Fairytale December Wedding Album Design for Abby Grace Photography
We have had the honor of designing 75 albums for DC-based photographer Abby Grace over the past 9 years of her photography career! What an honor! Abby has made the transition from wedding photography to specializing in Brand Photography and we are SO thrilled for her! She is killing it! Definitely check out her website if you are needing well-thought out and strategically powerful imagery for your brand!
This is likely the last wedding album design of Abby's that we will be able to feature. It's the end of an era! But we are only filled with gratitude as we appreciate the relationship we have been able to cultivate with her over the years. Abby is one of our beloved Client Advocates and you should click here to watch a short video where Abby shares how she changed her client workflow to get more referrals!
Without further ado, here is yet another stunning design featuring Abby's photography!
This is likely the last wedding album design of Abby's that we will be able to feature. It's the end of an era! But we are only filled with gratitude as we appreciate the relationship we have been able to cultivate with her over the years. Abby is one of our beloved Client Advocates and you should click here to watch a short video where Abby shares how she changed her client workflow to get more referrals!
Without further ado, here is yet another stunning design featuring Abby's photography!
To see the design in full, click through the slideshow:
Thank you Abby for allowing us to partner with you all these years! We wish you the very best in all your future endeavors!!
Thank you Abby for allowing us to partner with you all these years! We wish you the very best in all your future endeavors!!
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Design by: Andrea (View More) // Design style: Classic (View More) // Blog post written by: Melissa Jill
Design by: Andrea (View More) // Design style: Classic (View More) // Blog post written by: Melissa Jill
Houston Country Club Wedding Album Design for Scott Clark
We are trying hard to pick our jaws up off the floor after working with the images from this unbelievably STUNNING wedding photographed by our long-time client Scott Clark. Scott consistently blows us away with his imagery and this design is yet another of his that has made the list of our all-time favorites!
We have to give a shout-out to the amazing event planner Belle Events, as well as the floral designer Maxit Flower Design. The string-light canopy over the outdoor reception, the grand floral arrangements, the firework send-off -- everything about this day was magical!
Enjoy a few of our favorite spreads from this design:
We have to give a shout-out to the amazing event planner Belle Events, as well as the floral designer Maxit Flower Design. The string-light canopy over the outdoor reception, the grand floral arrangements, the firework send-off -- everything about this day was magical!
Enjoy a few of our favorite spreads from this design:
To see the design in full, click through the slideshow:
Thank you, Scott, for allowing us to work with your beautiful images!
Thank you, Scott, for allowing us to work with your beautiful images!
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Design by: Andrea (View More) // Design style: Classic (View More) // Blog post written by: Melissa Jill
Design by: Andrea (View More) // Design style: Classic (View More) // Blog post written by: Melissa Jill
5 tips for picking album images fast
above image by Kristen Browning Photograpy
The process of image selection for an album design can be more of a hassle than it truly needs to be. Many photographers get hung up on this step in their workflow, but there is hope! When done right, picking images for the album design can be fast and easy.
Here are our 5 tips for picking album images fast:
1 -- Pick the images yourself; don't wait for your clients.
I talk about the benefits of pre-designing in depth in this post (read it if you are still asking your clients to pick their images -- it will rock your world!!) but one of the main benefits is that your workflow will not be hung up by waiting on your clients. You can get an album designed within weeks of the wedding. PLUS this takes an unnecessary burden off of your clients' shoulders and allows you to create an initial album design that uses your best images and serves as a starting point for their changes.
2 -- Cull one time.
Don't make image selection for your album designs a separate step in your workflow. When you cull through images from a wedding, do it ONLY ONCE and make all of your choices in that first pass-through. This tip is so key that I'm going to share two different examples of how various photographers do this so hopefully one of them will resonate and make sense for you:
Example A: Melissa Jill (that's me!)
I cull my images once and rate them strategically according to intended use. I cull in Lightroom and rate my images as follows:
3 stars -- my favorite images I will pull from for the blog post, publication submission and my website portfolio (80-100 images)
2 stars -- additional images for the album design (100-150 images) These are typically family portraits, more getting ready images, and dancing images, and are used along-side the favorites to create the album design.
1 star -- additional images for the full gallery (300-500 images)
So on PASS, my online gallery solution, the client will see 500-800 images total (all of the images with a rating of 1, 2 or 3 stars). Their album will be designed from approximately 200 image options (some of the images with 2 or 3 stars -- I send them all to Align and allow my designer to choose which 2 star images to include). And my blog post will include about 30-50 images (some of the images with 3 stars).
