We met Jeff Youngren and his wife Erin (The Youngrens) a couple of years ago at WPPI and they've been on board with PJ ever since. Danny's received numbers of calls from Jeff about ideas for new Photojunction features, and it was one of those that is partly to thank for the new integration of albumexposure with Photojunction. 1) How do you like the albumexposure online album proofing feature? Why should others try it out? "To me, the Albumexposure/PJ integration is a game changer in the industry - never before has something so common been integrated so well into the whole design process. I'm blown away by how the PJ team took a simple idea and ran with it and created something that blew all my expectations out of the water. It wasn't 6 months ago that I was chatting with Danny on the phone and said, 'Wouldn't it be cool if I could send my PJ spreads directly into a proofing solution where my clients could make comments and I could make their changes? Seems like you guys could do something in PJ with that.' Seriously, I'm just blown away at how well the integration has been done." 2) What one PJ feature could you absolutely not do without? Why? (Well we tried to make them choose one, but who's complaining!) Jeff said, "It's one of the most basic features but even when designing flush-mount albums (not matted) I really like being able to create standard sized apertures (i.e. 8x10, 2x3, etc) and use them in the design process. I think that this keeps me constrained into doing something with a more classic/timeless design and keeps me accountable to doing "good" design as opposed to just clicking and dragging an aperture that I "feel" looks good. It gives me almost a set of rules to use within my creativity. "I also really love how PJ constantly monitors what I'm doing and lets me know if I'm attempting to create something in the digital environment that can't actually be reproduced in the real world. It frees me to be creative in my design without worrying about if my creativity can actually be produced. If PJ lets me do it, my album supplier can make it." Erin also mentioned PJ's standard aperture sizes as "key to helping me develop classic, timeless designs for my couples." She also likes PJ's auto-saved templates. "Any layout I design can be automatically saved and categorized for future use with other albums. I can even save one side of a layout or just pieces of a layout design. It speeds up my workflow significantly when I have an entire library of my very own custom templates at my fingertips!" AND 3) If you could have your time again, what would your (other) dream job be? Jeff - "Such a fantastic question - I definitely count myself infinitely blessed every day that I get to spend as a photographer, and there's no greater feeling in the world than getting to be intimately involved in the significant moments of someone's life. It's completely addicting getting front row, VIP treatment to something so profound and so if I could live life over again NOT as a photographer, I'd want to do something that shares a similar sense of purpose & value. So, for me, my dream job would be to be a college professor at a small university. Teaching what? No clue, but I know that I'd love the idea of being involved in the lives of my students, helping them realize their potential and encouraging them to chase their dreams." Cheers, Ian