How to Rename Your Images for a Smoother Workflow
Hey, photographers! Today I want to talk about a foundational, nuts-and-bolts aspect of your workflow that can really help streamline your album process: renaming your images.
There are a number of reasons that the naming of your images is so important when it comes to the rest of your album workflow:
1 -- Proper naming of your images equips your designer to easily sort your images and understand the flow of events so that they can tell the story of the day.
2 -- Renaming the images before your share them with us AND your clients will ensure that everyone involved in the album design process (photographer, clients, designer) will be referring to the same file names, reducing confusion and saving you from having to track down images of a different name when it comes time for the revision rounds.
If you systematize this process and make it part of your regular workflow, it will soon become easy and automatic for you, and a HUGE help to everyone involved -- especially your album designer!
So what is the best way to rename your files for the smoothest workflow?
We recommend renaming your files after culling but before delivering a gallery to your client and your album images to Align. Start by sorting the images into the proper order. It's usually easiest to sort by date and then click-and-drag any outliers manually into place. Once the images are sorted, rename all of the files into one consistent naming convention. Some popular naming conventions are:
(Last name of client)_001
(Last name of client)_(Studio name or acronym)_001
(Date)_(Last name of client)_001
Make sure that you are using a sequence number at the end that has the highest number of digits that you will need for the job. For instance, if you have 500 images you need to rename, start with "001" at the end of the first image. If you have 1100 images you need to rename, start with "0001". This will ensure that images can be sorted properly by filename. In addition, make sure to either use "_" or "-" and steer clear of any odd characters such as "!" or ":".
And here's how to rename files with a few popular software options:
Lightroom -- on the Library Module (grid view), Select All and click Library -> Rename Photos
Adobe Bridge -- Select All and then click Tools -> Batch Rename
Photo Mechanic -- Select All and then click File -> Rename Photos
That's it! Now you're ready to upload the gallery for your clients AND send a selection of the organized and renamed images to your designer! (For tips on choosing the album images to send to your designer, click here.) Your designer will be able to sort the images you send by filename to see the proper order of events. And your client will be referencing file names that your designer has when making their revisions. The great news is -- all of this adds up to a super-smooth workflow!
There are a number of reasons that the naming of your images is so important when it comes to the rest of your album workflow:
1 -- Proper naming of your images equips your designer to easily sort your images and understand the flow of events so that they can tell the story of the day.
2 -- Renaming the images before your share them with us AND your clients will ensure that everyone involved in the album design process (photographer, clients, designer) will be referring to the same file names, reducing confusion and saving you from having to track down images of a different name when it comes time for the revision rounds.
If you systematize this process and make it part of your regular workflow, it will soon become easy and automatic for you, and a HUGE help to everyone involved -- especially your album designer!
So what is the best way to rename your files for the smoothest workflow?
We recommend renaming your files after culling but before delivering a gallery to your client and your album images to Align. Start by sorting the images into the proper order. It's usually easiest to sort by date and then click-and-drag any outliers manually into place. Once the images are sorted, rename all of the files into one consistent naming convention. Some popular naming conventions are:
(Last name of client)_001
(Last name of client)_(Studio name or acronym)_001
(Date)_(Last name of client)_001
Make sure that you are using a sequence number at the end that has the highest number of digits that you will need for the job. For instance, if you have 500 images you need to rename, start with "001" at the end of the first image. If you have 1100 images you need to rename, start with "0001". This will ensure that images can be sorted properly by filename. In addition, make sure to either use "_" or "-" and steer clear of any odd characters such as "!" or ":".
And here's how to rename files with a few popular software options:
Lightroom -- on the Library Module (grid view), Select All and click Library -> Rename Photos
Adobe Bridge -- Select All and then click Tools -> Batch Rename
Photo Mechanic -- Select All and then click File -> Rename Photos
That's it! Now you're ready to upload the gallery for your clients AND send a selection of the organized and renamed images to your designer! (For tips on choosing the album images to send to your designer, click here.) Your designer will be able to sort the images you send by filename to see the proper order of events. And your client will be referencing file names that your designer has when making their revisions. The great news is -- all of this adds up to a super-smooth workflow!
If you found this post helpful and would like to receive tips like this straight to your inbox, click here to sign up!
And exciting news! If you're a photographer who wants to start offering albums without investing hours of guesswork and trial and error -- we have a solution for you! Check out the Album Start-Up Kit and start maximizing your profit today!