Example B: Abby Grace
Abby Grace is an Align client and she also culls only once, but she eliminates the step of rating images for the album design all-together. She selects favorites in her initial cull and sends only those images to Align for the initial design. Then she has her Align designer include one blank spread in the album design that says "family portraits" and 1-2 blank spreads that say "dancing" at the appropriate places in the design. When she sends the initial draft to the client for revisions, she asks them to select a set number of images for each of those spreads. That allows her to skip selection of family portrait and dancing images when picking her favorites and saves time on revisions for those spreads. By giving her clients a very specific number and type of images to select, it ensures that they won't be paralyzed and overwhelmed by the task.
Regardless of which route you choose, make sure you are rating your images for every type of use rather than culling once for the client, once for the album design and once for the blog post or Facebook.
3 -- Be selective.
When choosing images for your albums, be very critical and pick only your best. The average album designed by Align has 18 spreads and an average of only 90-100 images. That's not a lot. When culling, make sure you don't pick images that are too similar. Pick the best one from each set of similar images and move on.
4 -- Choose for cohesion.
Even though you don't want to select images that are SUPER-similar, you do want to pick enough images from the same portrait location or event during the course of the day to allow for your designer to make cohesive spreads. Make sure you select enough bride and groom portraits for 3-4 spreads (at least 20 images minimum), and make sure every image has at least one buddy that works with it. Include both horizontal and vertical images to help aid in the ease of the design.
5 -- Include images that fill out the story.
It's obvious that you need to select images full of emotion and action that lead the viewer through the story of the day. But don't forget to include scene-setting images that introduce each location (shots of the inside & outside of the venue), as well as detail photos from each part of the day to help fill out the story and add dimension and interest to the design.
The process of image selection for an album design can be more of a hassle than it truly needs to be. Many photographers get hung up on this step in their workflow, but there is hope! When done right, picking images for the album design can be fast and easy.
Here are our 5 tips for picking album images fast:
1 -- Pick the images yourself; don't wait for your clients.
I talk about the benefits of pre-designing in depth in this post (read it if you are still asking your clients to pick their images -- it will rock your world!!) but one of the main benefits is that your workflow will not be hung up by waiting on your clients. You can get an album designed within weeks of the wedding. PLUS this takes an unnecessary burden off of your clients' shoulders and allows you to create an initial album design that uses your best images and serves as a starting point for their changes.
2 -- Cull one time.
Don't make image selection for your album designs a separate step in your workflow. When you cull through images from a wedding, do it ONLY ONCE and make all of your choices in that first pass-through. This tip is so key that I'm going to share two different examples of how various photographers do this so hopefully one of them will resonate and make sense for you:
Example A: Melissa Jill (that's me!)
I cull my images once and rate them strategically according to intended use. I cull in Lightroom and rate my images as follows:
3 stars -- my favorite images I will pull from for the blog post, publication submission and my website portfolio (80-100 images)
2 stars -- additional images for the album design (100-150 images) These are typically family portraits, more getting ready images, and dancing images, and are used along-side the favorites to create the album design.
1 star -- additional images for the full gallery (300-500 images)
So on PASS, my online gallery solution, the client will see 500-800 images total (all of the images with a rating of 1, 2 or 3 stars). Their album will be designed from approximately 200 image options (some of the images with 2 or 3 stars -- I send them all to Align and allow my designer to choose which 2 star images to include). And my blog post will include about 30-50 images (some of the images with 3 stars).
Example B: Abby Grace
Abby Grace is an Align client and she also culls only once, but she eliminates the step of rating images for the album design all-together. She selects favorites in her initial cull and sends only those images to Align for the initial design. Then she has her Align designer include one blank spread in the album design that says "family portraits" and 1-2 blank spreads that say "dancing" at the appropriate places in the design. When she sends the initial draft to the client for revisions, she asks them to select a set number of images for each of those spreads. That allows her to skip selection of family portrait and dancing images when picking her favorites and saves time on revisions for those spreads. By giving her clients a very specific number and type of images to select, it ensures that they won't be paralyzed and overwhelmed by the task.
Regardless of which route you choose, make sure you are rating your images for every type of use rather than culling once for the client, once for the album design and once for the blog post or Facebook.
3 -- Be selective.
When choosing images for your albums, be very critical and pick only your best. The average album designed by Align has 18 spreads and an average of only 90-100 images. That's not a lot. When culling, make sure you don't pick images that are too similar. Pick the best one from each set of similar images and move on.
4 -- Choose for cohesion.
