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Start to Finish Album Design

Lesson 19 from: Create a Photo Album: Workflow and Design

Khara Plicanic

Start to Finish Album Design

Lesson 19 from: Create a Photo Album: Workflow and Design

Khara Plicanic

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Lesson Info

19. Start to Finish Album Design

Next Lesson: Workshop Recap

Lesson Info

Start to Finish Album Design

make my normal 40 page 20 spread book, and I'm putting in the number of pages to be 21 because I'm going to build the cover right into this, too. So that's 20 spreads, 40 pages and one cover. And let's see, do we have that set up right? And here we go. So it's just this easy. I'll come up to my pages and resize that page. I usually save the cover kind of to do last because I just never know what it's gonna be. And so let's sort this the right way. Hoops proofs. There we go. All right, so my proofs are in order. Usually, when I start out by spreads, I like to sort of have a first. I gotta put my guys, man, and really doing this from scratch. Really? From scratch. Of course, when I do this at home, I save these things. So I just start a new document with my presets in police, my things like my guides. So I don't have to reinvent the wheel, But I'm I am gonna literally do this for you from scratch. So there we go. All right. So usually when I do this I like to have, like my first spread k...

ind of be sort of like a title page because I don't put text on the cover or anything like that. So usually here I might come through and grab. I don't know. Sometimes I do like a great portrait of the two of them. Sometimes I might grab a ring shot and throw that in there, so I'll just do this for now. And if we change, change our minds later, we might do that Over here. I might type in. Let's see, let's do Jason and Lindsay. Maybe put their names, Maybe put I don't know, the typeface. I just fell in love with that hiatus the other day. But maybe we'll save that for the date Weaken style. This later. Maybe, um, let's do something like century something simple and a lot of times I'll actually put this in all lower case and you can actually come up to your type and you can actually choose change case. And I could just say lower case and it'll all become lower case even if I didn't originally type it that way. So kind of a neat O thing might make this a little. Not so big. Zoom in on this. Not so big. Maybe I'd add the wedding date under here. We'll just kind of see can also change the color so I might bring the eyedropper and then sample of color out of the image, perhaps So that it matches. And I might line it up. Let's see something. Maybe about here. A mindful again of the fold. I don't want to come too close to that. Maybe all left a line. The, uh, were in my paragraph options. Got stuff covered up here. Good. Write a line that maybe something like that. We'll come back to it if we need to. All right, so then I would come down here, and I'd probably want to start with some getting ready photos. So scroll up here at the top and, uh, what is a pretty bride? This is I love these shots of her smiling so big so I might dragon a big frame and maybe this. Let's see how that pops in over there. Lovely like that. Maybe a couple frames of something like this. Maybe we got some shoes somewhere. Drag. There we go. Maybe a dress have to say I've not ever built an entire album with the world watching. This is kind of fun. I don't know. Um, probably want these to be a little closer together. So my scoot that over and then nudge these over like that. So they're centered nicely. Maybe I'll decided to make, um, a little bigger. There we go about like they had. Maybe we'll come down here and see. Where are we in our story shoes? Oh, I love this photo of Mom. Something money. Drag this in. She was really great. Um, so glad we could include that. Here. Move that over a bit. Maybe there's another shot. This is what's great to having already blogged all of this stuff. I know the shots that I really like and would be looking for because I have I've done all of this. It's fresh in my mind. So I feel like that really helps me. I can make these a little taller position. This may be about there. Um, I love the shot, um, the bride with or is it her perfume bottle? Here it is. That just so yummy. All right. So, um, four pages for spreads done eight pages out of 40. That's not too bad. Um, all right, let's see who else we got going on. Some gorgeous black and whites I love. I love this she classic or what? I just love that There's another one. And sometimes, you know, when I'm doing this stuff I'm also looking at, like, I love this image right here as well, and she's looking to the right in both of these. So I probably wouldn't like if I put a vertical here and I drag this into it. I don't really I don't really like the way that, um these are They're both looking a way. I like to have them, maybe maybe have her looking back instead of looking off the page. So a lot of times when I'm designing this stuff, I'm really looking at the direction people look in the photos. I don't want them like making sense. So maybe I'll use this one. Um, drag this