Photoboof gives you complete control over building your own layouts. You can have any number of pictures, any placement, any rotation, multiple strips with one strip in color and the other in black & white, etc. With the layout editor you can either build your graphics and logos with a graphics program like Photoshop, or do the whole layout design including logos directly in the Layout Editor.

The secret to using the Layout Editor is to experiment, and click the "preview" button often to see your progress.

To launch the Layout Editor, click File --> Layout Editor from within Photoboof.

To make a new layout, I'd suggest starting with one of the existing layouts and clicking the "duplicate" button. From there, you'll set your canvas size, background and foreground images (if any), color mode (color, b&w, sepia, etc), and picture borders. The picture borders are especially fun, I'd recommend experimenting with those. I'm especially fond of "sloppy borders 2" and the rounded edges.

 

Don't let all the numbers scare you, its all very simple. You tell it how many pictures there will be in your layout (by default that's 4), and the placement and size. Note that you can click the "Auto Fit" button to let Photoboof place the pictures for you. You can then edit the position and sizes to fine tune things. Note that if you specify a size of 0 it'll use the size of the previous image.

 

Above you can add text captions if you'd like. Most people prefer to do this in Photoshop by either editing a foreground or background iamge, but if you'd prefer you can do it directly in Photoboof. I recommend experimenting with the "stroke", which gives your captions a nice outline effect.

 

On this page you can tell Photoboof to create a second picture column, which you'll use for double strip type layouts. Note that your second strip can be in a different color mode than the original, so you can have a double strip with color and b&w.

One feature that's not obvious is the "multiple masks" area above. Put the full path to multiple mask files and Photoboof will use a different mask for every photobooth session, which is nice for giving your printouts a bit of variety.

 

Custom Layouts Quick Start:

- create a new layout by selecting whatever layout from the area at the top and then clicking "duplicate". Set your paper/canvas size.

- go to the Picture Placement tab of the Layout Editor and set it to however many pictures you'll be taking (for example, 4), and set the number of columns you'd like in your layout, then click "auto distribute". This will place the pictures on the page.

- now click Preview to see how things are looking. Then go back to picture placement and change the size and position of the pictures until you get them just right.

- go back to the first folder tab and play with the Picture Border. Its down at the bottom. I'm a big fan of the rounded stuff, and the sloppy edges 2.

- you'll probably want to use a background graphic or a mask. The difference between a background and mask is the mask a transparent png file (exported from Photoshop - "file --> save for web" - as a PNG-24 with transparency) that's laid over the finished layout, whereas a background is placed on the layout before the pictures. A good way to add your graphics to the finsihed layout is to make a sample layout, then open it in Photoshop (the sample layout is saved to c:\photoboof\sample_layout.jpg) and add whatever graphics. Then hide your pictures so they don't appear in your background, and export from Photoshop as JPG (file --> save for web). Then set that graphic as your background image.

Feel free to email if you have any questions or suggestions for the Photoboof templates.

If you need any help with any of this, feel free to email support@photoboof.com. We want to get you up and boofing, and we'll even talk you through it on the phone if need be or take control of your computer (with your help of course) to get it set up.