Even though you don't want to select images that are SUPER-similar, you do want to pick enough images from the same portrait location or event during the course of the day to allow for your designer to make cohesive spreads. Make sure you select enough bride and groom portraits for 3-4 spreads (at least 20 images minimum), and make sure every image has at least one buddy that works with it. Include both horizontal and vertical images to help aid in the ease of the design.
5 -- Include images that fill out the story.
It's obvious that you need to select images full of emotion and action that lead the viewer through the story of the day. But don't forget to include scene-setting images that introduce each location (shots of the inside & outside of the venue), as well as detail photos from each part of the day to help fill out the story and add dimension and interest to the design.
Hopefully one or more of these tips will help streamline your workflow and make image selection for your albums a breeze!
Since we're on the topic of workflow speed, I wanted to throw a bonus your way and share with you what I have found to be the #1 time-saving tool to speed up my workflow. The best thing is, this tool is free and quick to implement. It's definitely a game-changer! Click here to download this time-saving hack for free today!
Since we're on the topic of workflow speed, I wanted to throw a bonus your way and share with you what I have found to be the #1 time-saving tool to speed up my workflow. The best thing is, this tool is free and quick to implement. It's definitely a game-changer! Click here to download this time-saving hack for free today!
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Blog post written by: Melissa Jill
Blog post written by: Melissa Jill
New Jersey Winery Wedding Album Design for Tori Kelner
The beautiful album you see on this post was a collaboration between ourselves (design + revision), New-Jersey based photographer Tori Kelner (amazing photos!), and Miller's Lab (printing & binding!). It's amazing how much work goes into an heirloom wedding album and we are SO THRILLED to get to show this one off today!
We have had the pleasure of working with Tori for 4 years now and we adore her and her work! She is one of our beloved Client Advocates and you should click here to watch a quick video where she shares some valuable tips about her album workflow!
We are so thankful to Tori for sending us some photos of this finished album! It turned out so beautifully!
We have had the pleasure of working with Tori for 4 years now and we adore her and her work! She is one of our beloved Client Advocates and you should click here to watch a quick video where she shares some valuable tips about her album workflow!
We are so thankful to Tori for sending us some photos of this finished album! It turned out so beautifully!
Here are a few of our favorite spreads from this stunning design:
Click through the slideshow to see the design in full:
Thank you, Tori, for allowing us to work with your beautiful images!
Thank you, Tori, for allowing us to work with your beautiful images!
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Design by: Andrea (View More) // Design style: Classic (View More) // Blog post written by: Melissa Jill
Design by: Andrea (View More) // Design style: Classic (View More) // Blog post written by: Melissa Jill
Beautiful Country Estate Wedding album design for Rebecca Denton
Nashville-based Rebecca Denton is a long-time client who has recently made the transition from focusing on weddings to specializing in food and brand photography! It's been so exciting to watch her make this huge shift in such a professional manner. We are big fans of hers and have enjoyed working with her on upwards of 50 designs now! Rebecca is also one of our beloved Client Advocates. You can see more of her designs that we've featured on the blog by clicking here!
Rebecca is not only super-talented, she's also super-organized! For this design she sent over a good variety of images and separated them into each part of the day making the design process super simple. She also selected one image of each family grouping and asked us to add all of them. This is not something we require, but it does make our job so much easier and takes a lot of the guess work out of the design process!
Once the design was sent to the bride and groom, there were very few changes to be made - basically just swapping out or adding images that were more personal and sentimental to them. All in all this design took a little over a month from receiving the images to final approval. Done and done!
And we think it turned out BEAUTIFULLY! Here are a few of our favorite spreads:
Rebecca is not only super-talented, she's also super-organized! For this design she sent over a good variety of images and separated them into each part of the day making the design process super simple. She also selected one image of each family grouping and asked us to add all of them. This is not something we require, but it does make our job so much easier and takes a lot of the guess work out of the design process!
Once the design was sent to the bride and groom, there were very few changes to be made - basically just swapping out or adding images that were more personal and sentimental to them. All in all this design took a little over a month from receiving the images to final approval. Done and done!
And we think it turned out BEAUTIFULLY! Here are a few of our favorite spreads:
To see the design in full, click through the slideshow:
Thank you Rebecca for allowing us to work with your stunning images!
Thank you Rebecca for allowing us to work with your stunning images!
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Design by: Shannon (View More) // Design style: Classic (View More) // Blog post written by: Melissa Jill
Design by: Shannon (View More) // Design style: Classic (View More) // Blog post written by: Melissa Jill
