Have you tried our Online Designer software? It’s a free, easy-to-use, intuitive program designed by our IT team that is sure to make your life easier designing our products. In fact, it’s so good it will certainly help you to save time designing photo albums. In any case, today I will help you master our program by going over some tips and FAQs from our online software.
For those who have not used our Online Designer it is a simple program based off a drag and drop system. You are first prompted to upload your files to the photo bank from either your computer or an existing project. Then simply choose a layout and drag and drop each photo where you’d like it to appear in the album. It’s that easy!
Yet there are some tips and tricks that can help you to be sure everything goes smoothly. Everything from which browser to use to how to create a client preview, read on to find out (and more).
- Browser: we recommend using either Google Chrome or Mozilla Firefox browsers with our Online Designer. These are the browsers compatible with the software.
- Adobe Flash Player: our designer runs on an Adobe Flash Player plug in that may need to be installed prior to use. After downloading the plug in, or if you already have it, be sure to allow it to use our Online Designer software.
- Color Profile: Our Online Editor uses the sRGB color profile so it is highly advisable to convert all your graphics to this profile before creating your project.
NOTE: The program will automatically convert the photographs if they are of a different color profile e.g. CMYK; however, it is strongly recommended to do the conversion on your own.
This is due to the fact that the automated conversion may result in slight differences in shades of colors. Therefore we strongly advise you to check and convert your files on your own.
- Format: The acceptable image formats for our Online Designer are .jpg and .png.
- Weight: The maximum weight of a single image cannot exceed 20MB.
- Resolution: The acceptable resolution is 300 DPI and above.
- Thumbnails: The Online Designer uses thumbnails as previews throughout the designing process.
Do not worry if an image appears blurry in the designer it is a low-resolution thumbnail sample. The end product will be using your full resolution files.
- Low Quality: If indeed you have a low-quality image you will be warned with a yellow-circled exclamation point icon that warns you the image quality is low.
- Designing Spreads: You can only design the amount of spreads you selected for your product in the preliminary design steps.
If during the design process you decided you want to add more spreads save your project in the designer and go back to the preliminary design steps and add the amount of spreads you wish to have.
The extra spreads will then appear at the end of the project in the Designer as blank spreads.
CAUTION: If you decide to remove spreads during the design process the work on the spreads you remove will be lost. For example, if at first you select 15 spreads and design the whole album, but then decide to only include 10 spreads, you work on spreads 11 through 15 will be lost. Your work on spreads 1-10 will be unaffected.
- Auto-fill: There is an auto-fill option available. Simply arrange your pictures in the order you’d like them to appear in the album on the left side in the photo bank. The auto-fill will then fill each blank space in the order of your photos. No photos can be duplicated using the auto-fill.
- Cycle Layouts: You can cycle through the layout options on your album design. Each page has a menu with a button showing a circle with arrows and “layout” written under it. Clicking this button will cause the design to change to the next layout in the cycle.
The results will show up immediately on your album using the images you provided.
Creating a Client Preview
With our Online Designer you can create a preview of your project as thumbnails to send to your clients for approval (this will not include our logo or name).
To generate a complete preview of thumbnails for your client perform the following:
Windows: Ctrl + Shift + E
Apple: Command + Shift + E
This will create a zip file with your spreads saved as JPEGs in their appropriate layout. Note, as mentioned these will be thumbnails and therefore lower resolution than the original files and final product.
- Single Spread Preview: You are also able to generate a thumbnail preview of a single, or specific spread. To do this select the spread you wish to save and perform the following:
Windows: Ctrl + Shift + Alt + F3
Apple: Command + Shift + Alt + F3
As you see our Online Designer is capable of quite a lot. Also, for those of you who prefer visual, I recommend this great tutorial video one of our clients made. He will show you step-by-step how to create a wonderful album using the Designer.
If you have some other concerns, comments, or suggestions feel free to leave a comment below.