Archive for the ‘Tech and Design Tips’ Category

Framed for Profit

Thursday, February 24th, 2011

How many of you offer disk only packages? In the last few years many of us in the industry have felt pressure from brides to start offering these packages. We know that despite what a bride says, she’ll most likely never get an album made and will just take her disk to Wal-Mart to make prints.

How do we combat this? Johnny Baijan of Bensenville, Illinois has a great idea. He too has felt the pressure to offer disk only packages in recent years but he didn’t want to give up entirely on selling albums. Recently, he developed a new way to show the value of having an album. He started by designing a spread or two, framing them and presenting them to the bride when she comes in to pick up her disk.

Johnny says brides have been blown away by this and will either buy one of the framed layouts, decide to go ahead and buy an album or both. Often when a bride sees a framed panoramic spread with fully retouched images, she realizes the value her photographer can give her by creating an album and enhancing her images.

Even if your client lives out of town you can create a couple of page spreads in a slide show or as low resolution files and email them to your client showing them how beautiful an album could be.  None of this is rocket science, just sound salesmanship – you can’t sell what you don’t show. What better way is there to sell the concept of an album than by showing a glimpse of what they could receive?

If you’re considering giving this idea a try, Zookbinders can help. We offer premade frames already sized to various panoramic proportions. We can even make you a small Soft Cover Press Book as a proof book if you’d prefer to create an entire album to show and sell to your bride.

Thanks Johnny for your suggestion. If any of you have sales or marketing tips, please send them to spatrick@zookbinders.com.

Tags: , , ,
Posted in Marketing Madness, Tech and Design Tips | No Comments »

The Positive of Negative

Tuesday, December 7th, 2010

While most of us hate the negative advertising that accompanies political campaigns like in the season that just passed, not all things negative are negative. In art, photography and design, negative space is an important creative tool when designing your composition. Negative space is generally defined as the space around the main subject(s). While some may feel it is nothingness, in reality, it is an important part of successful imagery and design.

In album design, the equal use of negative and positive space in a page layout is considered by many to be a better design. This basic and often overlooked principle of design gives the eye a “place to rest,” increasing the appeal of a layout through subtle means. When you look at these two album page layouts, you see how the design with more negative space is easier on the eye to view than the “busy” layout packed full of images.

Negative space helps define a subject, and draws the viewer’s eye into your subject. If you work with negative spaces rather than on the subject (positive space), you’ll often end up with a more accurate and aesthetically pleasing design and balanced composition.

From a philosophical perspective, the famous Chinese philosopher Lao Tzu describes the importance of what we call negative space this way:

Though thirty spokes may form the wheel,
it is the hole within the hub
which gives the wheel utility.
It is not the clay the potter throws,
which gives the pot its usefulness,
but the space within the shape,
from which the pot is made.
We hammer wood for a house,
but it is the inner space
that makes it livable.
Such is the utility of non-existence.

The best method to learn how to master the use of negative space in photography is to practice. Remember that negative space is always related to the edge of the image (i.e., the frame or the edge of the album page). Negative space is not constant, so you must continually readjust the position of your subject within the edge of your frame or page layout, just as you would your aperture, shutter speed or lighting.

Tags: ,
Posted in Tech and Design Tips | 1 Comment »

On Making Bigger Albums

Friday, December 3rd, 2010

When working with photographic negatives, you could simply have your lab enlarge the image to nearly whatever sized print you’d like for your album. In the digital age, a lot more goes into resizing your digital images. When you enlarge a digital image you are not enlarging the pixels; rather, each pixel must be evaluated and new pixels need to be placed between the existing pixels. You are literally adding information to make the image larger (making a bigger file). 

There are limits, however, to how much information you can add to an image and in the end, how large you can make it.  Another problem is digital noise. As you enlarge an image, this noise becomes more apparent. One of the things you can do to minimize noise is use noise-reduction software on your images after capture.

Photos by George St. Photo and Video

What does this have to do with making bigger albums? If you like to have panoramic images in your albums, be they large group portraits or background images, you’ll need to ensure that from your camera to your post capture processing system, you optimize each image so that it looks good when enlarged. Understanding the limits of your camera and software will help you size your images correctly for these larger album images. See the chart below for reference.  

 

Also, when designing your albums, design for the largest size we offer in the format of your choice. Even if your client is ordering an 8×8 album from their session, design it at least as a 10×10 or better yet a 12×12. Too many times we’ve had to have photographers redesign their albums because of a last minute request for a larger sized book. Because they designed too small, there was not a way to “enlarge” each page layout without losing image quality.  If you’d like to learn more about upsizing your images, check out this series of articles at Digital PhotoPro.

Tags: , , ,
Posted in Tech and Design Tips | No Comments »

Take an Old School Challenge

Tuesday, June 1st, 2010

As someone who’s been in this industry for over 25 years, and has fully adapted himself to the digital age, I do find it very refreshing to occasionally go old school and shoot film every now and then. A couple years ago I had a client request an all film, B&W package for their wedding. After the first few minutes of looking at the back of my Canon F-1 wondering where my images were, I got into the groove and really focused on what I was doing in the moment and began seeing the shot in my mind rather than always checking the screen.

Many of us know Scott Kelby as Editor of Photoshop User magazine and President of the National Association of Photoshop Professionals. In a recent blog post he set out a challenge to go “old school” for a weekend. Take a look and give it a try. I find that when I shoot film, I actually put more thought into what I am doing before I click the shutter rather than react to what I see on screen after I click the shutter.

Tags: ,
Posted in Industry News, Tech and Design Tips | No Comments »

Album Design: Taking Cues from the Design Industry

Tuesday, May 25th, 2010

In today’s wedding market, those who are succeeding are putting service first.  With today’s digital albums, offering a comprehensive design service is very important. In taking cues from designers in the interior design field, we can become better album designers and create stunning and personally customized albums for our  clients.

So how do you figure out how to design the best album for your client? Observe, ask and listen. Pretty simple when you think about it, but so few do this. Observe: Look at your client’s wedding. What colors did they use? What style theme flowed through their day? What is in style in the world around us? This can be in weddings, fashion, automobiles and even make-up. All of these influences can help you find a style that suits your client.

Ask questions:  Again easy but often overlooked. What is your client’s favorite color? What format book would they like? Square, vertical, horizontal. What are their design sensibilities? Sleek, elegant, organic, trendy, traditional?

By gathering your research and listening to and noting your client’s responses, you’ll be able to guide them through the design process and suggest the best options to help them get truly excited about thier album.

In this new age, we have found that  couples hiring professional photographers are looking for your professional help and service. They respect your expert opinion and want to be guided through the design process.  They also want to be wowed, and to wow them, you need to know what interests and excites them. This is where taking some cues from the interior design field can help you be more aware of design trends as well as your clients design interests.

Tags: , ,
Posted in Tech and Design Tips | No Comments »

Page 3 of 712345...Last »