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Graphi Album Design

Once I've designed the album, when it goes to Graphic Studio, I opened the GraphiSoftware. This is important also especially for the people who use GraphiSoftware. I've had designs, the layouts in double spread. So, what I'm gonna import is the layout as a spread to make sure that it fits perfectly. The GraphiSoftware, you can design also in the GraphiSoftware. Let's create a new project. Let's call it Dani. And I'm gonna show you some cool stuff here because you're gonna see the album, and you're gonna ask me how I did it. Okay, it's a square album. Let's not do all the pages so let's say it's, I think it's about 80 spreads the actual album. Okay. And I've save myself a lot of time, pre-designed the layouts. So, I'm gonna open this layout. And now what I'm gonna do is import the whole folder into the software. This was on my desktop. It's a Creative Live Album. Choose. So, it imports all the files. Okay, so I've imported my pictures. So what I do is, it's in order, so one by one I wil...

l drop it in the software. So the way I go, I start to design from the Bride's house. Usually we shoot the groom first, but I start with the Bride's house, because Bride's is the wedding, groom is the accessory. I always say that, I always laugh with the guys. And no one gets offended because I'm a guy too so I agree with that. If you look at the layouts, I'm filling the spread with the already designed layouts. I've kept these pictures all black and white because it's fun shot, it's the girls in their pajamas and then a couple of glamor shots of Dani. Again, keep it together. I try to keep the head together. I love triangles, so if the page has triangle it's beautiful. Try to avoid middle cutting. I give a nice space around the page so you can see the picture and not a lot of busy pages. If we go to the next page, a couple of more. Sorry, I did it wrong here. A couple of more glamor shots of Dani. Then again another shot of the girls with their pajamas. Sometimes I mix the pages; one groom, one girl, but usually, I prefer this way. Here's a page of Dani walking in the room with her dress. That's a nice shot to be by itself. Sometimes you don't need to put many pictures to tell a story. Let's go to the next page. Here is a page where Dani is getting ready, the girls next to them, everyone is getting ready. We go to the next page. Dani and her little jewelries and little products. Let me do this. You see details of her day. You know the handkerchief, the perfume, the earrings, the flowers, the invitations, I like to shoot those in the hand. And you see everything is color matching. Let's go to the next page. Go back to black and white, where Dani is, again, getting ready there. Putting the veil on. A couple of veil shots there. With the girls and things. It's telling the story; she's getting ready. Now let's keep a page there and let's go. Oh this is quite a fun page. This is where I told Dani to move around and I created collage of that, but not on top of each other, a continuation. And if you see, if you see, I've created a kind of triangle. You know I love triangles; triangles are nice and easy on the face. So it gives me a fun page of Dani. This is Dani. Then go to the leaving of home. You see, the shoot might be all over the place but when I design the album I tell the story the way I saw it. This is she's leaving the house. A bit of details of the dress; a bit of movement there. Then, there's the shot of her getting into the car. Then there's a shot of her arriving, no. Let's go to the groom now. This was shot from my friend Andrea Sposito. He was at the Groom's. So again, details of him getting ready; similar to what we did before with Dani, we do exactly the same with the groom. So I'm going to skip few pages there and let's get Dani arriving at the church. So after the Groom, she arrives at the Church, her father and her. The covering of the veil. Walking in the church, so I don't understand when you ask me, how do you tell the story? You tell the story the way it happened. Don't mix the pages. It's very simple. You tell the story the way you saw it. She started from home and moved to the reception, and danced and go away. Simple as that. So this is the idea. So once I do this, I will create my covers. I'm going to stop here because there's no reason to continue. I will create, I will go into the GraphiSoftware, this is why I need the GraphiSoftware, it is very important for me. I will select deluxe lining. Here I don't cut costs. I go to the best: luxe lining will give me good textures and I love the white one. I select white. So the lining is going to be white. This is in between the front page and the actual pages. Then I will decide the cover. What are we going to do on the cover. I love the Young Book, so I select the Young Book and I have already prepared a cover shot. So what I'm going to do is, I'm going to go drop that somewhere over there. This is the cover of the album. I'm going to drop that somewhere over here. This is the right