Layouts for album designers

If you design album layouts, the ones you make by hand or import from Photoshop are credited to you, reviewed by Pixamatch, and once approved are offered to every studio. You earn a commission each time another account exports an album with a spread on one of your layouts.

Who this is for

Any Pixamatch account can make layouts: a freelance designer (an account without a studio), a studio's team member or a studio admin. Freelance designers see the album side of Pixamatch only: Albums, Marketplace, Settings (Layouts, Appearance, and Desktop inside the desktop app) and notifications.

Making a layout in the album designer

The quickest way is to design on a real spread with real photos.

1. Open an album and click the spread you want to redesign.
2. On a computer the frames are always editable: drag a frame to move it, drag its handles to resize, or add a frame from the spread's toolbar. On a phone, press D or the pen for Design by hand.
3. When the spread looks right, press D (or Save as layout… in the Frame section of the inspector). On a spread you have not edited, D only shows a hint.
4. In Save this spread as a layout, type a name and press Save layout. If you have Marketplace looks for the album's print size, Add to a look puts the new layout into one of them as well (choose Not now to skip).

The layout goes into your own layouts for that page kind (cover, creation page or group page) and that spread shape. It works on your spread straight away.

You can also make one from the layout maker: press G (or the ✦ on a spread). Its Generate tab shows Best for these photos, then From reference albums, Adapted to these photos and From your library, with Variants and All shapes (Nearby shapes past eight photos) to widen the search. Pick a card and choose Edit by hand, draw your own in Design by hand, or bring in a Photoshop file with Import PSD.

Making layouts in Template Studio

On a computer, Settings, then Layouts opens Template Studio (the page is called Layout packs). Template Studio is not available on a phone. Its tabs are Layouts, Layout packs, Reference albums, Fonts and Review (shown when something waits for review). A layout pack is a named collection of layouts, one per spread.

• Layouts is the whole library: Search layouts, the All / On / Off / Needs review chips, photo count, page kind, source and sort. Group similar folds near-identical layouts into one card (Keep this one switches the rest off), and Coverage shows which mixes of tall and wide photos have a layout that fits.
• Tick layouts or packs to Switch on or Switch off several at once (studio admins also get Share with all studios).
• On Layout packs, start a New pack or import PSD files (Import JSON accepts PSDs too; several PSDs import as one layout pack, a spread each). Inside an opened layout pack, layouts that are switched off are folded away; Show brings them back.

PSD import takes .psd and .psb files. Save them with Maximize PSD Compatibility on in Photoshop. A layer picker then asks which layers are photo slots (Photo slot, one Hero; layers named with a leading # are ticked already) and which text stays Editable text; everything else imports as artwork. You get a match score before anything is saved.

You do not need Template Studio to add layouts for the Marketplace: in a Marketplace look, Import a PSD… and Add from an album… save layouts straight into your own (see Marketplace: looks).

The page kinds are Cover, Creation page and Group page (plus Title page, Designer page and End page for special spreads). Older layouts tagged Bride, Groom, Ring or Details page still work and keep their label; set a page kind in Template Studio to file them with the rest.

Fonts

Text on a layout can use any font in the font library: the fonts Pixamatch ships with (grouped as Handwritten, Serif, Sans, Display and Indian languages) plus fonts people have added. Every font picker — Template Studio, the layout maker and the album designer's text tool — lists the same fonts, and the print export uses the same font files, so the words print in the font you chose.

To add a font, open Template Studio, then the Fonts tab, and use Add a font:

1. Choose the font file (.ttf or .otf, 5 MB at most) and, if it has one, its bold file.
2. Pick a Group for the picker and the font's Licence.
3. Tick I have the right to distribute this font in albums made on Pixamatch. Only add fonts whose licence allows that, such as the SIL Open Font License or a commercial licence that covers albums.
4. Press Upload font.

Your font is Waiting for approval until Pixamatch checks it; only then does it appear in the font pickers. While it waits you can rename it, change its group or remove it. If it is rejected, the reason shows under it. A font a layout already uses cannot be removed.

Fonts in a Photoshop file. When you import a PSD, the layer picker lists each font the file's text uses under Fonts, with the library font that matches it chosen for you. Choose a library font and the words import as live text in that font, ready to edit and print. Choose Keep Photoshop's rendering (the choice when nothing matches) and the words show exactly as Photoshop drew them until someone edits them; after an edit they use the font set on the layer. A missing font? Add it on the Fonts tab first, then import the PSD.

Layouts from reference albums

To add a reference album, open Reference albums and drop a finished album: one PDF (a page per spread) or the spread JPGs, up to 60 spreads. Pixamatch then has Pix AI study it: the book's pill reads not studied until that is done, then studied N/M. The message after upload says "Ask Pix AI to study it", but studying a book is done by Pixamatch, not by you; if a book stays not studied, ask Pixie to pass it on.

