As a wedding photographer I am always looking for tools that make my job easier and the experience for my clients better. For years one of my least favorite parts of my job was getting feedback and approvals on wedding albums I designed for my clients. Fortunately all that has changed since I have started to use AlbumDraft. There are a number of programs that compete with AlbumDraft as software for album proofing - I've just found theirs to be the most convenient and easy to use.
If you have ever created a photo album for your clients than you have probably experienced the burden of waiting to hear back on the changes they would like to make. When you finally hear back from your clients it comes in an email that is difficult to decipher and understand what changes they would like and where. You know the emails I am talking about. "Can you go to page 5 and move the photo of me and my friend with brown hair to spread 8 next to the photo of my friend that looks like Channing Tatum."
AlbumDraft makes the album proofing workflow process much more simple. Here's are 7 things I love about them.
1. The process to upload my spreads and send to my clients is easy and efficient. The interface is clean and the albums are responsive so they look great on any screen size.
2. It allows my clients to annotate exactly right on top of the image what change they would like to make. They just click the image they want to edit and leave their note.
3. After my client has marked their changes on the album I receive an email and link to view the changes. Rather than paging through each spread I can see all the changes they would like at one glance just by scrolling down. Click here to see what the page of changes looks like.
4. Once I make the changes to the spreads I just save with the same name as before and reupload to AlbumDraft. The program automatically swaps out the old page for the new one with changes and I can resend to my clients for another round of proofing.
5. The customer service at AlbumDraft has been amazing.
6. The pricing is a great value and has two different plans (pay-per-album or monthly) designed for photographers of all levels. Some photographers will choose to sign up for the monthly plan ($17/month) and create as many albums as they would like during the month. Other photographers might choose to just pay for the service each time they build an album. At just $7 for the pay-per-album service it is worth every penny.
7. The "Activity Log" records when I send out the album for review and when my customer logs in to view it. This way I am able to check in and see if the customer is looking it over or if I need to send out a reminder to them.
The nice thing is AlbumDraft will right now let you try it out for free. Go give them a shot. I know I am grateful I did and have now been happily using them for over 6 months. It's been one of the gamechangers in my business this year.
Nice tip thank you!! Do you know if it is compatible with the blurb interface?
Looks cool. I'm going to give it a try with my next album.
After approval, how does one take and have it published?
You don't, it's just a web-based service for making idiot-proof annotations to the album. Doesn't seem worthwhile to be, but I am sure some people could find a use for it. I'll stick with emails.
Or a cheaper option.. I use Zenfolio to upload all the spreads there, this allows users to make comments and also highlight areas in the pics and leave comments on that as well. Simple as can be.
Hi Costas, I use zenfolio is there a tutorial for this? Cheers
Not that I know if, but if you ever go to your gallery where you leave comments on individual photos, you'll see that it lets you highlight things with a little box and then leave comments on that.
I've found an online proofing site to be vastly superior to proofing albums via email. This looks like a good option, albeit more expensive than some competitors. You can also try Fundy's online album proofing, which I use. It has a great versioning tool. There is also AlbumExposure. I tried it, but didn't like it's lack of versioning. Both are $15 per month, I think.
An alternative is albumparrot.com - it allows you to integrate your album spreads and photo gallery into one view. You can also import directly from your Zenfolio/ShootProof/Smugmug.
A live sample album can be seen here:
https://www.albumparrot.com/apps/view/9d07da42406b
Have any of you tried Album Exposure? They just released a bunch of new features and it looks much better in my opinion
Hey Rob... I did give Album Exposure a try. And I can't understand how you say that it looks better than Albumdraft LOL. Albumdraft is a MUCH better album proofing solution in every aspect! Better and cleaner interface, very easy to use and very intuitive.
Banti Album Proofing is another great solution with many of the same features and than some. You can give it a try for free at https://www.bantialbumproofing.com