Albums and the album designer

The album designer turns your photos into a laid-out wedding album: a guided flow sets it up, you refine each spread on the canvas, share it with your client and export print files. Designing is free; credits are used only at export.

Creating an album

• From a select. On the select's Design album step, tick the sets of picks that belong in the book and press Design album with N photos (a set's own Design album button on the Client link step opens that step with the set ticked). The designer opens with those photos.
• On its own. Press New album, type an Album name and press Create album. The guided flow opens and asks for the album's parts first.

The guided flow

A new album asks one question per screen (Continue / Back). Photos upload as you go, but the album is laid out only when you press Create album at the end.

1. Parts — a new album starts here: choose a starting set (Wedding, Engagement or Blank), untick or rename the parts you don't need, add your own, then Continue creates them. An album that already has parts can rename, reorder, merge or add parts, and the eye beside a part leaves it out of the album (its photos stay; press the eye again to bring it back). At least one part with photos has to stay in. Each part also takes photos here: drop files on its row, or press Add photos. Photos uploaded into the wrong part? Open the part with ▸ to see its photos in the order they were taken, pick them (click, Ctrl-click to add one, Shift-click for a run; on a phone, tap), then Move to… another part or New part… — on a computer you can also drag them onto another part's row. Before the album is laid out a move is instant; afterwards the parts it touches are laid out again (Ctrl+Z undoes it). When the move puts photos from a second camera into a part, the Clocks step asks about that part. Space shows the photo you last clicked full screen.
2. Photos — upload and choose on one screen. Pick a part on the left and drop its photos above; under the drop zone are the album's photos (the part you picked, or All parts), in the order they were taken. Click a photo to select it (Ctrl-click adds one, Shift-click a run), press Delete or Remove from album to leave it out and Enter or Add back to put it back; removed photos stay, dimmed, and the Removed filter lists them. Space shows the last photo you clicked full screen. Drag selected photos onto another part on the left, or use Move to…, to move them there. Every change is saved at once; Ctrl+Z undoes it.
3. Size — the printed size (12×30 in, 12×28 in, 12×24 in, 16×24 in or Custom…) and how many spreads. Each size is drawn as the book open flat (both pages) and closed, with both sizes as width × height and whether the pages are landscape, square or portrait: 16×24 in opens to 24 × 16 in and closes to a 12 × 16 in portrait book. Custom… asks for the open-flat Width and Height (inches or cm); the ⇄ button swaps them, and a size that would make very tall pages asks whether they were typed the wrong way round. A 16×24 or custom-size album has fewer ready-made layouts than the 12-inch sizes, so more of its pages start as plain grids or generated layouts.
4. Photos in — the best frame of every burst is picked; put back anything you want. Only extra frames of a burst are left out: a photo that is not part of a burst always goes in.
5. Clocks — only when a part was shot on two or more cameras; lines up their times.
6. Arrange — which photos share a spread (computer only). Looks good, or Let me arrange the spreads.
7. Finish — the Title on the cover and, when there is more than one, the look; then Create album.

Later, ⋯, then Regenerate — all pages… reopens the flow on an album that is already built; its last button reads Rebuild album.

To give an album the look of a finished book, pick a Pixamatch look or a designer look from the Marketplace at Finish. A look is everything a studio needs to make an album in one style: layouts, cover, title pages, background and fonts. When the album's print size has more than one look (the studio library, each Pixamatch look, each designer look for that size), each is a card drawn with your own spreads, noting how many pages it has no layout for. The Album inspector's Look row and Compare looks… switch a built album later (see Marketplace: looks). Reference albums are studied in Template Studio instead, and their layouts are only used once someone reviews them (see Layouts for designers).

Layouts come in layout packs: named collections, one layout per spread (they used to be called album templates). Open layout pack in new tab on a spread opens the pack it comes from in Template Studio.

Parts and the spread organizer

Parts are the album's chapters (Haldi, Wedding, Reception). On a computer the Parts section of the album panel on the right (click empty canvas to see it) lets you drag them into a new order, merge them (right-click), or hide one; hiding takes its spreads out without rebuilding, and showing puts them back.

When a part was shot on two or more cameras whose clocks disagree, Align cameras lays the part's photos out in time order so you can slide a camera's clock until the story reads right. It opens from the guided flow's Clocks step and from Director View… (or press Tab) (when a part holds two cameras); Suggest proposes the shift from photos both cameras took, and nothing changes until you press Apply and rebuild. A part paired from two sides has Pair sides… instead (the Clocks step, or Upload photos). On a phone or tablet the album panel's Parts section has the same buttons, plus each part's Sort by (Capture time, Upload order or Filename); on a computer parts always read by capture time.