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Blog post written by: Melissa Jill
Blog post written by: Melissa Jill
Multicultural Rhode Island Wedding Album Design for Lindsey Taylor Photography
We cannot get over the beautiful colors and compositions from destination luxury wedding photographer Lindsey Taylor Photography in today's featured album design! This album could not be MORE BEAUTIFUL!
Lindsey's use of both film and digital photography was the perfect way to capture this multicultural, multi-day extravagant event! The beautiful dresses and florals really pop off the page!
The only thing we found difficult in designing this album was trying to fit all the beautiful images that Lindsey sent our way into just 15 spreads! But as you will see, the resulting design was very carefully curated to showcase the very best of the best images from this multicultural wedding!
Here are a few of our favorite spreads from this stunning design:
Lindsey's use of both film and digital photography was the perfect way to capture this multicultural, multi-day extravagant event! The beautiful dresses and florals really pop off the page!
The only thing we found difficult in designing this album was trying to fit all the beautiful images that Lindsey sent our way into just 15 spreads! But as you will see, the resulting design was very carefully curated to showcase the very best of the best images from this multicultural wedding!
Here are a few of our favorite spreads from this stunning design:
To see the design in full, click through the slideshow:
Thank you, Lindsey, for allowing us to work with your gorgeous images!
Thank you, Lindsey, for allowing us to work with your gorgeous images!
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Design by: Sarah (View More) // Design style: Classic (View More) // Blog post written by: Melissa Jill
Design by: Sarah (View More) // Design style: Classic (View More) // Blog post written by: Melissa Jill
Align's 2024 Holiday Deadlines
'Tis the season for all things cozy, yuletide cheer ... and the mad dash to get everything done before HOLIDAY DEADLINES! Aren't you happy you're a photographer right about now? :)
Your clients know that albums make amazing Christmas gifts, but do they know how long the album creation process takes? We want to help YOU help THEM have their albums in hand by the holidays, so here's a refresher on our design turnaround times and an announcement of our holiday print deadlines:
Turnaround times for DESIGNS:
Due to the back-and-forth nature of the design and revision process, there is no one-size-fits-all estimate for how long the design process will take from start to finish. Please allow yourself and your client ample design time (multiple weeks) by placing your design order AS SOON as possible.
Initial designs - Within 4 business days of receiving your order form, deposit, and images
Revision requests - 2 business days after we've received the comments and any additional images or clarifications needed
Final file delivery - 1 business day after the album has been approved AND the final balance has been paid (**see note at bottom of this page)
Our business days for designing are Monday through Friday except for the following holidays:
Thanksgiving - Thursday, November 28 and Friday, November 29, 2024
Christmas - Wednesday, December 25 and Thursday, December 26, 2024
Deadlines for PRINTING:
If you'll also be printing through Align Legacy Books and wish to receive your album in the mail by December 21, 2024, you must send your album to print (i.e. fill out the custom Print Confirmation order form we email you after the design service is paid for) by the following dates:
Thursday, November 21** for standard production turnaround times
Tuesday, December 3** for rush production turnaround times (extra $100 per album)
Orders placed before 11:59pm November 21 will ship within 15 business days of the order date
Orders placed between November 22 - December 3 with a RUSH FEE will ship by December 19
Orders placed after December 3 will ship within 15 business days of the order date (starting the first week of January)
**Important Advice Due to the back-and-forth nature of invoicing, please plan for about 48 hours in between when your design is approved and when you will receive your final files (if you are printing elsewhere) or the link to your custom Print Confirmation order form (if you're printing with us). To skip the invoicing steps and speed up the process, you can:
PHEW! That is A LOT of detail! We're SO excited to help you serve your clients well this holiday season!
Your clients know that albums make amazing Christmas gifts, but do they know how long the album creation process takes? We want to help YOU help THEM have their albums in hand by the holidays, so here's a refresher on our design turnaround times and an announcement of our holiday print deadlines:
Turnaround times for DESIGNS:
Due to the back-and-forth nature of the design and revision process, there is no one-size-fits-all estimate for how long the design process will take from start to finish. Please allow yourself and your client ample design time (multiple weeks) by placing your design order AS SOON as possible.
