How many of you don't offer portrait or wedding albums because you either don't know how to design them or you believe they are too cumbersome to lay out?

This is what I believe: You aren't truly serving your clients if you simply photograph their event and hand them their digital files (don't do that, do this instead)

You can easily overcome your fear of designing and printing your album because there are new tools today, like Fundy Album Designer, that make it super simple to do so. Yes, design and send the files to your favorite album manufacturer.

Look, years ago, I stumbled upon a free option. I was new. I like the sound of free like the next guy and so I dove in. I created a 56 page wedding album from scratch. The software was buggy, the support was spotty at best and my client was PISSED.

To top it off, some alignment had shifted and a bunch of images were somehow sent off-kilter on a bunch of pages. Yikes! Green behind my years, I was panicked and frustrated of course. I didn't want to lose the confidence of the client even though the emails back from the groom (the bride had given up on me) sounded angrier and angrier.

So, the album arrived and yes, it was full of errors and mistakes – some caused by me but some also caused by software that simply did not work. As I held the errant album in hand, I learned a lesson that day. Trusting a free app to do your work is extremely dangerous. While the buck stops with you, the photographer, seeking out an album design company that will stand by its product was paramount.

This was about the time that I heard Andrew Funderburg was going to launch a new product that would solve the very problem I was having. That product was of course version 1.0 of Fundy Album Designer. Since then, the app has morphed into something truly fantastic. In addition to designing albums, it is now closely integrated with a bunch of labs and album manufacturing companies. Anytime something is “off” and I am notified right there on the screen.

For a portrait or wedding photographer, this is truly a wonderful time to get into quickly designing and printing your client's family heirloom. Let that sink in a bit. You are responsible for creating a piece of art that will remain with your clients for ages and will likely get passed on from generation to generation. Wow! Doesn't that create the warm and fuzzies inside of you? I think of my clients as grandparents showing off their albums to their grandchildren. An awesome responsibility but the work it takes to put those albums together should not stress you out.

I spoke with Fundy (as he is known to his friends) about this and other topics dear to our hearts:

Now, I didn't speak with Fundy about stress-free album designing because our connections run deep or because I am being compensated (I am not, except for receiving a copy of his program to review).

I spoke with him because I believe Fundy Designer can radically change your business, giving you more free time to spend with your family and making your clients genuinely happy with your service.

Want to learn more about easy-as-apple-pie album designing? Check out this free webinar on November 4th, thanks to ShootDotEdit. Register for it now. Even if you can't make the live call, the recording will be made available to you.

Be sure to bookmark ShootDotEdit‘s free content page where you can find guides, webinars and case-studies that are extremely useful for photographers just like you.

Melissa Jill, a Phoenix, Arizona based wedding photographer knows all about being busy. But she also knows what it means to be efficient. Melissa Jill Photography – that's her and her small group of associate photographers – photographs a little over 40 weddings a year. Multiply that number by an average of 2000 digital images to process and you know that's a staggering amount of time in front of the computer.

Melissa, however, outsources her initial edits to ShootDotEdit and leans on her own wedding album design company, Align, to deliver the final layouts. We sat down to talk about what is involved in making album design efficient and ultimately, profitable.

Melissa is so good at what she does and her systems and processes down that she was invited to be a part of ShootDotEdit‘s new webinar series called Recharge. If wedding album design is a major pain in the you know where for you, sign up now for this free webinar today. You can always get the recording if you can't make it to the live event tomorrow 10 am to 11 am PST.

Learn industry tested profitable wedding album design tips and sales techniques from Melissa Jill that will ultimately help your clients get what they really desire. This is a free webinar that is not to be missed. As I said in the video above, if only I had known about Melissa even just a few years ago, it would have saved hours of frustration and dread.

This webinar, like the others on the ShootDotEdit website, is a winner and will be time well spent.

If you have been at it as a wedding photographer, you've at one point or another wanted to create a wedding album for your clients. The process can be tedious, long and overly stressful.

Andrew Funderburg, or at least his company, Fundy Software, is a household name now. I interviewed “Fundy” several years back when I was attending the Mystic Seminars. His programs evolve … constantly. His applications Fundy Album Builder and Fundy Album Proofer are, by a very wide margin, the industry leaders in their respective niches.

I heard from Fundy that he was working on something revolutionary. In most other cases if someone came up to me and dropped that kind of language, I would be very skeptical. Not in Fundy's case because he has time and time again delivered on that promise and made the lives of thousands of photographers more efficient, and perhaps even more meaningful.

When you have an opportunity to interview the guy who defines and directs how wedding photographers run a major part of their business, you jump at the opportunity to see what he is cooking up next. Fundy and I sat down and chatted and he shared his screen with me, showing me the various features of Fundy Designer & Album Builder version 6.0.

The video is long, but well worth your time, if you are considering either buying or upgrading from your current version of Album Builder. We talk about his beginnings, where his ideas come from, what the new version of the software looks like and what we can expect in the future.