Inside a part, a break of 45 minutes or more between two photos starts a new time block (getting ready, ceremony, reception), and the album never puts photos from two blocks on one spread. Only when the number of spreads you asked for is too small for every block does it join the two closest blocks; the Size step tells you beforehand. Photos without a real capture time (no camera date) never start a block. A master can change the break or turn blocks off under Settings → Album engine → Break between time blocks.

The spread organizer (⋯, then Director View… (or press Tab)) shows every spread as a row of photos, with a Break line where a new time block starts (and "check camera clocks" when two cameras that were never aligned meet there); a spread holding photos from both sides of a break is flagged, though you can still merge across one by hand. Drag photos between spreads, split (the scissors between two photos) or merge spreads, or drop photos in "Not in the album" (Ctrl-click or Shift-click selects several). Delete sends the selected photos there too. Space shows the last clicked photo full screen. Only changed spreads get new layouts. Group by story puts each story (a run of related shots) on its own spread where the layouts allow, keeping the spread count; photos that were never analysed are analysed first, which takes a minute. Each spread shows its left page and right page side by side: drag a photo onto the other page to move it there, and Apply picks a layout with that many photos on each page. The scissors read the spread as it shows, left page then right page: a cut moves that photo and every photo after it to a new spread (hover the scissors to see which), and the scissors on the fold makes the right page the next spread. Both spreads get new layouts on Apply. A spread whose layout runs a photo across the fold shows one area with a Split pages button (the square split in two, after its photos). When no layout has the split you set (say 3 on the left and 0 on the right), the spread says so; Generate (the wand after its photos) makes one with exactly that split, or Apply uses the nearest split.

Working on the canvas

Click a spread to select it. Then:

• ↑ / ↓ walk its other layouts, best fit first.
• ← / → move between spreads.
• G (or the ✦ on a spread) generates fresh layouts for exactly those photos.
• On a computer every frame is always editable: drag it to move, drag its handles to resize. On a spread whose frames you edited, D opens Save this spread as a layout, and can add it to one of your Marketplace looks at the same time; on any other spread D only shows a hint. On a phone, D or the pen opens Design by hand.
• Alt-drag a photo onto another frame to swap them. Right-click a photo for its menu.
• Photo kind in a photo's menu (Auto, Creation, Group or Detail) says which kind of page it belongs on. Auto decides from the faces in the frame. It takes effect the next time the album is built (⋯, then Regenerate — all pages…).
• Double-click a frame to reframe the photo inside it.

Text you add to a spread can use any font in the font library, grouped as Handwritten, Serif, Sans, Display and Indian languages; the export prints it in the same font. Designers add fonts on Template Studio's Fonts tab (see Layouts for album designers).

Select a photo to see its crop on the right: drag the printed window, use its corners or Scale to zoom, or Rotate to straighten. Straightening zooms in just enough to hide the corners, so check faces near the edges after you rotate. Reset framing lets the album frame it again. Ctrl+Z undoes any change.

Every key is under the ? at the top right, and in Keyboard shortcuts.

Where things are on a computer:

• Header: Original quality (the aperture button: print-quality previews from originals saved with the album; greyed out when there are none), Preview, Export, Share, ⋯, Pixie and ?.
• ⋯ menu: Upload photos — parts and files, Choose photos · n/m, Regenerate — all pages…, Director View… (or press Tab), Add cover page, Versions, Snapshots…, Show print guides (or ;).
• Album panel (no spread selected): Page size (with the size of the closed book) and Change… (rebuilds every page), Binding (how much the spine swallows; faces are kept out of it), Photos across the fold (see below), Print (trim, safe zone and where group pages stop — see below), Look, Photo border and Build settings (Layout variety, Match colours).
• Review sits at the bottom of the panel on the right, whatever is selected (see below).
• Spread toolbar: add a frame, save as layout, split, merge, Never use this layout (👎👎, off for every album), add or delete a spread; its ⋯ has Flip layout left ↔ right, photo border, Move up / Move down and Page kind.
• Layouts (a spread selected, top of the panel): the layout the spread is on and its place in the list, ↑ ↓, and Browse layouts… (or L) — every layout the spread can take, full size, with its own photos, plus Photos, Flip and Border. With several spreads ticked (the circle above each spread), the bar over the canvas offers New part… and Merge into one.
• Photo (right-click, or the panel): Send to previous spread / Send to next spread, Move to Creation pages / Move to Group pages, Arrange (Bring to front, Bring forward, Send backward, Send to back), Remove from album.
• Frame section (a frame selected): X / Y / W / H, lock, align, Make equal, Make gaps equal, Layer, Save as layout…, Revert to layout.

