PhotoWalkPro

While I was walking the Expo floor at Photoshop World I stopped in at the Adorama booth the see what was new.  They were showing off their new printing service called AdoramaPix and the one thing that really caught my eye was the book printing service.  They has some really nice looking photo books and I really loved the big 12×12 albums.  The photos looked great and they were printed on Fuji Crystal Archival paper which had a really nice look and feel to it.  The pages were really thick and the binding process allowed for full bleeds that lay flat for panoramas and double-page spreads.  Since they were offering a 50% off coupon at the show, I decided that I would give them a try and have one printed.

When I got back home I went to the AdoramaPix web site and made an account.  It’s a pretty simple process.  You just put in your email address and select a password.  That’s all there is to it.  I went to the books section and checked out their pre-designed books and selected the Modern Wedding theme in the 26-page, 12×12 layout.  The next step was to choose a gallery and then start adding prints.  This meant it was time to upload some photos to a gallery.  That’s when I saw a little glitch in the process.  They had the typical flash-based image uploader for loading from my computer as well as importing options from Flickr and Picasa, but nothing from Lightroom.  Since all of my images are on my computer and not on Flickr or Picasa I was left with the prospect of having to use a web-based uploader to create my gallery.  That’s when I had a thought (it does happen every now and then).  I opened up a browser window to Google and typed in AdoramaPix and Lightroom and sure enough, I found a free plug-in to export directly into AdoramaPix from my Lightroom collection.

I found the plug-in at a site called AlloyPhoto.  After reading the info I downloaded the file and then dragged the expanded folder into my Modules folder and fired up Lightroom. To select the plug-in, I first selected the images that I wanted to export from my collection and then selected File – Export… from the menu to open the Export dialog box.

To use the plug-in I clicked the small banner at the top of the Export dialog that said Files on Disk and then selected the AdoramaPix option from the pop-up menu.

Next I entered my AdoramaPix username (email address) and password and clicked the Log In button.

The next section allowed me to either select an existing gallery or, since I didn’t have one yet, create a new one by clicking the New Gallery… button.

The rest of the export options were just like any export from Lightroom.  I set the File Settings, Image Sizing, and Output Sharpening and then clicked on the Export button.

That’s all there was to it.  Now I had all of my Lightroom processed images exported directly to AdoramaPix, where I could then start adding them to my photo book.  It was pretty easy and I am grateful that there are really smart people like Vladimir Vinogradsky of AlloyPhoto who make my workflow all that much easier.

Related posts:

1. Quick Image Prep in Lightroom
2. Lightroom Beta 3′s New Publish Feature
3. Cleaning Out Your Lightroom Catalog (Part B)
4. Bridge vs. Lightroom
5. Lightroom Keyword = Maybe

This entry was posted on Thursday, October 8th, 2009 at 12:39 am and is filed under AdoramaPix, Lightroom, Photo Books. You can follow any responses to this entry through the RSS 2.0 feed. You can leave a response, or trackback from your own site.