SmartAlbums Reviews

Such a timesaver!

Comments: I use Smart Albums to design all my albums. It is such a huge timesaver without compromising on quality. Before being a professional photographer I was a magazine designer so I have pretty high standards when it comes to layouts, and Smart Album definitely delivers. Couldn't live without this genius piece of software!

Pros:

The beautiful layouts, ease of use and speed, link to cloud proofing, ability to export for InDesign tweaks.

Cons:

It's hard to think of anything!! It would be lovely if cloud proofing was included in the license but it's understandable why not.

Worth every dollar!

Comments: Clients first select their favorites from their pixieset gallery and I import those images into SA. For the last couple of years, I've designed full albums drafts in under an hour. Clients love how quickly they get their first look at an album design.

Pros:

I love how fast I can mock up an album for client review. I'm a photographer, not a designer, but the built in templates make this so effortless!

Cons:

Some of the templates could have a little more variety and a little more flexibility but for the most part it gets the job done.

A Greedy and Dishonest software company

Comments: I purchased Smart Albums Lifetime Licenses for a lot of money and then they moved to the subscription model and knee capped the latest version I had so I couldn’t cloud proof.
It’s my opinion they are a greedy and dishonest company. I would not support them after they did this to me and probably hundreds if not thousands of professional photographers.
Find a great proofing solution, but please, do not choose SmartAlbums.

Pros:

It was useful before they stopped supporting lifetime licenses

Cons:

Pretty much everything after. I reached out to them and I was told that I was out of luck and that I'd have to pay up more money to continue to use the software. They were happy to take a huge lump sum up front from many pro photographers and leave them high and dry later.

Not Smart, Genius!!

Comments: It reduced my album making time by about 90%.

Pros:

If Steve Jobs had wanted an album design solution, he would have made this.

Cons:

Nothing, absolutely every single aspect of the album design process has been taken into account. Absolutely genius!

Best Album Design Software

Comments: SmartAlbums has been a huge game-changer for me. It has saved me a lot of time.

Pros:

Extremely user friendly. I just need to select my images, drag and drop, and immediately I could see a photobook design.

Cons:

There is nothing I don't like about this software, it's invaluable to my business. Works as intended and has fantastic support behind it.

Best album design software there is

Comments: Very good album design software.

Pros:

Presets of all global album suppliers are available. Easy of use!

Cons:

Making custom spreads is complicated and difficult.

Increased Revenue through Smart Albums

Comments: Since using Smart Albums my turnover and profit margins have increased dramatically. being able to design multiple unique albums for my clients in such a short space of time means lots of up spell album sales. My record so far is 15 albums to one client. These would be personalized albums for bridesmaids, groomsmen and family. Incredible product!

Pros:

So easy to use - you can create an album in half an hour and personalized additional alums in minutes.

Cons:

Not much to dislike, although adding printing labs may be a suggestion.

Smart albums 2

Comments: A perfect time and money saver.

Pros:

Very easy and functional interface. Anyone can be a master type of structure. Plenty of default templates to choose from.

Cons:

A flawless software as far as my usage is concerned.

A must have for every photographer who makes albums

Pros:

It's almost ridiculous how easy the album design becomes with SmartAlbums. Everyone can use it and the built-in designs are great.

Cons:

The text functions could be a bit more elaborate. For wedding albums it's great, but with some extra features it would be perfect to design other photo books too.

The best, and expensive

Pros:

The best and most practical album layout program

Cons:

Although it is the best program for diagramming, it only works offline, limiting its use to the pc where it is installed or sharing project files. It would be much better if it worked in the cloud

Make my life easier! Yes Please!!

Comments: I've been a wedding photographer for more than 33 years and have been designing albums for our clients nearly that long. From the film days to digital I have tried out almost every iteration of album design software available and SmartAlbums is the first that made it easy to actually design books in front of my clients as part of the sales process. Clean design and ability to change page templates "on the fly" real time has had such an impact on making better, beautiful and more timeless designs which ultimately makes my clients happier and our business makes more money. Producing albums for wedding and portrait clients is such big part of the income stream for our industry I really don't understand why all photographers are not designing albums for their clients especially since smartalbums makes it so easy now. I guess some photographer just like to leave money on the table.

