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.

The window starts with how you want to design it: Design it myself opens the album with paced, empty layouts for you to fill, and Auto design lays the whole album out from your photos once they're uploaded (see Auto design below).

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.

Auto design lays out a whole album from the shoot in one step: it chooses the photos, puts them in story order, picks a layout for every spread and frames each photo on its faces. What it makes is an ordinary album — every spread stays yours to change.

1. 1
   Answer a few questions

   Choose Auto design on the New album window, then say roughly how many photos you want in the book, the fewest and most per spread, and the kind of shoot. The photo count sets the number of spreads. If you have saved layouts of your own, choose whether they come first, mix in, or are the only ones used; Layout variety sets how often a layout may come back.
2. 2
   Upload the whole shoot

   No need to cull to the exact count — auto design chooses. Your picks and favourites are favoured, near-duplicates are set aside, and the book follows the time each photo was taken.
3. 3
   Design my album

   Press Design my album on the Auto design bar above the spread. The whole book is laid out in one step, and one Undo takes it all back. See the storyboard first if you'd like to check which photos share each spread before anything is laid out.
4. 4
   Refine it

   Work the spreads as you would any album. On a spread, ↑ and ↓ on the keyboard try the other layouts that suit its photos. Options changes your answers; Redesign spreads… redoes just the spreads you choose.

Redesign keeps the spreads you've changed by hand. The bar names how many there are, and you choose Keep them or Redesign them too. Every design saves a copy of the album first, so History can always bring back the book as it was.

Started an album by hand? Once it has photos, the editor offers Use auto design. It asks the same questions as a new album, and nothing changes until you press Design my album. Spreads you've already filled count as changed by hand, so they are kept unless you say otherwise.

Every spread gets a layout. Layouts are grouped by how many photos they hold — pick one, then drag photos from the tray into the boxes, or tap a box and tap a photo. Drag inside a photo to reframe it. To crop tighter, click the photo first — then scroll, use the Zoom slider, or click the percentage badge on the photo to open the crop view and adjust it there. To swap two photos, drag the ⇄ Swap handle in one's corner onto the other (on a phone or tablet, tap Swap, then tap where it should go), and drag spreads in the strip to reorder the book.

Several photos at once. ⌘-click (Ctrl-click on Windows) photos in the tray to select them, or Shift-click to select a run, then drag any one of them onto a spread — or onto a spread in the strip. They join that spread's photos and the layout adapts to fit them all; ↑ and ↓ then try the other layouts that suit them, and one Undo takes it back. One photo dropped on a box goes into that box. To add a single photo to a spread with no empty box, drop it on the Drop here to add to this spread band that appears at the foot of the spread. On a phone or tablet, select the photos and tap Lay out on this spread.

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.

Try other layouts. Click a spread that has photos, then press ↓ for the next layout that suits them and ↑ to go back — best first, the same ranking auto design uses, on every album. Previous layout and Next layout in the toolbar do the same on a phone or tablet. Your photos come with them, and one Undo returns to where you started.

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. A line under the screen's canvas says what you can do with whatever is selected, and Keyboard shortcuts in its toolbar lists the rest.

Move and resize. Drag a box to move it, or drag any corner to resize it (hold Shift, or switch on Keep shape, to keep its shape). 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. Inside this screen the arrow keys nudge the selection 1 mm (5 mm with Shift) — they change the layout only on the spread itself.

Several boxes at once. Shift-click boxes, or drag across empty space to select an area, then drag a corner of their outline to scale them together: every box keeps its shape and the gaps between them stay the same size (a gap that a wider box spans scales, so that box keeps its shape and stays in line). Switch off Keep gaps to have the gaps grow or shrink with the boxes.

Photos inside their boxes. Double-click a photo — tap it twice on a phone or tablet; a selected box reminds you — or select its box and click Adjust photo to move it inside its box or zoom it — drag, scroll or use the Zoom slider, and the editor shows how much of the photo is shown and how sharply it will print. The bin on a selected box deletes the box and its photo; the photo goes back to your tray.

Shape. 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 it. Apply to this spread changes only this spread, and its card in the strip is marked Customised.

Match spacing… in the same screen evens out the white space: one gap between neighbouring boxes and one border to the page edges, for the whole spread, the left or right page, or the selected boxes. Type both in millimetres, as they will print, or switch on Match all for one value everywhere, estimated from the layout. Keep full bleeds leaves photos that print off the page where they are, and takes a photo that stops just short of the page edge (within 3 mm) the rest of the way; Keep box shapes holds every box's shape so no photo re-crops; and the crease can keep a border on each page or be one gap across. Dashed outlines show the result before Respace boxes, and the screen warns before anything moves — a border thin enough for the trim to catch (with one click to a safe border or a bleed, keeping your gaps), a photo that would crop hard, a box sliding under a caption. A box you drag within half a millimetre of the page edge goes to it, so it prints off the page rather than leaving a white hairline. Every spread… applies the same values to the whole album in one step that Undo takes back.

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. Text boxes you place in Customise layout… are saved with the layout: applying it puts the boxes on the spread and carries the spread's words into them in reading order. A layout saved without text leaves a spread's text alone.

Select a text box and press Centre to line it up: each press moves it to the next place it can sit — under the photo above it, in the open space beside the photos, on its own page, then across the spread — and the button says which. Dragging a text box snaps its middle to the same places. Drag the grip on a selected box's right edge to change its width; a centred box grows both ways and stays centred.

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 and foil text. Fabric and leather covers need no photo at all, and are foiled or embossed on the front only — spine text is a photo-wrap option. They can carry a photo insert: a 5 × 5″ square or 5 × 7″ landscape photograph set into the centre of the front, on covers big enough to hold one. Upload a photo or pick one from the album, then drag and zoom it in the window. The foil title moves below the window to make room.

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 box 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 (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
   Publish one update

   Publish update to this link re-renders on the same URL and bumps the version. Group your changes and publish one consolidated update — every round is another week of calendar time. Your client keeps the same link, and anyone who left their email is told it's ready.

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.

Parent albums. The Order & ship window can add a parent album: a smaller copy of the same album, same cover and paper, printed and shipped in the same order. Its pages are this album's reduced to the smaller size, never cropped, with every border at least 10 mm. It keeps the album's page shape, so a 12 × 12 in album can have a 11 × 11 in, 10 × 10 in, 8 × 8 in or 6 × 6 in parent, a 14 × 11 in a 7 × 5.5 in and a 12 × 8 in a 7.5 × 5 in. The window shows the price of each size, and a size the cover can't be made at is shown but can't be chosen. Ordering several albums at once from Order several? It offers a parent album for each of them.

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.