in over here. Sat centered new. There we go. So I want to do something like that and come on down. What else we got? We should do some of their our groom. Hey, So sweet. What's put, um, and I like to use I'm not putting. You'll notice like too many photos on spreads. So that helps to with the simplicity of everything, you will make this a little bigger. And there's another shot if I remember him. Oh, this one. Maybe I'll do something a little different but consistent. Maybe tighten this up, Anil. Drag this one in here. Sometimes I like to do some funky positioning of images, air, really dramatic crop lines and a lot of teams to when I'm winding up images I might like instead of just putting this in center by default, I might move it up and maybe aligned this with him in the top of his head over here. So you know, just kind of depends. The images themselves lend themselves to so many different things. Oh, and their first look was kind of on this whole door. Thing was the bride's idea. She really wanted. He's kind of like they wanted. She wanted them to be on opposite sides of a door and then, like, turn around, come around the door and see each other. And I was like, Sure, why not? Let's do that. Maybe I'll duplicate that. And let's put in maybe put this know what I'm thinking here? See, that one is a That's a horizontal image, but I'm going to kind of reuse it vertically and maybe something like this. Dr. Listen, here. I don't have to clean this up because it's not very evenly spaced. So I'll go to the align panel, distribute spacing. Not bad. And then let's let's go ahead and put that one in the center. So we've got the story going on from rings getting ready Groom first look. And then usually I do some portrait times. So commedia all grab some of these. And a lot of these, of course, are already retouched. And obviously at this point, because they've been blogged, etcetera. So maybe all drag this guy over here. Not sure why I refer to all the photos as guys dragged this guy over. I don't know how funny. All right. And on this side, uh, maybe I'll have them looking at the camera or I like this looking at each other. That's kind of cute, too. So I like that. Yeah. Good. All right. What else? So I'm space bar dragging to just keep this going? I don't think I showed you to how easy it is to rearrange your spread positions. I can grab this and just in the page panel, drag him around and it'll do it here so that that's really nice. Sometimes I might decide. Oh, well, we wouldn't want this before the first look. But sometimes you might wanna change up your spreads, the order of those things. Let's try this image here. Nice. Like to throw in some just full, full spread images whenever I get the chance, one of these is probably might be a good cover image. Sometimes when I am designing, I'll come down here and usually I you know, I pick one of their nice portrait e images to go on the cover. And sometimes I don't like I wanted on the cover, but I want it on a spread to and then have to try to decide and that so that's so tricky sometimes. But, um, that works with the fold, all right, so I'm switching to constantly between wonderful mode because I don't like to see all the extra stuff on my screen and then, you know, regular mode so I can see. Make sure I'm checking all my guides and gutters and stuff folds. So I don't know that I would debate. Like should this go on the cover? Maybe not. Maybe this should go on the cover. And then sometimes I might I might come up to I might go up to the cover and just bridge. I might come up to the cover and I might drop it in. Maybe. And all kind of keep it. There is a place holder and then we'll see how I feel about it later. If I end up using it in the album, then I probably won't repeat it on the cover. So something like this Helou. All right, good. So scrolling through looking good. What else? Little Siri's here. I know there were quite a few of these that I really liked. So maybe I'll do you like a little grouping of three or so. I know. Let's see. Should make these bigger. So I can I got the monitor kind of far away from my face. I can't see everything. Um, let's Dio maybe you need this guy again with the guy photos This little guy here, Maybe we'll pull this apart and this one, this one in the middle is probably gonna end up going across the fold. So I try put like an image like this that they don't have faces. I had a bride recently who? I thought this was so great, right, cause I love to cut people's heads off in my compositions. And some people, of course, panic when you do that, and they're wonder why you do it. But I had a bride recently, and if I was so great, her mom told me I love the images where you cut people's heads off and she requested lots of them. And I was like, I love you. I thought that was so fun. All right, so maybe you know not Oh, here's one where they're kind of snuggling. Maybe we'll do that. And so these I'm designing this with the UN retouched proofs because I certainly wouldn't want to retouch anything in the album. I wouldn't want to retouch it until it's, like, approved right until other already spaced until I know that they're going to actually be in the album, cause