What material do you have?
A photograph album is essentially what it says it is. It is a record of a subject by photographs. Other material is essentially supportive.
It is important though to collect as much material as possible before you start. In addition to you own photos add photos produced by friends, pictures from websites, books and publications (be careful – web pictures are generally geared to 72dpi – this is too rough for a printed album – and if the album is not for your immediate use don’t forget copyright restrictions.
If your own photos are not that good – don’t hesitate to use others where appropriate. You are the only one who knows.
On the links page of www.opusalbums.com there are pointers to a number of sources of stock photos.
You have your story – ready or in draft.
What other material is there? – maps, Google Earth etc. Be imaginative – brainstorm ideas!
What software should you use?
In theory it is possible to create an album without any specific album software – e.g. using a photo editor such as Photoshop Elements or CS2, Corel Paintshop Pro etc. However there are some software products specifically designed for this and their use is recommended.
You should not use a non-photo editing product, such as Microsoft Word. Whilst you can layout a text-picture, the software is not geared to the best handling of images, and a substantial reduction in picture quality is likely.
Also take care. There are several programs which use the phrase ‘photo album’ which are unsuitable for printing your own albums. Some are photo organisers whereby photos can be allocated to virtual disk based albums. They have nothing to do with printed albums. Examples of these are Corel Photo Album 6, Serif Album Plus.
Other products have been designed to allow you to make up an album for it to be printed by a service bureau. Often these have good design tools – but do not support your printing the album yourself!
ACD Systems FotoSlate 4
At OPUS Albums we use, and sell FotoSlate4. For more i nformation on this product see http://www.opusalbums.com/fotoslateiv . FotoSlate 4 Design Studio enables you to edit and format your albums for printing – quickly, easily with almost nothing to learn! Features include: customisable templates, scrapbook style designs, handy wizards, photo editor, page designer, click and drop photos from your collection, rearrange, rotate, change shape, add borders, add text, add background, improved resolution with FotoSlate's "Clear IQZ" digital image resampling technology.
Nova Developments – Scrapbook Factory
Other software includes Scrapbook Factory® Deluxe 3.0 from Nova Developments. This claims to be America’s #1 best selling scrapbooking softwar and has everything you need for scrapbooking. It offers the ultimate collection of templates for scrapbooks and other keepsake projects, featuring beautiful photo-realistic graphics sure to capture the excitement of any occasion or event. It list 5000 projects, 3500 photorealistic embellishments and 40,000 graphics. It is – however optimised round scrapbooking rather than photo album production.
An entry level product from the same stable is Scrapbooks Plus.
Worth looking at might be PhotoFusion Lumapix. It had a good video but seems difficult to use.
In addition the printer manufacturers – who have vested interest in your consuming as much expensive paper and ink (they like to think theirs!) as possible have some reasonable products. Particular of note is Canon’s Photo Record (now replaced by Easy Print which is not as good for album production), Epson’s Photo Quicker and HP’s PhotoImpact etc. I do not rate them as highly as those above for making your own albums.
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