In today’s economy, who’s not interested in saving hundreds of dollars? The secret to such riches lies not in some new discounts or cheaper products but rather in three little words: REVIEW YOUR ORDER.
It was no less than Ben Franklin who said “A penny saved is a penny earned.” Although I doubt ol’ Ben ever had to shell out a couple hundred Continental Dollars because he mistakenly uploaded the same page twice in his client’s wedding album, his theory still applies when it comes to your album workflow. Saving money by NOT having to repair or reprint albums because of design or upload mistakes is just as good as earning it.
We know photographers are working harder than ever trying to make ends meet these days. Many work into the wee hours of the morning designing albums and uploading them to Zookbinders (yes, there’s a time stamp on those uploads!). A couple weeks later their album arrives, a normally happy occasion can turn ugly if there’s something wrong with the album.

Many of our customers have made that call into our customer service department. “Zookbinders, you left page 22 and 23 out of my album” or “Zookbinders, you stamped the wrong date on my album!” Granted, sometimes we mess up. When we do, we make it right, but more often than not, that page was never uploaded to us, or that’s the date that was typed into the order. The fact is quality control begins at home. Just 15 or 20 minutes spent carefully examining your files before you flatten them to jpegs, and reviewing your order in ROES before you hit the “complete order” button can mean the difference between a happy customer and a costly repair or replacement of a two or three hundred dollar book (do math now, see title of article).
Below are the top six reasons albums are repaired or remade, and some suggestions on how to avoid them:

 6. Page omitted or added twice. If you name your files Pg1, Pg2, Pg3, etc. you’ll wind up scrolling up and down in ROES to add your pages in correct sequence because page 11 will show up in front of page 2, and page 20 will show up in front of page 3–that’s a mistake waiting to happen. Instead, use front fill zeros when you name your files (for example: Pg01, Pg02, Pg03) so they will appear already in sequence in your ROES program. Then, take the time to double check your sequence in the review order screen.

5. Color correction. Zookbinders does not do color correction. How you send ‘em is how we print ‘em. Insure you get what you expect by working on a quality, calibrated computer monitor, work in consistent room lighting conditions (preferably a dimly lit room), and submit some of your images for free test prints through ROES. Keep a copy of an image or two that you know to print very nicely in our lab, and compare them to your current project as you work on it.

4.Design errors. These include such things as partially visible layers you thought you’d discarded, images that are off center, low resolution or pixelated files and the page fold going right through the bride’s left eye. Adopting some good work habits will help here. For instance, always mark your center line in a spread so you can avoid the fold or split winding up somewhere awkward. View your pages at 100% and take one last look before you flatten them to jpeg. Scan your pixel dimension and file sizes in the folder you intend to upload to avoid sending low-res or wrong aspect ratio files, and NEVER keep files you’ve revised in the same folder as your finals.   Better still, you can eliminate 100% of your design errors by letting  Zookbinders design, print & bind your albums through zookie pro.  Problem solved!

3. Margin too tight. This is really a design error, but it happens so often it deserves its own category. We trim all prints once we assemble the pages to assure clean, even book blocks. If you design a page with someone’s head 1/4” from the edge of the canvas, you’re likely going to wind up in trouble. See related article about bleed and safety margin.

2. Photo wrap around covers off center. These covers are tricky due in large part because they change in size based on the number of pages in the album. If you miscalculate the canvas size or ignore the 3/4” wrap, your book may not look as you intended. See this article in our blog to learn how to make these properly.

1. (insert drum roll here) Cover stamping incorrect. Believe it or not this is THE most common error made on albums. Once you’ve typed your cover stamping in ROES, or created your text layer for your wrap around photo cover, read it again. Spell it out loud. Read it to anyone within earshot. Compare it to your contract, or better yet the couples’ wedding invitation, if you have one. We’ve been known to misprint cover stamping ourselves. That’s why we have a revolving team of Zookbinders employees who take 30 minutes or so out of their work day to do nothing but compare album covers to order forms to make sure we get it right.

The busy season is fast approaching, when photographers are racing headlong to finish projects and get them uploaded to Zookbinders in time for holiday delivery. Now is he time to make it a habit to take the extra 15 or 20 minutes to make sure your order is correct.

Better still, you can avoid ALL the above pitfalls by letting Zookbinders design, print & bind your albums through zookie pro.  You’ll get gorgeous designs done in less than 5 days and have added benefit of a customized shopping cart created for each client helping you sell more of your photography as a result.  No mistakes, no repairs, no kidding. Get started today at zookiepro.com.