I don't wanna waste time retouching something that the bride wants me to cut out, or the groom or whoever. It's not always just the bride. Okay, so that looks good. Did everyone see how I did that? Teoh. I just space to these how I wanted it. And then, of course, they didn't fit across yet. So then I was like, Let's just grow it across, and, um and then positioning So super easy. All right, where are we in our story? Good Portrait's. We're coming up to the ceremony. So sometimes here I might do like maybe sometimes I put the parent I usually put parent photos in because I know they're gonna want, um and I think they're important. And so I might keep it simple, though, so I probably scroll through and there's her family, so I usually just dio let's see. We'll see about the spacey That should be taller. Probably so I probably dio something like this. And then on this side I would find his family and with the kiddos and grand kids and everybody's in there and then group it loops. There we go. And if I decide I want the gap between them smaller, I'll just scooted over. Or if you want to use a set amount. You can do that as I showed you earlier and then stretch the readjusting. Make sure it's I usually do when I'm once the album's approved and I've got it retouched. Then I go through and obsess about the spacing and alignment. You know, I do it quickly here. I wanted to look good, but I like check it before I would print anything. Let's do a little bit of a multi sometimes before the ceremony part. Sometimes I do like a fun collage of just some fun story telling random pictures that I think, you know, depending on the client's and what I think that they're going to enjoy or what was special to them. I'm right through in some of these kind of collage things. So maybe maybe something like this. Good. Um, and then here, let's put please see, what am I thinking you can put and a little ring bear here? Wait, I forgot that I love this. We have in color this one Nice fun. Kids like to set the scene with picture of the church. If I e hopefully have that. I didn't try to remember to shoot the church Of course, the venue. Whatever. Sometimes I Sometimes it just depends on the client. But sometimes I know they're going to really be like we want the picture of the whole wedding party, right? Sometimes I don't stick it in here. Other times, I might just depends if I know, like, that's really something they're gonna once I'll find a way to get it in before they have toe ask about it. Um, otherwise, maybe I won't. You know, maybe I know that they're going to be cool with some other stuff I might plan to include later. So just kind of depends. He's over. See those smart guides kicking in and letting me know the spacing is even We're gonna have to readjust some of this in a minute. But maybe at this point, we might put in, um, maybe a picture with the kids. Sometimes that's really special to the people. I want to take care of those things. Maybe something, just them. These kind of things. I just do every every weddings different. If there's lots of fun details around, this might just be a details page. Um, totally depends on what I was able to capture that day. Well, there is a picture of the cute little ring bearer. Where was he somewhere before this or not? He was after this little guy. And this is all without any. I mean, I'm doing this from scratch. Nice. I can double check myself and grab grab across like this and make sure I'm distributing spacing and then, you know, lineup thes things. I just I'm watching how it moves. And then that looks to the right. Still a line. Those that So everything should be spaced nicely. All right. Ceremony time. Oh, and this church is one of the churches where they don't let you go anywhere. Uh, yeah. So I was stuck in the back the entire time, which is always fun, right? And then I'm like, how am I going to tell this story from one vantage point? But this church at least did have a balcony so I can get, you know, the bride coming down the aisle shot. And I was able Teoh pop up to the balcony. So maybe something I like to be able to show. I know some people really like to see the image of, you know, the church like kind of birds. I kind of a thing. They like to see their wedding party surrounding them. So just kind of depends what I end up putting in here and then the ceremony itself. Uh, of course, I like to try to get them a lot of different angles. Okay, I like to try to get him a lot of different angles, but in this church, I just couldn't. So then the ceremony becomes okay, Let's find some interesting stuff from the same position over and over again. Um, they're looking at each other. That's great. Check out that. And maybe I would I don't know. Maybe I would just put how sometimes, you know, people have special people in their lives performing the ceremony. I might try to include those. Otherwise, I usually teak I keep the ceremony shots like pretty basic. Um, just I guess it obviously it really depends on the wedding. But maybe they had, like, a really neat kind of a unity candle kind of a thing somewhere. Thought Here's one. I don't know that's really hot enough to be in the album, but perhaps just