Pros:

A fast, easy and most importantly an intuitive UI takes the album design process from a chore to a pleasure. The clean and uncluttered interface keeps distractions out of sight and allows me to actually design albums right in front of my clients in real time. Other big pluses are the ability to make custom templates, custom sizes and sizes for all the album company books that I would wish to use.

Cons:

Not many cons as much as little wish list items that i have had. But with each version and update my little wish list gets smaller and smaller.

Album design is finally enjoyable and hassle-free!

Comments: It saves me time, and makes me look fantastic! And my clients love the software too. I am actually proud to share this in face to face meetings when I occasionally have clients request to meet to go through their design! I also like that I can switch easily between templates and manual design for those trickier spreads.

Pros:

SmartAlbums is sleek, easy to use, intuitive (for my clients also!) and just beautifully designed. I used to dread album design time because of the tricky back and forth with my clients. This software makes the process hugely enjoyable and I can now create gorgeous designs and share them at lightning speed. The integrated feedback saves so much time, no longer requiring back-and-forth between various screens. I love it! A huge time-saver and most importantly a really great experience for my clients.

Cons:

Nothing - it's honestly practically flawless!

Most intuitive and easy to use album design software

Comments: Smart albums, with its intuitive software and beautiful designs put the joy back in the design and made it a thoroughly enjoyable and quick process. We can design an album in less than 30 mins. Client requested changes and approval through cloud proofing have been super easy. Unlike competitors, the change comments from clients are integrated in the design software for us to quickly make changes and avoid going back and forth checking comments. We design 40+ albums per year and that has been possible because of Smart albums. We could easily say that Smart albums helps generate additional revenue through albums.

Pros:

Intuitive and easy to use software Support for my album vendor (custom templates) Cloud Proofing with feedback integrated with the design software Customer Support

Cons:

Nothing much to pin point. It's really that good.

Made my workflow so much better

Comments: It's easy to use and intuitive, and it has made my album workflow so much quicker and better. I used to not really sell albums because I honestly just didn't enjoy designing them. I used Indesign before and it got confusing, and making small changes became a big task. But with SmartAlbums my design time was cut way down, and making changes for my clients is super easy and quick. My clients also seem to enjoy this way more than my old workflow, its easier for them to view and to add comments and make changes to layouts.

Pros:

Super quick and easy to learn, cut my workflow time way down, no long learning curve, the client portal makes it easy for my clients to give feedback.

Cons:

I wish I could save my custom spreads and re-use between projects. But truly that's only come up once or twice, it's not that big a deal.

Exceptional Platform!

Comments: We are a small but very busy photography studio. Designing albums was always a serious time-sucker and somewhat dreaded. Nearly five years ago, I subscribed and purchased SmartAlbums and have never looked back. Even when switching bindery/album companies, there were no issues because this software allows you to choose your bindery company with every new design. It couldn't be made more simple and the finished product is polished and professional when presented to a client. If I could give this platform 100 stars in every review, I would! It's a must-have commodity for any photography studio.

Pros:

The ease of use is second to none; I am not particularly tech-savvy but this platform was so easy to learn and continues to grow and expand it's uses without adding on extra learning curves.

Cons:

There is nothing I don't like about this software, it's invaluable to my business.

Easy Peasy Album Making

Comments: I've left my photography business, but if I were a photographer, hands down this would be my go-to for album making. It's just so easy to use. I mean, if you can use Lightroom or Photoshop, you can use this. I used SmartAlbums first when I made a 5 year photo book... the first 5 years in parenting. It was a big project since I did it all at once. Now that I have this software, I can update my album as I go, little by little, making the process much less daunting.

Pros:

Without SmartAlbums, I wouldn't have an album from a higher end printer that I'd desired. I'd be using the same, mainstream printers that everyone else uses. I'd had my eye on an album maker that used a lined cover and hand-stitched binding. SmartAlbums made it possible for me to order from them without having to spend a zillion dollars on an album design service. I did it myself! And can continue doing so for myself, which is even better.

Cons:

I honestly have no complaints about SmartAlbums, but rather a wishlist to integrate with more album printers. That's it!