When Pix AI studies a reference album, every page becomes a layout, but those layouts start switched off: no album uses them until someone looks at them. Open Reference albums, then Review import on the book, and for each page choose Looks right or Fix by hand (drag the frames onto the printed photos; + Photo slot adds a frame). Either one switches that page's layout on. The Review tab lists the same layouts with Approve and Reject (and Check against the printed pages). Anyone who owns the book can review it. Layouts from reference albums that were imported earlier stay as they were.

To build an album in a book's look, use a published Style when you build the album. The old Style match upload in album setup is gone; albums already built on a book keep their layouts.

Vectors for the decor library

Designers can grow the shared decor library too. In the album designer, Vectors, then Vectorize a picture turns your artwork into a vector (see Albums and the album designer). Pixamatch reviews each one; approved vectors join the library every studio picks decor from, and you can keep using yours in your own albums whatever the answer.

Which layouts are yours

• Yours (they earn): layouts you make by hand and layouts you import from a PSD.
• Yours, but no commission: a generated layout you take into your own layouts without really changing it — Edit by hand on a generated layout, the look layout tool's starts, a Pixamatch look's generated page — saved with no frame moved or resized by about 3% of the spread and none added or removed. It can sit in your look; reshape its frames later and it earns (after review again).
• Pixamatch's (house layouts, they do not earn): layouts made by Pix AI, generated layouts, layouts imported from reference albums, Pixamatch look layouts, and anything Pixamatch itself makes.
• Layouts made before 23 September 2026 have no designer recorded, so they pay nobody.

Naming

Pixamatch names layout collections in one pattern: who · page kind · tag, with the print size when it is not the standard 12×30. For example "anna · Group page · 12x28" is a designer's own group-page layouts for 12×28 albums. Pixamatch's own are named like "Pixamatch · Group page · hand-made" or "Pixamatch · Creation page · from" followed by a reference album's name. Your username is filled in for you. A PSD's own name is used as the tag.

Review and approval

Every new layout you save starts as Pending review and is switched off for everyone else. Meanwhile:

• Your own albums can use it at once.
• Pixamatch reviews it in Template Studio. Approved layouts lose their pill and are switched on for every studio. A Rejected layout keeps being used only by your own albums; hover the pill to see the note.
• If you change the frames of a layout that was already approved, it goes back to Pending review until Pixamatch looks again.
• A layout in one of your Marketplace looks shows In a look, or Published once the look is published. A published layout cannot change: Duplicate & edit makes a copy that goes to review as a new layout.

You cannot change or switch off another designer's layouts. Trying to change another designer's layout shows "Layout N belongs to another designer — it can't be changed here." Only Pixamatch can switch on a layout that has not been approved. You can remove your own layouts from a pack (the bin on the spread in Template Studio) unless they are in a published Marketplace pack; only Pixamatch deletes whole layout packs.

The commission

You earn when an album with one of your approved layouts is exported by another account and that export uses spread credits:

• Rate: ₹5 per content spread by default (Pixamatch sets the rate).
• Per spread, once per version. Each content spread of the exported version that sits on your layout counts once. Exporting the same version again pays nothing more, just like the credits. A version that grows pays only for the new spreads.
• Not your own exports. Albums you export yourself never pay you a commission.
• Only charged exports. An export that costs no credits (for example a re-export of a version that is already paid for) pays no commission.
• Only approved layouts. A layout that is pending or rejected earns nothing, even if a studio has it on a spread.
• Cover and title pages are free exports, so they never earn.

A version never pays more layout commissions than the number of spreads it paid credits for. Any other account's charged export counts, whichever studio it belongs to.

Getting paid

Pixamatch keeps the record of every commission and of payouts, and pays you outside the app. Marketplace, then Earnings shows your own statement: what your layouts earned by look and by month, what was paid out and the unpaid balance (see Marketplace: looks). Pick a Month to see one month; All time goes back to everything. To ask for your statement or a payout, ask Pixie in the studio (Ask Pixie at the bottom of the sidebar on a computer, the Pixie tab on a phone) or contact Pixamatch on WhatsApp at +91 79944 99974.

Tips for layouts that get approved

• Design on real photos of the right shape, so faces are not cut and nothing sits on the spine.
• Turn on the print guides (⋯, then Show print guides, or press ;) to keep faces inside the safe area and off the spine band.
• Avoid saving an exact copy of an existing layout; Pixamatch's review flags duplicates. Group similar in Template Studio shows the near-identical ones.
• All keys are in Keyboard shortcuts.