side, because that's where the cover should be. And then I will also drop their names as I've done a pdn file. But I want something really exciting here. I want this one into raised gold. So what I'm going to do is, I'm going to click this option and finish it, so I'm going to get a new layer. So here, I will select, select the text and I will say varnishing as raised. So this one you're going to actually feel on the album. So this is the book cover. So let's design the box. So I'm going to add a box. So the Young Book is my favorite one so I select that and then in the software you'll decide the ribbon and in all those colors but here it's the design. So on the box, this is the box cover, I'm going to have their names. So I'm going to drop their names. I will stretch it to the page, so that it's quite big and bulky on the box. And again, I'm going to do the same, I will go into Options, Finishes and raised. So this is going to be gold, raised on the box cover. Now, the back of the box, when you open the box, inside, I want my brand and I want Made in Italy to be seen because, Made In Italy, Lamborghini, Ferrari, it shows class. So I will put my brand there. Usually I have a logo with me that says Made in Italy at the bottom. I don't have it on me, so I'm not going to. So in the middle I do that and I will do that also as raised. So everything is raised, everything is classy. And I will send it to Graphic Studio. Save it as a software, send it to Graphic Software. And here we go and the album has arrived. Let's show you first the album. This is the box for the USB, we sold that as an extra. And here is the album. It's a jewelry, look at the gold at the front. Oh my gosh. Look at it's like a full box. This is made in Italy guys, quality. But the surprise today is that this is a new book. It's a young book but it has a video. Dani's video in there. You can put the slideshow of the pictures. And it's got control here, it's chargeable in the back. I think it's about seven hours of battery charge. Isn't that gorgeous? They can put their wedding video on it and it's just amazing. This is the prototype. It's not prototype, it's ready to be published. You can turn that off. So there's a picture there. Sometimes you can put a picture there if you don't want the video. Usually I used to do that beforehand. And now look at the most important part. The ribbons you can select the color. I said I love white. So lift the ribbon up. Look at the cover. I printed on the leather with the raised gold. You can feel the gold. Oh my gosh. And it's printed on the leather. How classy is that? Look at the binding; it's a book. It's not bulky, it's not ugly. And then, the pictures; what I showed you before. Look at that; isn't that magic? Look at that page I showed you. Did you see anything exciting on the screen? Look at that. And touch it, touch it. (audience laughing) Touch it because doesn't it feel good? Doesn't that feel good? I will let you touch after guys. (audience laughing) Look, let me open another. This is the page I showed you before. Isn't this something? How much would you charge for this, $200? Most probably the album will be about $500/$600. But how much can you make out of this? Doesn't this give you a value? Look at it. This makes you to up market photographer. You cut this, you make yourself lower. When you're excited and this is not your album, imagine the bride. Imagine Dani with this book. She's seen it millions times but she's going to still be excited. Look at it; perfection. So this is what I'm talking about guys. This is the final product. We did all that but that was a screen, but this is what I give to my client. I get excited when this box arrives in my studio. I don't care even if I'm not going to the studio, I will go to the studio, open the box and look at it and say. And lastly, I have, I feel excited. We have this little metal things made up for us, it's my logo. Just peel it off and put it in the corner of the box, to give a bit more class to it. That's the Yervant logo, my signature. There won't be copy of this album. How valuable is that? How would you recommend if we're a photographer like me, who's never made albums like this before. I'm maybe more in the middle market, but I want to be offering things like this, how would you recommend transitioning into that? Would you give one away maybe to somebody? No I would make samples. Okay let me tell you a story. Albums were important part of the history. Americans were the one who created it. I know, with my experience, the future is there because girls are sick of not having albums. They're six, seven years of non album making and now, girls are coming back, so sad and saying, I don't have a good album. I don't have a record of my day. I spent $90,000, I spent $20,000 and there's nothing. I have a USB or a CD, doesn't work anymore on the Mac. So, this or this? You know, exactly. And guys, you might say this, but I don't listen to guys, because my client, is her. And I learned this from my wife and she is so right. It's touchable, it's there, it's history