roll with it for now, all right? And you gotta have the kiss, right? I think that would be What would we do if I took that out? Would be trouble. The kiss from the balcony where I was banished all right. Not quite as effective is where I would have liked to have shot that from. But the nice thing is, they know they know that the rules are a little strict. Let's see a group. It is centered on What do you know? Sometimes I'm surprised my eye catches that so Well. Oh, let's see, Maybe we'll dio I like this pair of black and whites that I happened tohave here of them, um, kind of leaving the church, so use them as a pair all. Really? You know, I'm just taking advantage of stuff I've done already. If I've logged something and I've grouped it nicely on the blogged, I'll just re use that same kind of thing. See, here's all the Yea everyone's excited coming out of the church. So fun. Very cool. We gotta fix this gap problem. Get that. Why are these not the same sum is because it's too big. There we go centred. Nice. You got down those stairs fast stairs. Oh, yeah? Well, there was some time. I mean, this was Yeah, this one. I know this was when they came out. So they had a receiving line and all of that. There was some time lapse there. But some of those, Yeah, some of the times. That's really tricky. What's next? Oh, we went Teoh. Here's where we have the fun stuff going on with one shooter shooting details. And I'm over here with these people at the dislocation. Let's see what we want to dio. I like to include a shot of the girls I want to see you know which one I like the green being in here, but we'll see how it looks in Kind of like we'll go with it. Were right Now if I change my mind I think I mentioned earlier a lot of times I'll just drag stuff off to the side. This is called the Paste Board. No might drag something over there and, um, sort of keep it in case I want it later. Somewhere I have the guys like that, they would have some green. I play nicely together. How are we with Spacey? Good. Yeah. So if I click on any of the boxes, I can see the anchors, and that helps me a line stuff, too, with the guide center on the page so kind of fun. Let's check out what's going on with the wedding details, and I love their cake photo. I love the colors. I love that they had the fun up lights and stuff, the lighting and the reception a little bit. Not the whole time, but it was nice. So I want to use that. They want to keep that big, and it's so vertical. I can't fill 1/2 spread square with it cause I would get cropped too much, so we might just maybe just do that, Um, and the cake, you know, the toast in the cake cutting and all of that. I don't know. I'm tryingto just depends. Obviously. Let's see if we want to put a couple of details here. You know, I think there appears picture from, like, this one colors in the corner. So this this page, I'm looking at a lot of color, and I'm thinking, How can I include a lot of color and just playoff? That's that's something kind of fun fun. It's so funny to see my keyboard shortcuts constantly popping up a lot of stuff. She had these gorgeous rows of here centerpieces. So pretty like that. We will bring that down a little, and, oh, the table shot. Others may be kind of a crop it horizontally. You say this guy maybe, Uh All right, we'll see next part of the story, some more portrait. So then I think, Wow, what did I put on the cover? Maybe you should change it. Maybe I would try one of these, so I might I might Look up, Scroll back up. What did we put up there? Know what I like? I like it. So we'll keep me. Keep that. But I kind of just go back and forth, will pop back down here, So let's see. We've got them arriving a little more. Details could include some of those two. Their arrival cake cutting and toasting and all of ACA. Let's see. Maybe just depends. Sometimes I might build to spread with the toast sometimes. Maybe I don't. Maybe they have a really great entrance. I don't know how this photo really looks. Can I just say that I love your photos. Oh, thank you for a great photographer like the other one. Better. I like the movement. I like that. It's kind of often kind of really. You can feel the energy of the moment in this shot, so I might keep it there like that. Maybe I'll scroll down here and find a cake cutting kind of thing. So I might include the toast photos, but it just depends if there's a lot of great emotion and somebody's crying or something's really went great. I like that. But I don't know. You know, someone just with the microphone? I don't know. We'll see. So I might go with that. Where are we? What's going on? Oh, my God. We only have two left. Okay, so, uh, eso I'm looking over in my pages panel, and I would have checked this before I was just focused. I forgot. So I try to pace myself with you know, how many spreads? Sometimes I get really carried away. Especially with the portrait, like this kind of sections. Sometimes I'm just like, Oh, my gosh. And I love this and I love this. And before I knew it, I've done like pages or whatever of portrait's of them. And then I'm like, Yeah, they had a ceremony and they had a cake and the stuff I should dio So then I have to go back