Layering photos. Frames may overlap, like layers in Photoshop. Select a frame and use its Layer block: Opacity lets what is under the photo show through, Blend mixes it with what is under it (Multiply, Screen, Overlay and the other Photoshop modes), Soft edge fades its edges into the page or the photo beneath, and Arrange brings it to the front or sends it back (also ] / [, with Shift all the way). Several frames selected take one opacity, blend or soft edge together. The Layers card lists every photo as Photo n · file name with its opacity (click the % to change it) and says hidden under Photo m when a photo is completely covered. The print PDF and both PSD exports come out the same; in PSDs (Object Export) a soft edge is the frame's layer mask, so you can still change it in Photoshop. Like any frame edit, this turns the spread into a custom layout — ↑ / ↓ leave it for another layout and Ctrl+Z brings it back.

On a phone the spread menu also has Move to… and Select several spreads….

Questions while you design? Ask Pixie: the round lens button at the top of the designer opens Pixie, the help chat, over the album (on a phone: ⋯, then Ask Pixie). The guided flow has Ask Pixie at the top right of every step. Pixie explains how things work; it does not change your spreads.

Vectors

Select a spread and click Vectors (or press V) to decorate its white space. The panel holds the ready-made art, the shared vector library, Your uploads (PNG files you upload, such as your logo) and Your vectors. One click adds one vector to the selected spread; it lands on top, and a second one lands beside the first, never hidden under it.

On the page a vector or a text box moves by dragging and resizes with its eight handles — a corner keeps its shape (hold Shift to free it), an edge changes one side, Alt resizes from the centre — and turns with the grip above it (Shift for a free angle). It snaps to the page's edges and centre, to the photos and to the other vectors and text, with the same blue and yellow guides as frames; hold Ctrl to ignore them. The arrow keys nudge it 1 px (Shift 10 px).

Order: press ] to bring the selected vector or text one step forward and [ to send it one step back (with Shift: all the way to the front or the back), or use the four order buttons above the spread. The Layers card on the right lists every photo, text and vector of the spread with the top one first — drag a row to change the order, click one to select it (that is how you reach a vector hidden behind a photo). Dragging a photo there changes the frames' order and turns the page into a custom layout, like any frame edit.

The inspector on the right shows the selected element's X / Y / W / H in the album's unit, its rotation and opacity, a text box's font, size, bold, alignment and colour, and a vector's colours: single-colour art gets Fill, multi-colour art one swatch per original colour, and both a hue / saturation / brightness wheel. On a phone or tablet the Style button in the bottom bar opens the same controls.

Vectorize a picture turns a PNG, JPG or WEBP (a clipart, a scanned motif, a drawn ornament) into a vector in about 20 seconds and puts it on the spread. The background is removed first; tick Keep background to keep it. A vector stays sharp at any print size, and single-colour art can be recoloured with Fill like the library's own. Graphics on a plain background work best; a photo of people does not make a good vector.

Your vectors are yours to use at once. Each one is also sent for review: In review means it waits, Shared means it joined the library every studio sees, Private means it stays in your albums only. You can delete a vector until it is shared. Each account can vectorize a limited number of pictures a day; the panel shows how many are left.

Photo border

The album's Photo border sets the coloured gap between photos, and Same border on every page makes every gap print at that thickness. One spread can pick Custom or Off in its own Photo border menu.

Photos across the fold decides whether the album may use layouts that run a photo over the centre of the book, where it can cut a face: Allowed, Not on group pages or Never. When you choose one of the last two, the pages it covers are built, regenerated and offered only layouts that stay off the fold (the ↑ / ↓ walk and the layout picker included), and spreads that are on such a layout now move to one that stays off it, keeping their photos; a message says how many moved, and Ctrl+Z undoes it. A spread you drew by hand keeps its layout, and so does one your library has no other layout for. With Not on group pages, a big group photo sits on one page instead of across the spread, so it prints smaller.

Print holds what depends on the press that prints the album. Set it once per album; the last values you set are where your next new album starts.

• Trim — how far the cutter may wander in from the page edge (⅛ in to start with).
• Safe top / bottom and Safe left / right — keep faces and text this far from the page edges (¼ in each to start with).
• Safe inside — keep faces this far from the fold on each page (½ in to start with). Photos beside the fold still meet there; once you set this value, faces in photos that run across the fold are kept out of that band, and a face left in it shows in Review.
• Group pages — where the photos of every group page stop: Full bleed (the page edge), Inside safe zone (the safe lines above) or Custom (your own Margin; a margin smaller than the safe zone uses the safe zone). It applies to group pages only, on screen and in every export. Creation pages, the cover, title pages and layouts with artwork around their photos keep their own design.

Press ; to see the trim, safe zone and inside lines on the page. The lengths read in your unit (the small menu beside Print, or Appearance, then Units).