book. You will be proud to have this on your table. If you're going to buy expensive TV, if you're going to buy this, why not a beautiful album or so? It's yours, unique. So my recommendation is have good samples. You had a good wedding, create the way you want it. Don't worry about the customer. That's what I did. Initially it was traditional, in the garden, this, but it didn't excite anyone because it's like anyone's. So I broke all the rules. I made amazing pictures, spreads, one page, one picture on the page. Do what you want to do? Pretend it's your album. Break the rules. Make it amazing two, three display albums. Look Graphi is offering 50% discount, that's something you have to take. And they offer quite a lot of discounts during the year also. They're continually offering discounts. Their price is amazing. Even coming from Italy to your country doesn't cost much. It's cheaper from a local business than Italy. Once you select amazing sample books, display it in your shop and grow it. If you created a beautiful album, make a copy for yourself. Have a lot of varieties, because when the girl comes, she will see so many varieties and she will eventually find one, that she can relate to. Because she might not like that, she might not like that but she will like that. So I have always good samples. Keep on showing these and girls will. And when you have the little books. The one she liked, give her the little book to take it home. So she can share with someone. That's the best promotion. The girl is in your hand. Secondly, bridesmaids, groomsmen, I told you, don't leave them unimportant. Give them something so they can come back to you also. Build up your business. Don't go for hundreds, go for good quality, good number. I much rather shoot 20 weddings at higher price than shoot 50 weddings at nothing. So this is where you have to target yourself. So shoot less for a better quality and show the bride the difference, this or that. You are all agreeing with me, why can't you sell it? Why can't you sell it? This is the secret. Teach yourself, get a nanny, get a Dani, if you can't do it yourself. Because, I love what I'm doing, but I need someone to sell it for me. It's so important guys, so important. This is, at the end of the day, this is what wedding photography is. The Great Montezu Girls and things, they didn't do anything without an album. They were traditional, but they sold albums. They sold albums for 20, 30, $50,000. This is 20 to 30 years ago in the USA. Why can't we do it the same? We are in a better position now. We have better tools, better things. Why can't we do better than our grandfathers? Cars are getting better, everything is getting better, why are we working backwards? So it's so important guys, that we have this energy and go for it. If you don't have the excitement don't worry about it. Like I said, when that Graphi box arrives, I get the knife, I rip it off, take it out and put the label, check the pages and I get excited. Put it at the front and I got the step full of albums. The girls, I want to see them before they go and that's my excitement. Sometimes I get more excited than the bride and groom, but it's my book, I made it. (audience laughing) It's my book, it's mine. Yes darling? So I have two questions for you. The first one is, if you were hands on for making the video, the second question is, if you did make the video, what program did you use? Okay I'm not into video, I'm not into video because I don't have time for that. But I did edit this one and I used Adobe Premiere. Quite easy if you want to do it yourself. You can or you can make a deal with the videographer if you're not the videographer. Say I can put your video there, pay me, take the money from them and you know, take advantage of anything you have. The bride wants that, so you have to put the video on there, to have the video in my book, I have to charge you $ or whatever, just work it out. Be creative guys, be creative. Or do the video yourself, put the video. It's not about the video only. More than the video, it's the book. That part you can sell, but this is what, at the end of the days, pictures. I'm a photographer, this is mine and that's why it's exciting. I have a question from Romania asking about whether or not that software will give you a resolution safe warning. Like if you upload - Yes it does, yes it does, definitely. I use Graphi albums also but is there a particular reason why you've already designed the album, why are you putting it up into their software program if you've already designed it. The reason I put in the software program to add the text and the front cover and things like that. Plus I want to make sure the album is fitting quite nicely on the page, plus it's easier to send it to them and less mistakes. Because I don't want to make mistakes and pay again to fix it. So if I send it with their software, the mistake will be visually seen. So it's a very good option. I will always use the Graphi Software for the final layout. And I know, and they get the correct corrections and everything.