JPEGs were in. Compression isn't an issue at all. As long as you're shooting high enough resolution for the originals... I just res everything to 240dpi or so.

Ok.. since i have some spare time this weekend i would love to create more templates.

If you have an album designed and want the templates transfered to Indesign just send me a link to your album.
I will create the Indesign templates out of it.

Hurry up:-) Time is running.

By sending the link you accept that these templates will be provided to everyone and used for free.

Greetings from Germany
Juergen

Juergen -

I downloaded the file, but when I open it, I see only one "page." What am I doing wrong?

T

actually I just noticed that too, its the full pdf but only 1 page document.

I just added the numbered gifs to my templates, so I'll try and finish it up and get it uploaded soon.

You don t do anything wrong.
You have to understand that TEMPLATES are different from PAGES.

A page is something you print after you finished the design.
A template is something virtual you can aply to a page.

When you open the file in Indesign you see one black background page.

With F12 you can hide and show the "pages window".
Inside the pages window are two sections.

The lower one shows the pages.
The upper section shows the templates.

To add a new page you just rightclick into the pages section and say "Add new page".
To apply a template to this page you select the template from the upper section.
You can double click the template to get a preview (or change the template).
When you have found the correct template you drag & drop it onto the newly created page.

You can also skip the add new page click and just drag & drop a template into the lower pages section. This will create a new page with the template automaticaly.

The next step ist to Drag & Drop the images into the placeholders.

I hope you could understand what i tried to tell you:-)
Since i have the german version of InDesign, screenshots won t be very helpfull to you.

Greetings
juergen

Thank you Juergen!

Is theree an easy way to resize these templates to fit on a 10x10 300dpi album?

T

Hi..
i do not know a way to resize all templates at once.
You can resize a single template:
1. Double Click the template
2. Select all template item (ctrl + A)
3. Make sure you scale to the center
4. scale down the whole template to your final size

Since bulmark (my album company) need 5 mm on each edge to cut i added this area to the pagesize.

New Version is online.

50 Templates at the moment.

PDF PREVIEW
Download PDF here

Download ZIP here

Have fun.

When I add a new page using a template, it looks fine, except when I try and drag and drop an image, it is like the new page lost the concept of frames and the image I dragged is now in a new frame on the page instead of replacing the content of an existing frame. Any ideas?

Hi..
ok, i got you problem:-)

after you add a new page using the template you have to double click this new page to make sure it is the selected one.
Then you press ALT + CRTL + SHIFT + L (at least this is the combintion in the german version of indesign).
When you rightclick on the page, this ist the only option showing the keyboard shortcut.

Maybe someone with the english version of indesign can the name of the option.

After you used this shortcut all the frame information is transfered into the new page and can be filled using drag & drop.

Greetings
Juergen

Ahhh --- perfect !!!! You da man! Thanks! The option name is "Override All Master Page Items". I was a little confused as I was right clicking on the spread instead of the little page icon. Once I did that -- bingo it is working like a charm! You rock!

to get around the PDF issue... just save as an EPS document in InDesign. Opens perfectly in photoshop. If you use asuka, you can then cut and paste the page onto the album template. Easy.

This was my problem too. Thanks for clearing this up.

New Version is online.

86 Templates at the moment.

PDF PREVIEW
Download PDF here

Download ZIP here

Have fun.

Ok ok.. this one template a day thing did not work out.

So i asked a designer from my hometown to look around the world wide web, look what everybody else is doing and try to improve it.
So i paid her to work 100 hours on a new template file.

Today i received it and it is amazing.
About 700 templates... well sorted in one file.

At the moment i am selecting images from the last wedding in Lightroom.

When i am done i ll meassure the time how long it takes to create a appropriate predesing with the new templates.

Sorry.. had to tell you because i am superexiced *g*

Cheers
Juergen

Ok, I am anxious to see how this turns out! Last year I didn't have in design, but I just bought it for my new mac. I have Kevin's tutorial, but I haven't watched it yet. I'll add that to my long "to do" list.

So, what are you proposing here... are you thinking of selling your templates, or are you just excited and wanting to share with us?

Hi,

at the moment i am just super excited:-)
Since there was almost no usable response to this one template thing i don t think there are too many people working the way i do.

When i starte album design i always thought that each album has to be totaly unique and i started each album from scatch.

After a while i realized that each album is unique in the eyes of my clients (the checkbook beholder). But it is unique because of the images and not because of design i used for it.

That was the moment when Kevin came out with his indesign video and it was like a click in my neck. So i switched from Photoshop (GF Actions) to Indesign and started to collect and design my own templates.

I am not sure about selling them. Maybe i ll try to figure out a price that will not hurt the buyer, but will help me to get some of the designer cash back in my pockets:-)

I really have no idea what an appropriate price would be.
Maybe you can make a suggestions?

Therrrrrre's interest!

We'd hate for you to go uncompensated for your expense, but we love your generous personality.

I'm sure you can strike a balance there--us InD users would jump on some fresh PRE-DESIGNED templates pretty rapidly...cuz we want to shoot more than sit at the screen.

+1

Very interested.

I'm also interested. Still new to the album design thing, but that sounds good. For price ideas, it depends on what you feel they are worth to other photogs. Dustin Izatt sells 150 templates for Photoshop or FF for $25 I think on here, but Melissa Jill I think sells her templates for $150 (i'll have to confirm that). That should give you a ballpark number though. 700 ID templates is more in quantity though than either of the 2 mentioned above. Let us know how you decide to handle it.

Still thinking. But to give you an idea of what we are talking about...
here is a PDF preview.

http://www.storybooklove.de/temp/ID_Templates_V20080512.pdf