Initial designs - Within 4 business days of receiving your order form, deposit, and images
Revision requests - 2 business days after we've received the comments and any additional images or clarifications needed
Final file delivery - 1 business day after the album has been approved AND the final balance has been paid (**see note at bottom of this page)
Our business days for designing are Monday through Friday except for the following holidays:
Thanksgiving - Thursday, November 28 and Friday, November 29, 2024
Christmas - Wednesday, December 25 and Thursday, December 26, 2024
Deadlines for PRINTING:
If you'll also be printing through Align Legacy Books and wish to receive your album in the mail by December 21, 2024, you must send your album to print (i.e. fill out the custom Print Confirmation order form we email you after the design service is paid for) by the following dates:
Thursday, November 21** for standard production turnaround times
Tuesday, December 3** for rush production turnaround times (extra $100 per album)
Orders placed before 11:59pm November 21 will ship within 15 business days of the order date
Orders placed between November 22 - December 3 with a RUSH FEE will ship by December 19
Orders placed after December 3 will ship within 15 business days of the order date (starting the first week of January)
**Important Advice Due to the back-and-forth nature of invoicing, please plan for about 48 hours in between when your design is approved and when you will receive your final files (if you are printing elsewhere) or the link to your custom Print Confirmation order form (if you're printing with us). To skip the invoicing steps and speed up the process, you can:
-Authorize us to automatically charge your saved credit card (find this setting at the bottom your Edit Profile page).
-Or pre-purchase Align Credit (in any amount) on your Account Balance page which will be automatically applied to your balance.
PHEW! That is A LOT of detail! We're SO excited to help you serve your clients well this holiday season!
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Blog post written by: Melissa Jill
Blog post written by: Melissa Jill
Outdoor Texas Wedding Album Design for Taylor Pettigrew
Today's GORGEOUS featured design is the very first we created for New Mexico based wedding photographer Taylor Pettigrew. Taylor's work is so fresh and vibrant and CONSISTENT in shooting style and editing. Her work laid out in album-format is so compelling and we can't wait to show it off to you!
This design was approved with NO REVISIONS and is on the large side -- 25 spreads/50 pages. Whenever we get the chance to design albums with more spreads, the resulting design always feels more clean and complete because the images are given room to breathe on the spreads. The design is not too busy and there are plenty of pages to tell the story of a full wedding day.
Here are a few of our favorite spreads from this beautiful design:
This design was approved with NO REVISIONS and is on the large side -- 25 spreads/50 pages. Whenever we get the chance to design albums with more spreads, the resulting design always feels more clean and complete because the images are given room to breathe on the spreads. The design is not too busy and there are plenty of pages to tell the story of a full wedding day.
Here are a few of our favorite spreads from this beautiful design:
To see the design in full, click through the slideshow:
Thank you, Taylor for the opportunity to work with your beautiful images!
Thank you, Taylor for the opportunity to work with your beautiful images!
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Design by: Kari (View More) // Design style: Classic (View More) // Blog post written by: Melissa Jill
Design by: Kari (View More) // Design style: Classic (View More) // Blog post written by: Melissa Jill
Never wait on clients to pick album images again
photo by Kaitlyn Phipps Photography
I remember the first few albums that I designed -- I waited for my clients to pick the images they wanted included. I waited. And waited.
And waited a little longer.
I remember one client in particular couldn't get around to picking their images because they were busy moving into a new house. Then they took a trip to Disneyland. Then work took over and the task got pushed to the back-burner. Then finally they emailed me in the middle of October -- six months after their wedding -- to give me the exciting news: They had finally picked the images for their album! One thing you need to understand to get the full impact of this story is the Arizona wedding season. We are completely different than everywhere else in the country -- no one gets married in the summer here unless they are crazy. Our flesh physically melts off our bodies if we are outside for longer than 5 minutes in the summer months. Our busy seasons are the fall and spring. And our busiest month in the fall? October. So all summer I waited for my clients to choose their images and when they finally did, I no longer had the time or energy to devote to their album needs.
Have any of you had a similar experience when waiting for your clients to pick their images? My theory is that this task is just too overwhelming for our clients. And I have come to believe that we are asking too much of them if we structure our album workflow in this way. Instead, I believe my clients are better served if I choose the images and have their album pre-designed for them.
There are a number of benefits to pre-designing:
1 -- Our workflow is not held up by waiting on our clients to pick images. The initial album design can be done like clockwork for each wedding -- within a week of the wedding date. Here are some tips for picking album images quickly.
2 -- It makes life easier on our clients. It's a much more manageable task for our clients to make image swaps to an existing design than it is to narrow down hundreds of images to a select few for the initial design.
3 -- The design ends up being much more beautiful. When the photographer or designer picks the images as they are designing, the design ends up being much more cohesive and lends itself to telling the story of the day. If a designer needs to use all of the images chosen by the client, it can be like trying to fit pieces of a puzzle together that just don't fit. The resulting design often ends up unbalanced, and the story fragmented.
So there you have it! Three excellent reasons to never wait on your clients to pick album images again.
