From Selected Photos to a Finished Album

The path, step by step

1. Create the project from the booking, so the album reads the booking's photos without a second upload.
2. Choose the photos for the album: start from the submitted selection, then add or remove deliberately.
3. Pick the route: an AI design, a library template, or your own PSD template through album automation — all three read the booking's photos and produce editable sheets.
4. Set the size and photos per sheet, then generate the sheets.
5. Review the whole album in order, checking sequence, crops, folds and any resolution flags.
6. Edit what is wrong in the editor: swap a photo, adjust a crop, add names and dates.
7. Export each sheet at full size as JPG, PNG or a layered PSD for the lab.

Choosing the photos for the album

The selection is usually larger than the album can hold well, so this is a second, smaller cull with a different purpose: not “is this frame usable?” but “does this moment belong in the book?” Keep the must-haves from the couple's list, drop the near-duplicates that both of you marked, and make sure the functions of the day each get representation. The choose photos for an album guide walks through it.

How many photos per sheet

More photos per sheet means each one reads smaller and the spread tells a busier story; fewer means each frame carries more weight. Library templates hold between 5 and 10 photos, and if you are choosing by hand, how many photos per spread works through the trade-offs. If the couple selected 8 photos for a particular sequence, an 8-photo template maps them straight in — one photo per slot, nothing repeated.

Which route to build the sheets with

Review the album as a client would

• Sequence: does the book move through the day in an order that reads?
• Hierarchy: does each sheet have a clear lead photo, or are seven frames fighting equally?
• Faces and folds: nothing important sits across the centre fold; the fold-safe zone is 0.125 in on each side.
• Resolution: resolve any photo flagged below 200 ppi, or consciously accept it.
• Variety: two consecutive sheets should not repeat the same arrangement.

Edit only what needs editing

Open a sheet in the album editor when a photo is in the wrong frame, a crop cuts badly, or a name needs adding. Swap, adjust and move on — regenerate a sheet only when the whole layout should change, because a regeneration produces a genuinely different composition rather than a tidy-up. The edit an album sheet and edit AI-generated designs guides cover the common fixes.

Export and hand over

Export each sheet at full size from the original photos, as JPG, PNG or a layered PSD. Files are RGB — there is no CMYK conversion — and most album labs accept RGB and convert themselves, so confirm with yours. Check the print guides, the fold and any flagged photos before ordering; the print preparation guide and export formats guide have the details. In Smart Photo Selection, Album Studio stores projects on the device you use rather than in the cloud, so exported sheets are your backup — keep them with the rest of the client delivery.