Do note that tomorrow (January 31, 2014) is the last day to upgrade at an insanely low price of $30! It would be absurd if you didn't upgrade.

February 1, early-bird pricing will end. Album Builder v6 will be $329, Upgrades from v5 will be $79, upgrades from v4 will be $179, and upgrades from v3 will be $279.

I believed in Fundy's ideas before he even launched his company and that belief is even stronger after seeing what he is bringing to the table now and what features are planned in the coming months. Frankly, it's time again to be excited about photographing weddings and designing wedding albums with ease, efficiency and elegance.

If a piece of software is in beta, I usually wait for it to launch and only then post about it. That's probably because I have been burned before. An enthusiastic developer emailed me (now years ago) and told me about a program that on paper looked great but what I didn't realize was it hadn't found any funding and it wasn't even being tested. It was a bit of a pipe dream, but I was much too eager to announce it and so I did. Well, when it never came to pass, I looked a little foolish. But live and learn, right?

This time, though, I made very sure that the piece of software I was approached about was legit and it was being beta tested.

About a year ago, Daniel Usenko, a photographer based in Seattle, Washington, released two tutorials for wedding photographers (though after viewing them, I've to say that they apply to portrait photographers as well): The Perfect Shot & The Perfect Edit (use TIFFINBOX to get those at 50% off).

I get the distinct feeling that Daniel is the kind of guy who sees a problem and is off looking for a solution right away. Take a look at the clips on the page showing you both tutorials and I am willing to bet you'll learn something new.

Now, Daniel is tinkering with album design and wants to make that process fast and as painless as possible. I suspect it was a slow and agonizing for him personally and he figured out a solution. Well, that solution is called SmartAlbums. Check out the demos below:

The 1-minute version:

SmartAlbums 1-Minute Demo from Pixellu on Vimeo.

The 5-minute version:

SmartAlbums Beta Demo (5 min) from Pixellu on Vimeo.

This is still in beta, but Daniel tells me that it will ship in two to five weeks. In other words, by the end of this year! Sign up to beta test it here.

In the next few weeks, I am going to interview Daniel. Do me a favor please. Once you get access to this program, please use it. Then come back here and comment. What did you like about it? What could be different or better? Your questions will help me during my chat with him. So will you do that for me? This is where you beta test SmartAlbums.

Britney Gardner is an album designer and wedding photographer in Portland, Oregon. She owns Willow Album Design and co-owns Turn Loose the Art with her husband. When not photographing or designing, she can be found tending her organic garden or spending time with her ridiculously adorable son, Finn Danger.

I’ve been designing wedding albums for over ten years. I’m not ashamed to say that those first few albums I designed were absolutely atrocious, because I learned from the early experiences. I still make the occasional bad decision, but avoiding trends is the number one way to designing better wedding albums.

1. Avoid Trends

In the following few spreads, you'll note the toning of each image on the spread is consistent and all images are either black and white or natural looking color. While actions are fun to play around with on a few special images, it's important to keep similar images across a spread (and preferably an entire section of the book or the whole album).

One of the easiest ways to help yourself become a more efficient wedding album designer is to keep it simple! The fewer images on a spread, the easier it is to find a good flow. The less going on in those images, the better. And when you do have a beautifully composed, layered image, feature it well!

2. Keep it Simple!

Our favorite image from Eric and Katie's wedding was indoors in a library to escape a dreary and rainy day. We couldn't go full bleed with the image due to size restrictions, so I chose a similar image to accent the main image.

Another great example of keeping it simple, mix in a few details with a good scene setter. In this case, the details of the cake nearby lead your eye right to the main action of the ceremony. This was a wedding with very few visual distractions, so the album needed to follow suit.

The third way to ensure your client will hold a memento from the wedding they want to share with everyone they know? Make sure they love it! If you pre-design as I do, consider allowing a full round of unlimited revisions so they get exactly the photos and album they want. If you design from a list your client submits, talk to them about filling in more images as needed to create a design with good flow. Doing either of these things will give your client the sense that the design is theirs.

3. Give the Client Ownership

People love their pets, so what better way to make an album more meaningful than include their fur babies?

Photographers love establishing shots because we are visual storytellers. Sometimes, though, a client may wish to crowd in more face images. The best way to combat this and provide your client with a wellrounded product is to consider both while designing. Khalid and Priya's album provided an opportunity for just that during the portrait session of them outdoors. It makes me happy as the photographer and the client happy for getting in some closeups of them.

The following spreads also do a great job of showcasing images that we, as photographers, might make at any wedding. Since we see them all the time, we might not be as excited about them as the client. It's important to remember that to the client, a lot of thought went into the customs, traditions, details, and moments that make up their wedding day. These spreads show good examples of mixing in those personal touches to add to the story rather than retract.

In all these things, the goal is to create a better wedding album design for your client. The end product is their record of their wedding. A timeless wedding album they can share with everyone they know is the best advertising you don’t have to buy.