In my initial client meetings I always explain our album workflow process to my clients as they are looking through samples. I let them know that as a service to them, we will design their album with our favorite images in a way that we think best tells the story of their day. Once they see the design, they are able to make image swaps to make it perfect before we place the order. I let them know that we've found it's much easier for our clients to make changes to an existing design than it is to select the images they want included without knowing what the design will look like. Every time I explain our process in this way the clients nod in agreement and understanding. And pre-designing has forever cured the hang-up I used to experience in my workflow while waiting on clients to pick their images.
Hallelujah! Pre-designing for the WIN!!
And if you use Align to pre-design your albums, we suggest sending us a folder of your favorite images as well as a folder of additional images to pull from that might include family portraits or more reception photos. When you fill out our order form, be sure to mark "Select images that best tell the story" next to the number of images you are sending in order to give your designer some freedom to create the most beautiful design.
I remember the first few albums that I designed -- I waited for my clients to pick the images they wanted included. I waited. And waited.
And waited a little longer.
I remember one client in particular couldn't get around to picking their images because they were busy moving into a new house. Then they took a trip to Disneyland. Then work took over and the task got pushed to the back-burner. Then finally they emailed me in the middle of October -- six months after their wedding -- to give me the exciting news: They had finally picked the images for their album! One thing you need to understand to get the full impact of this story is the Arizona wedding season. We are completely different than everywhere else in the country -- no one gets married in the summer here unless they are crazy. Our flesh physically melts off our bodies if we are outside for longer than 5 minutes in the summer months. Our busy seasons are the fall and spring. And our busiest month in the fall? October. So all summer I waited for my clients to choose their images and when they finally did, I no longer had the time or energy to devote to their album needs.
Have any of you had a similar experience when waiting for your clients to pick their images? My theory is that this task is just too overwhelming for our clients. And I have come to believe that we are asking too much of them if we structure our album workflow in this way. Instead, I believe my clients are better served if I choose the images and have their album pre-designed for them.
There are a number of benefits to pre-designing:
1 -- Our workflow is not held up by waiting on our clients to pick images. The initial album design can be done like clockwork for each wedding -- within a week of the wedding date. Here are some tips for picking album images quickly.
2 -- It makes life easier on our clients. It's a much more manageable task for our clients to make image swaps to an existing design than it is to narrow down hundreds of images to a select few for the initial design.
3 -- The design ends up being much more beautiful. When the photographer or designer picks the images as they are designing, the design ends up being much more cohesive and lends itself to telling the story of the day. If a designer needs to use all of the images chosen by the client, it can be like trying to fit pieces of a puzzle together that just don't fit. The resulting design often ends up unbalanced, and the story fragmented.
So there you have it! Three excellent reasons to never wait on your clients to pick album images again.
In my initial client meetings I always explain our album workflow process to my clients as they are looking through samples. I let them know that as a service to them, we will design their album with our favorite images in a way that we think best tells the story of their day. Once they see the design, they are able to make image swaps to make it perfect before we place the order. I let them know that we've found it's much easier for our clients to make changes to an existing design than it is to select the images they want included without knowing what the design will look like. Every time I explain our process in this way the clients nod in agreement and understanding. And pre-designing has forever cured the hang-up I used to experience in my workflow while waiting on clients to pick their images.
Hallelujah! Pre-designing for the WIN!!
And if you use Align to pre-design your albums, we suggest sending us a folder of your favorite images as well as a folder of additional images to pull from that might include family portraits or more reception photos. When you fill out our order form, be sure to mark "Select images that best tell the story" next to the number of images you are sending in order to give your designer some freedom to create the most beautiful design.
Your designer will then use your favorite images as focal points throughout the design, which will ensure that you love the result. Then you can use your first round of revisions to make any changes before sending it on to your clients. They will then have two remaining rounds to use for their image swaps.
Life simplified. Boom.
To hear from another photographer about why this method works for her, check out this blog post: Sharon Elizabeth on Album Image Selection.
If you found this post helpful and would like to receive tips like this straight to your inbox, click here to sign up!
Life simplified. Boom.
To hear from another photographer about why this method works for her, check out this blog post: Sharon Elizabeth on Album Image Selection.
If you found this post helpful and would like to receive tips like this straight to your inbox, click here to sign up!
And exciting news! If you're a photographer who wants to start offering albums without investing hours of guesswork and trial and error -- we have a solution for you! Check out the Album Start-Up Kit and start maximizing your profit today!
-----------
Blog post written by: Melissa Jill
Blog post written by: Melissa Jill