and, like, delete spreads. Or if there's one that I just can't part with sometimes Lakeside. I'll just throw it in for extra just because I'll be like, Hey, you guys, I love yourself so much. I gave you an extra spread and I love your book. Let's get this thing printed. Um, but I only have to spread left, so we'll just see what happens. Maybe all have to delete one and maybe not. Um, I'll just jump to their first dance and see. And of course, everyone is different. Some here's their toasts, so you can see we didn't really talk. I told you, move my lights all around. So I have him out here and there, there lighting up the toasters and the dads, and I'm running around everywhere and okay, so here is the first dance shot that I really like. And as much as I loved the color they had going on, you didn't really see it in this shocks. It was mostly in the corners of the room, so I just liked making that one black and white little power of simplicity there and sometimes depending, you know, maybe I would delete a portrait spread. And maybe maybe I want to dio maybe I want to close the book. Done this a couple times where there's just a really great party shot somewhere, like a great room. You don't know if I have one here. Something kind like this, Um, where I might just if they have a live band, I went close it out with just a rock and fund shot. Or, you know, if it's an intent like a fun Twilight 10 shot But in this case, I could I might end it this way. Or then, You know, if I feel like now they're gonna want they're gonna want photos of people on the dance floor. Like besides the one group shot. Then maybe we'll shrink this down, do our convenient keyboard shortcut. Let's zoom in so I can see what's going on. And maybe we will. There is one really fun swirly shot that I God, let me see if I can find it. in here sometimes. Oh, I love this So fun. I like to throw my shutter speed really slow and twirl my camera around, and then you can get these fun, you know? And if that's like their little flower girl or whatever, they kind of like that could be fun. So maybe some fun dance shots bring this over, Bring Maybe we'll put a couple over here who will have to fix the gap. Mind the gap, as they say in the UK Um, and then let's find some just good. Oh, bouquet toss. Uh uh. What am I doing? Uh um, maybe we sacrifice that for a bouquet, Tosh, not I don't know. Maybe we somehow fit it all in here. Maybe I like that as 1/2. Oops. See the little auto content grabber? I think you can shut it off in your preferences, which I think at home. I think I have it that way because, um, it's dangerous. I end up grabbing things. I really don't mean Teoh. What am I thinking? Medio put a couple party shots here, including the one of our little twirling girl, and keep that is a bouquet toss. Then we can fit in One more dancey dancing part. A photo. Maybe. Here's our bride and groom jamming out, having a good time. Good. Okay. What if we do this? Andi, Maybe we'll switch these around. This is this is on the fly. A lot of play. Good. And bring this over. Line up our spacey you That's not looking well, yetis. And what schools? I can take this whole group and then just scooted over teller fits and realign everything. So what we need I need a vertical to swap out one of our, um, bouquet shots that I've got duplicated here and somewhere. Here's one of them dancing that one doesn't have the purple. That might bother me. Oh, there's some. Okay, We'll keep that in. So dance. That's Russ and I were teasing fam on It's done. I don't know what the clock wife. I don't know of anyone kept time. Why didn't he started that you started a three or 5 35 36 minutes and 40 pages. Maybe So for the non believers, I believe I just did that for you Live. So give me that simple. It's really that simple way

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Ratings and Reviews

1106 Imagery
 

This class is so good! I learnt so much about albums, and selling them the right way. Having never really used Indesign before, I was nervous about using it as my main platform to design albums. I'm shocked, but I really enjoy using the program! It's so simple and easy using Khara's methods of designing. I also never used bridge before too (Lightroom faithful here), and it's fantastic for sourcing images for the albums. I'm learning a few upsell methods too, so it's very exciting for my business! Thank you for such a great course :)

a Creativelive Student
 

Yep, love your work Khara! I am now using Indesign to make my first wedding album thanks to you. So clearly explained and nicely presented. Such a powerful program that makes a complicated task seem easy, with as many variables in layout and design as I can imagine. I am just so excited! I would recommend this course to anyone who is running any size photography business. It will help simplify your workflow and increase your output.

Adrian Farr
 

Khara's advice is so simple yet makes absolute perfect sense! She really knows how to get the best out of her albums and packages. If you want to learn things that will help you improve your business/workflow, then seriously buy this course!

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