Wedding Album workflow by Peter Lane Photography

Wedding albums (any albums) – the right workflow

NOTE: It’s not about wedding albums only. The rest of the albums, like: christening album, bar mitzvah album, birthday or baby album, portfolio album, etc, follow the same or very similar workflow.

Why do we still order albums in the 21st Century? The camera obscura gave the birth of photography as a tangible product, and since then, any essential memory is expected to have high value as such. To be printed, archived, and cherished.

Why do we –  Peter Lane Photography – still offer albums to our clients, and also design and provide the service to other photographers?

The answer is simple. We love to do it as it brings massive joy to our clients. We always shoot our events with the album in mind as a finished product. 

What do we do better than others?

Well, most of the photographers out there are not even photographers. Sorry about that! I’ve seen a lot, so I can say it. Having a website and a business card that says a photographer, doesn’t necessarily make one. This is half of the problem. The other half is, there are brilliant photographers in the industry, but they don’t have any knowledge and experience to design, layout, tell a story with images, and very important – to print! I mean it.

90% of the photographers now just use drag and drop software, which will do the layout job. No storytelling at all! Just populating empty pages with randomly spread images. Next, next, and finish! Print.

Roughly the same process when you order from cheap online vendors.

Now you know the wrong way, so let me explain the right one.

Technical education

Every digital file photo is just a source of information. If you want a nice-looking and sharp print with vivid colors, using this image is not enough. Every printer or offset works with different profiles and settings. Different papers also have different profiles and instructions for the printer and the ink. I’m skipping monitor calibration and tons of extra technical knowledge. So, printing a non-optimized image for the specific printer and paper will deliver mediocre results. Well, if the client doesn’t have the chance to compare it with a professionally printed image, they can still like it, but this is another story.

This is about the technical stuff. Scratching the surface of course.

Our wedding album making workflow

Now to the designer’s part of album making. The goal of every album is to tell a story. The layout should lead the eye and provoke feelings. Every spread should reveal a unique story. The good album is like the good wine. Aging makes it more attractive and desirable. 

NOTE: When we speak about aging, it’s very important to note that we always work with the world’s best providers, offering durability and longevity. If the client is “on budget”, OK, your wish is my command, but we won’t leave our logo on the last page. It’s a shame to open your album in 20 years and to realize that colours fade off, corners split apart, etc.

So, our wedding album workflow and what to expect by working with us:

1/ The very first page comes with a nice font introduction that usually comes from the client. It could be just “Our wedding” and date, a poem, a vow, etc. The second page (still on the first spread) is either a romantic photo of the bride and groom or a close-up detail, like a wedding ring, wedding dress, etc.

2/ The last spread is again a photo of bride and groom (whoever the event hero is) on the left page, and our studio signature on the last page, the right one. The album starts and finishes with the couple. 90%.

3/ Every spread tells a certain story in chronological order. No overlapping! We don’t mix let’s say venue details plus first dance, group shots with bridal preps, or ceremony with dancing people. This is taboo! This rule guarantees certain feelings in the viewer years after the event. You look at the ceremony spread and discuss with your guests’ memories from this moment. Then you flip the page and you remember the funny speech of the groomsmen. Everybody laughing. Then next spread, everybody crying, etc. The good album is not just a book with images, but rather a memento experience.

From time to time we have requests “we’re on a budget and want to merge the pages”. We have to explain that merging the dancing page with another one is fine if the client can live with smaller photos, of course. But merging one story with another is totally wrong from the designer’s point of view.

4/ Every spread we design, we pick a hero photo and make it full-page or larger than others. If there’re few photos that compete with each other, then we make an exclusion and design accordingly.

5/ The album workflow is a step-by-step interactive dance with the client.

• – We always design more pages than the agreed amount, as our clients love our photography and the majority of clients just want more. It is easier for us to offer more and let the client remove the excess than the opposite. It’s a great time saver and guess what? 99% of our clients approve and love the extra pages.
• – The proofing process goes in 2 stages. The first stage is design approval. The client receives a link with their digital online album, with the ability to click on a photo and comment the desired changes, like: replace with …, remove, add on another one, make it bigger, move it to another page, etc. Approve the whole page or mark for removal. After clicking on the finish button, we receive the clients’ comments and redesign according to the desired changes. The client has one free layout review.
• – After layout approval, we start working on beauty retouching, body shaping, other improvements, coloration, sharpness, skin smoothing, etc. Followed by file optimization for the specific printer and paper type. To save time we don’t retouch all hundreds of images piece by piece. We export each spread and treat it as an individual image, that contains other images. So we don’t provide retouched images afterward, but only retouched spreads for the purpose of the album. This is the reason that we don’t accept structural/layout amendments at this stage, as we have to start everything from scratch. Unless paid of course.
• – Next step is choosing the colour theme and cover/boxing material preferences. We offer hundreds of them to please everyone.
• – Next step before printing is to request the payment for extra pages/materials, etc.
• – The album comes in 1-2 months. The client can’t hold tears of joy, and we’re over the moon for the great job that we deliver.

So dear ladies and gentlemen, now you understand why our albums can’t compare to others. Why do we spend days finishing an album compared to a few clicks by other “colleagues”. We always request the local wedding couples to come and visit us. We know that they’ll meet other photographers too, but the moment they touch and feel our albums, they don’t go any further.