AlbumStomp and Album Prufr- With a login to see for yourself | Columbia, SC wedding photographer
It is pretty standard for a wedding photographer to offer wedding albums. Some photographers include them in higher packages, some just offer them as a product for purchase, maybe a mixture of both. Recently I have struggled with wanting my packages for weddings and births to have more physical product. I believe so strongly in physical tangible products. Images you can hold in your hands, memories that don't fade away with technology change, or require technology to view. Maybe you will take your laptop over to your grandma's house to show her your wedding images, but I hope you want to bring her an album to hold, with pages to turn. Maybe you will give your daughter a disc of her birth when she's becoming a mother herself, but I hope you will want to give her an album. So this put me in a place where, I needed to learn how to efficiently design an album, do it quickly, do it cost effectively, and do it WELL. And of course, now that I have a system down, I want to share it with you!
A couple of photographers over the past year have told me to get Blogstomp software (Hi Sarah Shambaugh! Rachael Oerther! Nadia Hurtt!). I loathe learning new technology, and spending money for something I can do myself, but Blogstomp really was worth the $50 for the freestyle layout options and the syncing straight to my wordpress from the program. It made blogging easier, and I HATE blogging, so that was worth it to me.You can see Blogstomp here (and download a free trial to see if it's a good idea for you)The makers of Blogstomp also offer Albumstomp, which I ignored for a while because more programs, more money, more things I can do myself. I don't make enough albums to spend money on album software. When I did make an album (for boudoir sessions in my highest wedding package), my album company had a building program right there on its website, or in its downloadable ROES software, so why purchase more if that was free.Designing an album for me in my album company's online software takes me about 1-2 hours, give or take. That alone is an issue, but I didn't know it could be better. But here is the bigger issue- I have no way to show it to my client because I'm building it in my album company basically in a shopping cart I am logged into. There is no option to export my layout, so my choices were to 1) Let my client login to my lab with my email and password (seeing all past orders, pricing, possibly another client's boudoir images which I keep away from everyone, and just looking all around super unprofessional) OR I could take a video with my iPhone as I turn the pages of the album and text it to her. Both of these are really stupid. And I have done both. I knew something needed to change.After talking with my friend Rachael last week (who happens to be a super amazing wedding photographer in Savannah- go see) and seeing that she had album stomp on her computer, she told me it was kind of the same setup as blogstomp with freestyling layouts, it was simple, and it allowed me to export a layout that I could show a client. I knew I needed to get home and research it, so I downloaded the trial (you can do that here) and played with it.Things that make this great: 1) You choose your album lab, you choose your album size, AND YOU CAN CHANGE THE SIZE ANYTIME IN THE PROJECT. My old way of doing things on my album company's website, once you selected a size, a cover, you were locked in. You could be halfway through realizing that most of your selections really aren't fitting in a square shape, and you need a rectangular shape, but it's too late. I love having that freedom of saying 10x10 isn't working, I need 8x12, and vice versa.Other thing that makes this great- You just click like 4 or 5 (or 12) images you want on a spread (a spread is two pages open like a magazine spread) and it puts them on in a perfect design, and gives you other design choices. You can drag images to rearrange until you find a layout you love. Seriously I used to do this one by one, playing until it worked. Now I have a software that gives me every single option that will work, I'm able to view them all and choose and move on. Amazing.
Just clicking that bottom row where all of the images are, and dragging my selection up to the spread. Clicking "mix it up" until I am happy, and this is the result. Before this, I was seriously cropping one by one trying to make things fit.So I have my album layout, but I still didn't know what to do from that point to show it to a bride. Here comes Album Prufr, the third and final piece of technology from the same company as Blogstomp and Albumstomp. I do believe Albumprufr could be more user friendly, but so far it gives me what I need. From Albumstomp, I can upload my album to Prufr.com, and my bride logs in to see. It is set up to look like an album (although I wish it had a cover to start with). The pages turn like a book, the spine lays flat just like the album will, the layout is pretty and simple, and there is an interactive comment section for each spread. This is great because she can tell me right on page 12 that she wants to change bottom left image to #424. I can see these, change them in Albumstomp, sync it back (no reuploading, just clicking a sync button to update it) and she sees the change. This is how a client sees Album prufr, and those arrows turn the pages. Commenting is a breeze.
From your view, there is an admin panel where you can see your list of albums, see notifications of comments, etc. I'm also gonna give you guys an email and password to log in and browse an album!Go to AlbumPrufr (click here) and type in JessicaRoberts0210@hotmail.com and type in password album. Note, this is not my admin email and password so you're not seeing this from what your admin view would be, you're seeing this from what your client view would be. Every client gets an email and password to view, this is a client setup. See how easy it is to browse this and comment on any changes? And it looks clean, professional, I love it.So there is my new album building and proofing system. If there's anything I can answer for you don't hesitate to ask!