Bellwood Photography - How To Create Book Style Albums

How to create your own
Book Style albums

It is much simpler than you may think to produce your own designer albums. Using good imaging software such as Adobe Photoshop together with our Album Page Templates, FXD Special effects and Photographers Toolbox image parts, you are in control.

All our CD sets have been designed for use in our own Wedding and Portrait studio and are in use daily. The best wedding albums are usually made up of a mixture of page layouts, some pages with just one image while others may have many different images on a single page or double page spread and few pages with eye catching special effects.. By creating your own album layout you have the opportunity to allow your clients to have some input into and can approve the design before the album is finally assembled, avoiding costly errors and saving time. Once you are happy with the designs, Print out the pages or send them to a lab for output. You then simply mount the pages into an album of your choice, many album manufacturer’s produce suitable albums which have plain pages. If you are using inkjet prints it is a good idea to protect these with the application of a thin decorative laminate our cold Roller laminator is ideal for this job. The mounting of the pages can be made very simple by using our Sticky machine, which applies a permanent adhesive to the rear of the print.. Flush mounting the pages without overlays into bound type album is very impressive, although just adding a few special pages to a traditional album is can also very eye catching for clients on a budget.
	It is a good idea to laminate inkjet with a protective film before they are mounting, this will will reduce the risk of damage and possible Ink diffusion from one page to the next.

How to flush mount an Album Page
	Ensure your page is slightly larger than the album page (1 or 2 cm) Pass the page through the Sticky Machine, this will apply an adhesive layer, silicone paper backing and an over lay foil. The overlay foils is discarded and removes the unused adhesive when small prints are passed though the machine.
Remove about 2 cm of the silicone backing from the rear of the print, line it up with the edge of the page and tack lightly down, If you are happy with the position, remove the rest of the silicone and smooth down gently as the adhesive is on the print and not on the page, their is little chance of bubbles of air getting trapped.
	Turn the page over, place a cutting mat or thick card behind the page and trim of the excess with a very sharp scalpel (not a craft knife) using as little pressure as possible. Running the blade down the edge of the thick album page. Always keep hands and fingers behind and away from the cutting blade. as soon as the blade starts to get blunt, change it for a sharp one. This method will only work for heavy-weight album pages. For thin pages it is often better to trim the print prior to mounting to a few mm’s smaller than the page and have a slight border.
Album Cover It is possible with some album covers to add a image to the front cover. The album shown has had a laminated print mounted onto the front cover with the aid of the sticky machine. A heavy weight canvas textured laminate was used as this gave the greatest protection and had a decorative appearance.