Wedding Albums

[PeterGar]

I am planning to begin doing wedding photography on a semi-pro basis in 2006. I already have an assisting job with a local studio and have my first wedding with the studio in a few weeks. I would also like to do some freelance wedding photography later this year as my skills and confidence improve.

I've seen some impressive wedding albums at the studio I'll work for, and know the studio charges a huge price for those albums. When I begin doing freelance photography, I'd like to offer my clients professional albums also, but don't know what is the best way, aesthetically and economically, to design, print, and assemble albums. I know there are services available that I could use, so I could use some insight and recommendations.

Any ideas on the best ways to make wedding (and portrait) albums available to my clients?

[Art Scott]

I have started using FlipAlbum Pro 6..( http://www.flipalbum.com/products/fap6/ )...Really cool flipping album you can customize, set to expire and also lock so it cannot be copied and the pics cannot be printed, I really like this as most people have computers, they can also be watched on a TV....unfortunately I cannot upload one to SmugMug....yet....Hopefull they will in the near future allow them...anyway....when I started out I used tapp albums and then moved to others as my prices increased so did the clients.....So start out with the best albums you can afford to get a sample of to show off to clients

[bham]

For actual wedding albums, you should check out albums inc ( www.albumsinc.com (http://www.albumsinc.com) ) You can browse but need to sign up to see pricing. They have some great albums. Years ago I assisted another wedding photographer and also helped in putting together the wedding albums. He used Renaissance - Milano albums. They are nice and run around $200 a pop if I remember correctly without the insert or pages.

I would be curious to know what others use. I think a few dgriners here that shoot wedding do albums were the company prints the images onto the pages, not insert the prints into precut holes on an insert and then insert in pages. I think the main reason he still did that was he was old school and didn't try new things or adapt to new things. Needless to say he is out of business.

[PeterGar]

I think a few dgriners here that shoot wedding do albums were the company prints the images onto the pages, not insert the prints into precut holes on an insert and then insert in pages.

I've seen these types of albums were the company prints directly onto the pages in a coffeetable book style album. I understand these are easy to setup using digital templates and then upload the pictures to the company. I'd love to offer these types of albums. Does anybody have any links to these companies?

[bham]

Here is one I have came across

http://www.graphistudio.com/usa/products/Book/index.html

[PeterGar]

Thanks for the replies. Here are some other links I found.

http://pictobooks.com/

http://asukabook.com/index.html

[Diane S]

I used Shutterfly with the black leather cover.. not for weddings, but for family portrait shoots and gifts. The images were imprinted on the paper and included personalized text if you wanted. They came out great.
http://www.shutterfly.com/shop/product_c10010/Photo_Books