Lightroom 3 -Creating Wedding Albums?

[abril1127]

I'm testing the new Lightroom 3 and so far I love it! It looks like I can set up some templates and drop my wedding pictures in. This is pretty cool feature and I think I could build an album that way in half the time it normally takes me in PS.
My question is. How do I adjust the paper size to be 10x20 ? The printer I have loaded will only print 13" so It wont let me go bigger than that. Since I won't be actually printing these but saving them as Jpg ( to send them to my lab), I'm thinking there would be a easy work around or something?
Has anyone tried this?

[KdLaneJr]

I haven't worked on templates in LR3 yet, but in just a few minutes i was able to set up a 10x20 landscape profile.

[Tom]

I didn't know LR3 had layout stuff. I'll have to let my wife know, b/c she does our album layout. I think she really likes the control of photoshop, though.

[abril1127]

Thomas, it's really cool! She can drag and drop the picture into the box she wants. It will auto size and if you don't like the placement you shift (maybe it was control, try them both) click and move it inside the box. Should make it so easy. You can even do pictures on top of a picture.

[abril1127]

Cool I did it! This will be really cool. It's a tad different trying to understand the drag and drop feature. Seems best to select the pictures you think you will want and drag them all in at the same time. Then you can just click and pull to the size you want. It won't warp the picture just the box. Then it's Cntrl click to move the picture around in the box.
The only problem I see is there is some type of white bleed border at the top and bottom. It's very small and I am sure there could be a easy work around for that. Also if you choose a inner stroke for your pictures, it does it for all the pictures, even the one you are using for a background. Can't see a way to change that. Anyway here is what I built entirely in lightroom.

....Looks like the white bleed is gone in the saved version.

[KdLaneJr]

Nicely done. If you're not against taking a look at software designed to album creation, there are several good products on the market.

[abril1127]

Ha! I don't even want to buy Lightroom 3...but I'm going to I'm sure. To me it's just a big bonus to do this. Thanks for the tips though!

If anyone is interested in this. I found one more downfall and workaround.
You can't really save the page to edit later....but you can "create print" in the collections tab on the left and check include referenced pictures. This will bring you back to where you were. Maybe start a folder labeled album and keep them all in there.

[kayumangi]

But then the layout seem to be lost. I was able to retain the images used but when I selected a different layout and created another print collection, my original layout got lost.

Maybe I'm missing something.

[kayumangi]

And the only way I can think of is to save one page into one catalogue.

[abril1127]

Looks like you have to save it as a template then you will always have the layout under the templates tab on the left. Once you get the pictures into the template you then have to save the newly made album page as a collection including pictures.
But once you save the template you never have to recreate or save it again.

[ThiNguyen]

I guess I have to upgrade to LR 3 then.

[abril1127]

The ISO noise reduction alone is worth the upgrade. IMO

[kayumangi]

Aside from improved noise reduction, the custom watermarks, the slideshow export w/ music and very flexible publishing options is well worth the $99 upgrade.

Heck I may not even need PS anymore hahaha.