Crop warnings and Review

Photos on a spread follow the order they were taken. The one exception: when that order would put a photo the wrong way round (a tall photo in a wide frame) or cut a face, and another order on the same spread would not, the photos trade places on that spread. A black & white photo also stays off a page of colour photos when the layout allows it. Photos never move to another spread for this. A master can switch it off under Settings → Album engine → Fit photos to frames.

Match colours (in the Album panel under Layout variety, an experiment and off by default) goes one step further: on a spread whose photos fall into two clearly different colours — two photographers' cameras, or stage lights that changed — each page holds one colour, when that costs nothing else (no photo the wrong way round, no group in a smaller frame). It rebuilds the album; photos never move to another spread.

Review is the last section of the panel on the right, under the album, spread or photo settings, with a count of what needs a look. It opens by itself when there is something to look at; click its title to close or open it, and the designer remembers your choice. When the panel is collapsed, the count shows on the button that opens it again. Client feedback lists your client's requests. Crop warnings lists photos that fit their frame badly: people cropped out of a group, a landscape photo in a portrait frame, a face on the spine (lost in the binding) or a face behind artwork. Click one to jump to it, then try another layout or pan the crop, or press ✓ if the framing is fine; Show again brings back the ones you accepted. Layout coverage lists photo mixes no layout fits, with Generate layout or Adjust build ranges.

Uploading photos in the designer

⋯, then Upload photos — parts and files: pick a part and drop its photos; you can keep working while they upload. An album holds up to 1,000 photos across its parts. Building waits until uploads finish.

The same dialog's Choose photos tab decides which uploaded photos go into the album. Click a photo to select it (Ctrl-click adds more, Shift-click selects a run), then press Delete or Remove from album to leave them out. Removed photos stay in the grid, dimmed and marked "Removed" (the Removed filter lists only them); select them and press Enter or Add back to put them back, and Ctrl+Z undoes either. Space shows the last photo you clicked full screen (the ⤢ on a photo does too): Enter there puts it in or takes it out, ← → step, Original shows your original file and Space or Esc closes it. Organize parts there regroups photos into different parts without uploading them again.

Originals

The designer keeps a web copy of each photo (1280 px on the long side) for designing. Your full-quality originals stay on your computer and are not uploaded. An original-quality export (Print PDF — original quality or either PSD export) reads them from your shoot folder. A Use your shoot folder window asks first: press Choose shoot folder… and pick the folder with the shoot's original files (RAW or JPEG), in any browser on a computer. Each photo is matched by its file name, including files in subfolders. If some are not found, the window says which and offers Choose another folder… (another camera's card, say) or Use web copies for the rest. Use web copies skips the folder. PSDs read the files in your browser, so nothing is uploaded; the PDF sends the matched files for that one export and deletes them when it finishes. The desktop app remembers the folder for the album and only asks the first time. Original quality on the canvas and the Original button in the full-screen view work only for photos whose original was saved with the album; for the rest they are greyed out.

Autosave, versions and snapshots

The designer saves as you work; the header shows Saving…, Unsaved or Saved. If a save fails, press Save failed · Retry.

If the album was changed in another tab or by someone else, the designer reloads the latest instead of overwriting it and says your last change was not saved. Redo it.

⋯, then Versions keeps separate versions (say a bride's and a groom's copy): Duplicate current or Start fresh. Snapshots… saves restore points inside a version.

Sharing with your client

Press Share, pick a version, press Publish (Publish again after changes) and Copy the Guest link. The dialog also holds your name, Instagram and website for guests, and Allow downloads. Your client presses Suggest changes, taps × on photos to remove (with an optional reason, like "eyes closed") and leaves notes under pages; you see it live in Review under Client feedback.

The first time on each album link, your client is asked Who's reviewing?. The name they give shows beside their feedback; left empty, it shows as Guest. The name is remembered for that album only.

Exporting

Export offers Print PDF, Print PDF — original quality, PSDs (Rasterized Export)… and PSDs (Object Export)…. A panel shows progress with Cancel. PSDs are made in your browser: Chrome or Edge on a computer saves them into a folder, other browsers download one file per spread; in the desktop app a finished export offers Open folder. Each PDF page is one spread at its print size (a 12×30 spread is a 30 × 12 in page). The cover prints as one spread: the end page on its left half and the front cover on its right. Exports use spread credits: first "Use N spread credits?" says how many and your balance afterwards (see Spread credits and exports).

Client approval of finished spreads

Graded in Photoshop? Export, then Bring back graded spreads…: drop flattened JPEG, TIFF or PNG files (not .psd), keeping the names Pixamatch gave them so each finds its spread. Press Send to client (publish the version first). Your client can Approve each spread or Request a change, or approve every waiting page at once with Approve all.