Designer Software

The PhotoBook Design Tool is a software design tool to create your own customized photo book layout. Now, you can do the design. PhotoBook Press will continue to provide the highest quality printing & custom binding to create one-of-a-kind heirloom books. Creating your custom photo book has never been easier!

PhotoBook Press PhotoBook Design Tool offers a wide array of tools and features to design and enhance your project, including:

• Individual page layout
• Flexible placement of pictures or snap-to-grid
• Templates – applied to complete book
• Picture cropping, resizing, & rotation
• Picture borders
• Drag & drop placement of pictures
• Page backgrounds
• Fading control of pictures and backgrounds
• Resizable picture frames
• B&W and sepia filters
• Easy picture distribution
• Captions – anywhere
• Drag & drop placement of design elements

How to create a photo book

1. Double-click the PhotoBook Press My Photo Books desktop shortcut.
2. A welcome dialog will come up. Click Create New Book.
3. Now, choose a size for your photo book (9×9 square, 9×12 portrait, 8×10 landscape, or 10×10 square). NOTE: All sewn photo books have a minimum of 36 pages & come in signatures (increments) of 12 pages. Perfect bound (glued spine) books come in increments of 2 pages, starting with a minimum of 12 pages. Soft cover perfect bound books are not available in 10″ widths.
4. You should now see the Photo Book workspace. Use the Image Browser at the bottom of the workspace to load pictures to use for your photo book. To do so:
   • Click the Add Picture or Add Folder (of pictures) icon at the left of the Image Browser. You can then drag & drop pictures directly from the Image Browser and onto your photo book pages.
   • If you are using layouts or templates, you can use the Distribute Pictures command (under the Layout menu) to automatically distribute your pictures amongst the pages.
   • NOTE: You must keep all images in your book on your computer if you want to return to the saved book for further editing. Any images remaining on a hard drive that is disconnected will be un-linked from the book design and you will have to start your design from the beginning.
5. Toggle between the various page display options seen as tabs on the Image Browser:
   • Page Layouts – preset arrangements of picture-ready picture frames. Once applied to a page, you can still rearrange the layout elements any way you choose.
   • Page Backgrounds – various colors, textures, and designs you can apply to your pages.
   • Picture Borders – borders of various color and thickness you can apply to pictures.
   • Templates – themes that can be applied to your entire photo book. Once applied to a page, you can still rearrange the template elements any way you choose.

   All of these items can be dragged & dropped directly onto a page (or frame, as the case may be).

6. To navigate the pages of your photo book, click the desired page in the Pages Browser. You can also navigate using the navigation arrows located on the toolbar.
7. When you’re done designing your photo book, click the Send To PhotoBook Press button to upload your project to our production facilities.

Download the PhotoBook Design Tool.

For more information on using PhotoBook Press Design Tool, see Designer Tips.