From first upload to the finished book

Sign up from the front page — it takes a minute. New accounts land on a short welcome step: add your studio name and website, or enter an invite code if you have one. An invite code lets you straight in; otherwise we approve new studios manually, usually the same day, and email you when you're in.

Once you're approved, everything in this guide is included and free to use. Your only cost is the printed album itself, when you choose to order it.

The dashboard is one card per album: the cover, the print size, the status, and when you last touched it. The small chips are your morning triage — “N new notes” means the client left comments, “Changes requested” means they want another pass, “Approved” means you're clear to order.

Finished albums can be archived to keep the grid tidy (they move to the Archived view and can be restored any time) or deleted permanently. A getting-started checklist sits at the top until you've been through the loop once.

Click New album. Give it a title (your client will see it on the review page) and an optional client reference — a job or studio code that travels with the order to Brilliant Prints.

Pick a physical print size up front, from 8×8 up to 16×12. A spread is the open book — two facing pages designed as one canvas. Start with as many spreads as you like; you can add or remove them in blocks of five (up to 30) while you work, and switch to another size with the same orientation later without losing your layouts.

Drop files anywhere on the editor — no picker required. Uploads go straight to secure storage, and each thumbnail in the tray shows its own progress: uploading, processing, ready.

You'll design against fast screen copies so everything stays snappy, while your originals are kept untouched — they're only used at the end, to render the print files at full resolution.

Every spread gets a layout. Layouts are grouped by how many photos they hold — pick one, then drag photos from the tray into the slots, or tap a slot and tap a photo. Drag inside a slot to reframe; scroll or use the zoom control to crop tighter.

The faint band down the middle of the canvas is the hinge — the fold of the physical book. Keep faces and anything you care about off it; full-bleed images can cross it, detail shouldn't sit on it.

The toolbar carries the rest: a spacing slider for a matted look (apply it to one spread or all), flip to mirror a spread across the gutter, and text for titles, captions and dates — set the style, size, alignment and colour, and what you see is exactly what prints. Auto-fill populates a spread's empty slots from your unused photos when you're moving fast.

The strip along the bottom is the whole book: drag spreads to reorder, make one full-bleed, remove a block, or add five more. The first spread is your cover — it's also the card image on your dashboard.

Everything autosaves as you work — when the header says Saved, it means exactly that. Close the tab, come back on another machine, and the album is as you left it.

When the design is ready, open Share with your client and create a review link. The album's status becomes In review, and you get a private link to copy, email or share.

Their feedback lands in your editor, pinned to the exact spot on the exact spread. Switch to Revise mode to walk the noted spreads, resolve each note, and reply where a note needs an answer. When you've made the changes, Send updated proof re-renders the album on the same link — no new URL for the client to lose.

Once it's approved, click Preview for a final look, then Send to Brilliant Prints. One click renders the full print package — every spread at 300 DPI, in print colour, from your original files — and gives you a proof link showing exactly what will print.

Paste that proof link into the Brilliant Prints ordering system to place the order. The album's status becomes Ordered.

Your original files are kept for about 30 days after an album is sent to print, then archived — order reprints or make changes within that window. Archive albums to tidy the dashboard; delete only when you're sure, it's permanent.