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.

There are two brands and one workflow. The Designer is where you work. Viewing Room is where your client reviews — carrying your studio's name, logo and colour, not ours. When they approve, Brilliant Prints produces the finished book.

Everything your client sees is branded from one screen. Open Settings in the header and fill in all four fields before you share anything:

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.

A season's worth of work stays findable: search by album title or client reference, filter by status (draft, in progress, with client, ordered, complete), and sort by last edited, newest, or title. The controls live in the URL, so a filtered view survives a refresh and can be bookmarked.

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.

The Client links page (in the header) is the birdseye view across every project — albums and frames together: each shared review link, whether it's still active, the client's verdict, any notes waiting on you, and the link itself ready to copy or preview.

Each card also has a Frame this shortcut — it starts a wall frame pre-loaded with that album's photos, so the session that sold a book can sell a frame too.

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, so put a code there rather than a private note.

Then pick the physical print size. There are 11 sizes across 3 tiers, and every one of them is square or landscape — there is no portrait album.

Last, the spread count. A spread is the open book — two facing pages designed as one canvas across the gutter. The options are 10 · 15 · 20 · 25 · 30, defaulting to 15; you can add or remove spreads in blocks of 5 (up to 30) while you design. As a rough guide, 10 spreads is a compact highlights book, 15–20 covers a full wedding day comfortably, and 25–30 is documentary coverage. Sell the count as a package tier rather than letting it creep up for free.

Drop files anywhere on the editor — no picker required. JPEG, PNG, WebP and TIFF are accepted; iPhone HEIC photos are not, so set Camera → Formats to Most Compatible or export them as JPEG first. Uploads go straight to secure storage, and each thumbnail in the tray shows its own progress: uploading, processing, ready. A green Used badge marks photos already placed.

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. To crop tighter, click the photo first — then use the Zoom slider, or click the percentage badge on the photo to open the crop view and adjust it there. Drag photos between slots to rearrange, and drag spreads in the strip to reorder the book.

A slot that is cropping its photo hard says so on the canvas, the same way the layout editor marks one: a small crops 44% tag. Click that photo to adjust its crop and zoom, or give its box a closer Shape in Customise layout…

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 layouts in the picker are a starting point, not a limit. The Customise layout… button sits right under the spread. It opens a screen where you move, resize, add or remove this spread's photo boxes — photos stay with their box. Add photo box (beside it, and inside the screen) drops one more empty box into free space on the emptier page, ready to drag where you want it. As you drag, the editor says when a box is centred on the page and when its edge lines up with another box, which it outlines. Set a box's Shape to a print ratio or the photo's own, and the editor flags a box that would crop its photo hard. Apply to this spread changes only this spread, and its card in the strip is marked Customised.

To make a layout of your own, click New layout at the start of the My layouts shelf in the picker, or use Save as my layout… inside Customise layout…. Saved layouts appear under My layouts at the top of the picker, for any spread of any album.

The toolbar carries the rest:

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.

The cover is its own item, not the first spread. It sits at the left of the spread strip with an Add a cover entry point and its own editor: cover type, material, foil text and spine text. Fabric and leather covers need no photo at all.

A photo wrap starts with a style, not a blank sheet: how far the photograph runs around the book. Pick Full wrap, Three-quarter wrap, Front and spine, Front only or Back and front, or a front collage, then drop photos in. Anything the photo doesn't cover takes your background colour. Drag a photo to reposition it and wheel to zoom; turn on Adjust frames only when you want to move or resize the frame itself. Check Finished book and Back of book before you share — the flat sheet shows the print, the two faces show the book.

Design it deliberately — it's the first thing your client sees when the review link opens, and it doubles as the album's thumbnail on your dashboard.

Turn on the DPI overlay and read every spread before you share. It reports effective print resolution after your crop — zoom into a photo and its effective DPI falls, because fewer pixels are stretched across the same physical space.

Three fixes, in order of preference: zoom out so the crop uses more of the original file; move the image to a smaller slot in a denser layout; or swap in a higher-resolution frame from the same moment. Reds almost always trace back to a heavily cropped edit, a social-sized export that slipped into the folder, or a guest's phone snap — catch those at upload, not at proof stage.

When the design is ready, open Share with your client in the side panel and create a review link. The album's status becomes In review, and you get a private link to copy, email or share. Add an optional note for your client — it appears on their review page, and a link with context converts better than a bare one. You can also set a passcode (4–6 digits): your client enters it before the proof opens, so the link alone isn't enough if the email is forwarded. Tell them the code separately — in person or by text, not in the same email as the link.

The decision bar reports engagement back in plain language — how many notes they've left, how many spreads they've actually viewed, and how long the link still works. A client who has seen 1 of 15 spreads has not really reviewed the album.

Once a link is live, the share panel manages it:

Their feedback lands in your editor, pinned to the exact spot on the exact spread. An album with unresolved notes opens in Revise mode automatically, with a banner explaining why and a Switch to Build button when you want the full toolset back. The two modes toggle in the header: Build is the whole design toolbox, Revise is stripped back to working the notes.

1. 1
   Read the notes in place

   The Feedback tab lists them grouped by spread, with arrows to jump between the spreads that have feedback. Tapping a note takes the canvas to it.
2. 2
   Make the changes

   Work the spread the note is pinned to. Switch to Build if you need layouts, text or the tray.
3. 3
   Resolve and reply

   Resolve a note once it's handled; reply when you disagree or need clarification, so the conversation stays attached to the design instead of scattering across email.
4. 4
   Send one updated proof

   Send updated proof re-renders on the same URL and bumps the version. Group your changes and send one consolidated update — every round you send is another week of calendar time.

Juggling several reviews at once? The Client links page lists every link you've shared — across albums and frames — with its status, the client's verdict, and how long it still works, so nothing out with a client goes quiet unnoticed. A Wants more chip means they've signalled interest in another size or a second copy: treat it as a warm lead and follow it up the same day.

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.

Read that proof properly; it's the last checkpoint before a physical book exists. Then paste the proof link into the Brilliant Prints ordering system to place the order. The album's status becomes Ordered.

Your original files are deleted 30 days after an album is sent to print — order reprints or make changes within that window. The on-screen previews stay, so the album can still be opened, but it can't be printed again. Parent copies and duplicates are straightforward inside it and painful outside it, so ask about them when you hand the album over, not three months later. Archive albums to tidy the dashboard; delete only when you're sure, it's permanent.