Integrate it with other applications if you want, but you'll be surprised how many of your workflow challenges Photojunction can address.

A typical workflow

What follows is a typical Photojunction workflow. As you'll see, you can vary it a great deal to suit your particular requirements, and bring additional software into play if you wish. Click here for a more detailed introduction to Photojunction's functions and features.

Step 1: Import and organise your images

Import images from anywhere on your computer or network, and prepare them to show your clients (ie categorise them in Groups, reject the ones you don't want to clients to see, etc).

Step 2: Present the images to your clients

You can introduce the images to your clients in a variety of ways: eg build an image slideshow with music; use the full-screen Review function.

(On the other hand many studios design a "speculative" album and show this as their clients' first exposure to the images – see below.)

Step 3: Build image “collections” for albums etc

Building collections of their clients' favourite images is the core of the sales process for many studios. For example: collections for the Bride and Groom’s album, for the parents' albums, for slide shows, for Grandma’s favourites etc.

With variable levels of effectiveness, you can perform Steps 1-3 with other software (eg DAM software or RAW processors like Lightroom or Aperture). Click here for more about working with other software.

Step 4: Design your albums

It's time to enjoy the most powerful and creative album design software out there!

As we said earlier, editing is so fast that many studios design albums "on spec." – show their clients what they COULD be taking home - great for sales! If necessary you can edit your high-res images any time, knowing your Photojunction files will be auto-updated. 

Step 5: Export the High-Res files

Exporting your cropped, sized image and page layout files for printing is fully automated. Photojunction's Image and Layout Warnings, and fully colour-managed workflow, head off any problems before they start. As in the album design stages, our uniquely powerful Lab and Album Resources will be helping you to work with your suppliers, not against them.

Step 6: Edit your files with Photoshop

Unless your lab is doing it for you, you’ll probably want to work on the files before printing from them – colour-correction, creative and corrective artwork etc. Don’t rename or move the files, or Photojunction’s Send Order wizard won’t be able to find them (see Step 7, below).

The whole point of Photojunction’s Album Resources and Lab Settings is to work together to create files of the right dimensions, specifications etc so that they can go straight into production without hassles. That’s why it’s critical at this point not to change image dimensions, the position of images on layouts, resolution, file type etc.

Step 7: Send Order

Sending Orders to your lab and album supplier is also automated. Once you've confirmed that you’ve finished work on the album design, Photojunction will lock the file to prevent  accidental changes, and...

• Check that all image files required for the album are present and correct, and ask you fix any problems found.
  
  Check that all high-res exports have been created and are up-to-date and valid for the lab which is to print them.

Once Photojunction has confirmed that everything is in order, Photojunction will check the files your album supplier and/or lab require, and save them as a "bundle" to disk ready to upload or burn to CD/DVD.

Step 8: Upload

You could use other FTP software to upload your orders, but Photojunction LabFTP has several special features, including built-in vendor forms and compliance checks against your lab's specifications. The “Resume” function means you don’t need to start again if your upload link fails. LabFTP also retains a complete history of all the work you upload.

In its current beta form the software is restricted to Queensberry's printing clients.