The best

Comments: Best program for album diagrams, I just love the program

Pros:

so easy dynamic and intuitive the program

Cons:

I like everything,There's nothing I don't like about the program

The best album design software​ on the planet

Comments: The best album design software​ on the planet

Pros:

The capacity of the software. I love the endless possibilities​ of designing and creating ​pages spreads and​ other software components.

Cons:

Start on the right foot.................

Improves our daily work!

Comments: Pixellu's album designing software simply is a must have for every photographer!

Pros:

We love everything about Pixellu! Their software and services are fantastic and super simple to use. It improves our daily work a lot!

Cons:

That we haven't used it alredy earlier :)

Win win win!

Comments: Wonderful!!

Pros:

Album design made easy! I have always been a keen fan of Indesign, so I waited long to try SA. If only I had known earlier!! Design is easy, it's fun to play around with templates and photo combinations. The online proofing is wonderful to keep oversight and to communicate with your clients. Done with those long emails and screenshots of clients - that make you want to pull your hair out ><!

Cons:

I would love to have the option added to go back to previous versions of a specific spread. Then it would be perfect :-).

EASY and makes Album Design FUN

Comments: I love how quickly I can turn designs around. It is fun to see all of the different options and dive into it creatively while knowing that each layout has been carefully planned. Takes a lot of guesswork out of design and makes the process and outcome much more desirable!

Pros:

I love how easy this is to use. The learning curve is a few minutes and you can have basic use of all the features. Try out 10 different looks for the same page in a few simple clicks. Rearrange and adjust layout. Create your own layout. It's all right there and straightforward to do. We've been using the software for pre-shoot mood boards, and social media stories as well as physcial album design, multi-faceted and love the additional uses.

Cons:

It took me a moment to figure out how to design my own template. Though there are more robust services for text design, easy enough to export and add after the fact.

Couldn't survive without it.

Comments: Wonderful. Really great team & overall customer experience.

Pros:

SmartAlbums revolutionized the way we create albums for our clients. It cut the time we needed to spend designing by at LEAST half, and allowed for easy changes should our clients request them as well. The designs are beautiful, flow nicely page to page, and are very user friendly. I recommend Smart Albums to every photographer I know!

Cons:

No cons to report. We've had a glitch with the software in the past, but customer service is amazing & handled it for us.

The revolution in the way to edit the creation albums

Comments: I have done several tutorials in Spanish for the community of photographers who are in my online training plan and explain the operation of the program in all the face-to-face courses I do in various countries.

Pros:

For me the points in favor of this software are: 1) Speed 2) Simplicity 3) Multiple file support 4) Export to PSD and InDesign projects 5) JPG/PDF Proofing Export with watermarks and image numbers

Cons:

I would be missing an option to maintain the original proportion of the source images without making any kind of cropping.

Make MORE money

Comments: SmartAlbums allows us to make more money, easier, by providing quality album designs to our clients, fast.

Pros:

SmartAlbums allows you to quickly create perfect albums for your clients. We make roughly 30-40 albums per year, and without SmartAlbums both creating the designs for our clients as well as proofing the designs to them would be downright impossible. Honestly — the best piece of software we use.

Cons:

Nothing. Absolutely nothing. Works as intended and has fantastic support behind it.

Such a timesaver!

Comments: This is my 10th year as a wedding photographer, so before SmartAlbums I used to make albums in photoshop and it was HORRIBLE. It would take me countless frustrating hours, and it never ended up actually making me money selling albums because of the amount of time I would have to put in to make the album. Now I can make a wedding album in 1-2 HOURS (and that's me being extra particular and really taking my time). This has been a HUGE game changer for me. My clients love that they can make revision suggestions so easily as well. I've used other competitive software and nothing has compared. I absolutely LOVE SmartAlbums and recommend every single photography company to use the software!

Pros:

I love the ease of use, that my clients can review the album and the pages even turn like an album, and that my clients can comment on each page and each image to make suggestions for changes.

Cons:

Honestly, I love it all. It's saved me so much invaluable time and has helped my business financially by being able to offer albums to every client (knowing I can actually have the time to make them).