Lessons
Day 1
1Workflow Philosophy
13:18 2Four Main Goals for Workflow Management
1:14:40 3Pricing and Packages
1:02:19 4Set for Success - Gear
27:19 5Software Workflow
41:43 6Slideshow Prep
28:09 7Fast Book Production
58:10Day 2
8What is InDesign?
09:40 9Setting InDesign Preferences
21:26 10InDesign Basics
48:04 11InDesign Basics Q&A
11:56 12More InDesign Basics
11:14 13Image Management, Retouching, and Exporting
24:00 14InDesign for Flip Books and Blogging
24:16 15Creating a Marketing Piece
32:50 16Design Principles
27:17 17Typography
29:13 18Thanks + Credits
07:12 19Start to Finish Album Design
35:59 20Workshop Recap
10:30Lesson Info
What is InDesign?
We're going to start this morning talking about in design and specifically we're going to talk about why it's awesome and how to use it. We'll talk about some design tips, and some recommended resource is I will start off today just talking about really what is in design, because it turns out that a lot of people aren't sure. And I know some some people have been using it for a while and feel pretty comfortable with it. And other people. It is completely unfamiliar. And you know what? That's just fine. That's what we're here for today. So let's talk a little bit about what it is. It's part of the adobe sweet. So if you have the sweet, you may already have in design and maybe you've just never opened it before. Or maybe you did open it, and after a mild panic attack, you closed it and just promised to never touch it again. So I want to get you past that fear because it's not scary. Maybe if you think back to before you ever used photo shop about the first time you opened Photoshopped, t...
hat probably felt pretty overwhelming as well. And in design is also a very sophisticated program, but the genius of it is, it's also very simple to use, so that's what we'll do today. But how it fits into the sweet not everyone realizes, is of course, we have Photoshopped, which everyone's familiar with. That's for editing photos, right, pixel based images. So that's photo shop. We tend Teoh, make Photoshopped do a lot of things as photographers. I heard a joke once that someone said photographers could probably find a way to balance their checkbooks in photo shop if they tried hard enough. I thought that was a good joke, but I hope no one really actually tries to balance their checkbook. Them voters up. But the photos lots of editing, raster, pixel based images and on the opposite spectrum we have Adobe illustrator and Illustrator is for creating vector based artwork. So illustrations right and an illustrator. You use the pen tool to drop as and make your artwork that way. So it's different than Photoshopped because of the vector information. So they're kind of like opposite ends of the spectrum there and then in divine, I like to think of it as kind of being in the middle because in design is a layout and design program. So in design is a way to combine the images that you have edited with Photoshop, with maybe some illustrations or graphics of things created an illustrator, and then you can add text and all of that good stuff. So it's the place where you build all of the stuff together and make something new. I also like to think of it as photo shops BFF, because they do work really well together. And we will look at that today later this morning and the complement each other so well that I know that there's a lot of different software programs out there specifically made, maybe four albums. But I really believe that because of this interconnection between in design and photo shop there BFF status, that it's an added advantage. One of the things that makes me so passionate about teaching in designed specifically besides that it's so awesome is I really feel passionate about liberating photographers from sort of the confines of trying to do everything in photo shop. Obviously, we know Photoshopped is amazing, but it has a specific purpose, right and in design, has its own specific purpose. But we we love our photo shop, and I think sometimes this quote is very a proposed, and it says when the only tool you own is a hammer, then every problem begins to resemble and nail. And that's why we think we try to make Photoshopped do everything, because that's the tool we we often have. That's the tool we're comfortable with. So we start pounding every nail with photo shop. We go looking for nails to hit with voter shops. So I think that's that's an interesting quote, but in design has tons of advantages. So first of all, because you get to work with a single document, and I think that's a huge advantage if you're working in photo shop, if you're designing albums and photo shopped, for example, or even some of the plug ins that have been created to make photo shop more sort of album friendly, though there plug ins that air trying to make Photoshopped do something it wasn't really intended to do. Photo Shop was never intended to have multiple pages to create multi page documents. That's not what photo shop was for, right, so and in design, you get one document vs in front of shop in some of the plug ins you have multiple PSD is that you have to kind of manage and put together as one book. But in in design. It's one document, and I think for just a simplicity standpoint, like what we talked about yesterday and wanting to simplify everything in design helps to make that possible. Another advantage is that it's really easy to edit and view. Rearrange your pages because they are in. One document will be looking at the pages panel today and how you can easily rearrange them. So it gives you a lot of flexibility as you designed that album into the story, right. But we know that albums are they really become a story of the day, and it's so helpful to me. I feel like as a designer, when I am writing that story with photos that I have the ability to see where the story's going to see where it it has been, and I can see that all in one police and move it around, and it's very fluid, and I feel like it really helps me see the book as one complete story instead of 20 different PSD sprints, for example, so you'll see that today. The other thing that super awesome is that working with in design makes you independent, totally a free agent. And yesterday we talked about how great it is to have freedom and flexibility with your business and your pricing model, and so that you can really be in control and do things that you want. How you want in design really helps make that happened on the production side of everything, because you've got one tool that you can do almost anything with pretty much anything. And what's nice is when you want to explore different album vendors and you wanna find the book that's really going to represent you and your brand and one for maybe weddings. If you want something different for portrait's and all of that, you have one tool that you can work with, and you have the independence and freedom to switch vendors as you need to as your needs change or your taste change, you can switch, and you've got that flexibility. I know that a lot of the vendors have lots of, um, their own software that helps you designed for them, and I think that's really nice. But one of the challenges is that you might get really wrapped up in that. And then if you want to try another book from someplace else, you have the whole learning curve again of maybe learning new software for that specific book and in design gives you the flexibility to try things wherever you want. And you can do it all with one tool. So you've got one learning curve, and I love that. It's also multi purposeful. If that's a word. Oh, so you can use it not only, of course, for album design, as we will be doing today, but you can use it to design all of your marketing materials. You can use it to design blawg boards, always showing you how I actually use in design for blogging this morning, which is really fun. And pdf, you can make e books with it. You can dio I made the slide deck that you're looking at right now. I designed all of this actually an in design, believe it or not, even though I'm sharing it with you through keynotes, I built it in in design, so I use it for everything. I would balance my checkbook and in design. I just think it's that great. So it also has tons of export options, which is super because sometimes for one album vendor, they may prefer that you export a PdF and send them. That's another vendor may want J pegs. You've got all kinds of options. Those are probably two of the biggest for albums anyway. If you're doing E pub stuff, that's different. But it's got lots of options. And really, the bottom line is that multi page layout and design is what in design was made for, right? And if you ask anyone who's a professional designer, they will tell you they used in design for their work. And I love it because when I've been out at conferences and stuff, people will come up to me and they say, I'm so glad to hear that you're helping photographers be introduced to in design because I truly think it can be life changing. It's so fantastic and your albums can really just take on a whole new level of speed and efficiency, and they're gonna look great
Class Materials
bonus material with purchase
bonus material with enrollment
Ratings and Reviews
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.
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 :)
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!