Asuka Studio Spotlight: Clayton Austin. Love. Stories.

Thanks again Asuka. You = Awesome.

In case you missed Part 1 you can catch up HERE. Even though Asuka has a very user friendly Album building program which you can download for free directly from their website, I prefer to build my albums in Photoshop using blank templates also provided by Asuka. The templates come  sized with bleed lines which makes the process that much easier.

Basic 10×10 template

Here I have made my image selections for the first spread that will appear in the album.

Once I am completely satisfied with the spread I save the file as a psd (photoshop file) so that any changes made in the future will be simple and easy. The psd files are gathered in a pre-specified folder in the clients master folder. Once all the spreads are complete I simply drag the folder onto a droplet that I have created on my desktop. A droplet is simply an executable file generated by Photoshop that allows you to apply a set of actions just by dragging and dropping files or folders on to it. This is a great time saver when you have to apply the same action to a lot of files! If you do this manually, you’ll spend a lot of precious time, energy, and most probably get bored. In this case, my droplet will open all the files in my album folder, convert them to high resolution jpg’s, and then save them in another specified folder on my desktop. This little step has saved me tons of time because I no longer have to open each individual psd file and convert them to jps’s. The droplet has done it all for me! Once the droplet is complete I simply drag the folder with the newly generated jpg’s onto an icon provided by Asuka that will automatically check my files to insure they are sized correctly and named appropriately. If there is anything amiss the file checker will let me know. If there are no problems detected the file checker will then make a pdf file out my album pages which is then simply uploaded to Asuka and sent off to press. So. Easy.

By far the most difficult and time consuming step in the entire process is the designing of the album. A typical Clayton Austin album will take up to a few hours to create because it has to be just perfect with a pleasing ratio of vertical vs. horizontal images as well as color vs. b&w. But most importantly it has to tell a story. Their story. My album covers are always black and white with a specific font to my brand. They are also titled with something that is personal to their story.

The following is the completed album for Summer and Daniel’s wedding in San Luis Obispo. During the ceremony Summer and Daniel played a song together (awesome). It was “peer pressure” by Jon Brion and was the theme song to their favorite movie (and mine), Eternal Sunshine of the Spotless Mind. And so with that I present “Spotless Minds” by Summer and Daniel. *please not that some of the gutters appear off centered on this blog post*

Album Case

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