Hopefully by now you’ve watched the short movie Danny and I recorded covering the main new features of Photojunction beta 1.26b and all the geeks and enthusiasts are up and running with them. We’ve had some great feedback about them since we released.

We’ll blog about a few more features over the next few days. First up, a new right-click function…

Try right-clicking on an image in the Event window or on the album layout. You’ll notice we’ve added a new option to the Right-click menu called “Show in Finder” (Explorer on Windows) which reveals the location of the original hi-res version of the image in your Finder/Explorer.

Cheers, Nigel

Many people first arrive at the album design process without much prior thought or experience, and they think, “Templates sound easy”. Basically they’re nervous of the album design process, and an easy drag and drop solution sounds great.

Sometimes the templates they buy have limitations: ugly, clumsy, can’t be edited, hard to sort through or fit your photos into, suit a different style of photography or whatever. So some people get dissatisfied and move on to more powerful design tools.

Creative freedom is great, and you get all the flexibility and control you want – but it takes time, especially if you’re not disciplined.

So a new challenge shows up on your radar – the need to increase your productivity and define your style … you might start thinking about creating you own templates.

And I imagine this is cyclical in a way. A pendulum effect. Even experienced designers get tempted by the ease-of-use of templates and conversely people are inspired to leave the template nest and spread their wings.

My point is you probably need both, and if you can find both in the same piece of software, chances are you’re onto a winner. And yes you can!

Photojunction isn’t template-driven, it’s template-friendly. It’s a free-design tool that saves templates automatically from everything you do. And we’ve spent a lot of time on tools to help you edit, organise, filter and share them.

There’s a lot to choosing an album design tool, and maximising both creativity and productivity is a major factor.

Warm regards, Danny