Hickory for photographers
Album Design for Photographers — A Full Draft in Minutes, Not an Evening
Album design is the part of the job that eats evenings. You cull, you sequence, you nudge a photo three pixels, you export, you re-export after the client's feedback. Hickory drafts the whole book from the gallery you already delivered, then hands you the editor. You review a book instead of building one.
Start with an event you’ve already delivered. No new shoot required.
What the AI does with a delivered gallery
Upload the finished, retouched gallery. Hickory reads every frame — scene, who's in it, how many people, how it scores aesthetically — and pairs that with EXIF time and place. It sequences the day in order, picks one or two frames where you delivered eight near-identical ones, chooses a cover, and lays out spreads. What comes back is a complete draft with a title, not an empty template.
You keep the last word on every spread
The draft is a starting point, not a verdict. Swap any photo, reorder spreads, change the cover, rewrite or delete captions. The machine does the tedious pass — sequencing, culling near-duplicates, fitting spreads — and leaves you the judgment pass, which is the part that was ever worth your evening.
The book itself, described honestly
An 8.5x11 casewrap hardcover, press printed in full color on archival paper. It is not a lay-flat flush-mount album and we won't pretend otherwise — keep your flagship album where it is. This is the companion book you currently decline for lack of time. Length follows the gallery: more photos, more pages, within the 24 to 150 page range our printer runs.
Questions photographers ask
How long does the first draft take?
Uploading is the slow part and that's your connection, not us. Once the photos land, the first full draft is minutes.
How many pages will the book be?
However many the gallery needs. Page count is derived from the number of photos you include, inside our printer's 24 to 150 page range. There is no fixed length to design around.
What does it cost me?
Opening a studio is free — set one up, upload a gallery, and look at the book it drafts before you pay us anything. You set the retail price your client sees, and you keep what's left after print cost: a 36-page hardcover lands at $20.50 for a single copy with US shipping included. We have not set a studio subscription price yet, so we are not going to post one. The pricing page has the full cost breakdown and a form to be told first when the number is decided.
Does my client see Hickory anywhere?
No. The gallery, the storefront, the receipt and the shipping box all carry your studio's name. We never market to your client list.
Related
Try it on one event you’ve already shot.
Upload a finished gallery and look at the book it drafts. That’s the whole evaluation. Books print and ship to your client in 7–14 days, under your studio’s name.