How to Use the Template Editor

Quick start

Open a template, change what you want, check it, save it, and load it in your booth. That is the whole loop.

1. Open the editor. Go to My Templates, open a template you made and choose Edit layout, or choose Customize a copy on one you bought. Once you have spent glitzycoins on a template, Design from scratch starts with nothing.
2. Pick what to change. Click a photo window or a text on the canvas, or choose it in the Layers list. Its settings appear in Properties.
3. Change it. Drag to move, drag the dots to resize, drag the round knob to rotate, or type exact numbers in Properties.
4. Check it. Press Preview. Every window fills with a sample photo, so you can judge the framing the way a guest will see it.
5. Save. Press Save, or Ctrl S (⌘ S on a Mac). Every save is a new version, so you can always go back.
6. Load it in the booth. In the Glitzycam app open Settings → Templates → Glitzycam Web, find the template and load it. If the booth already has it, the app asks whether to Replace it.

What a template is made of

Every template stacks the same few layers. Their names are the names you will see in the editor.

Click to enlarge Enlarge this picture

✕

A template is a background, photo windows (the diagram calls them slots) and an overlay frame above the photos. Stacked, they make the finished print.

Here is where each part of the diagram lives in the editor:

Open the editor

What you can do depends on whose template it is.

The workspace

On a computer the editor fills the window with four parts.

1234 Click to enlarge Enlarge this picture

✕

The editor on a computer, with the first photo window of a template selected.

Select, move and resize

The same moves work on photo windows and on text.

With several items selected, Properties offers Align (to the selection or to the canvas), Space evenly (across or down, for three or more), Match size (width, height or both), and shared border and text settings.

Photo windows

A photo window is where one guest photo goes. The first photo of a session goes in window 1, the second in window 2, and so on.

• Add one. Choose Add window in Layers (Window in the bottom bar on a phone). It appears in the middle of what you are looking at. A template can have up to 12, and needs at least one.
• Set the shot order. The number on each window's badge is its place in the session. To change it, use the arrows under Shot order in Properties, drag the dotted grip beside the window in Layers, or press Ctrl/⌘ [ and ].
• Size and shape. A window can be any size from 50 × 50 pixels up to the whole template. It starts as a rectangle; to make it a heart, a circle or any of the other shapes, see Window shapes.
• Border. Under Border choose a thickness from 0 to 40 pixels and a color: 12 swatches, a color picker, or a hex code. Your last six custom colors appear as Recent. The border is drawn centered on the window's edge, so half of it falls outside.
• Rotation. Type an angle, use the quarter-turn buttons, or drag the knob.
• Duplicate or delete. Use the Window section of Properties, Ctrl/⌘ D, or Delete. A deleted item can be brought back with the Undo in the notice that appears.

Window shapes

A window does not have to be a rectangle. Give it any of the 20 shapes the template builder offers: circle, heart, arch, star, hexagon and more.

1. Select a window, or several. Open Shape in Properties.
2. Point at a shape to try it on the canvas, with a photo in it. Nothing changes until you click. On a touch screen a tap chooses it, and Undo takes it back.
3. Click the shape you want. Choose No shape to go back to a plain window. With one window selected, a button under the shapes gives every window the same shape in one step.

• How it is made. The booth can only draw a window as a rectangle, so the shape is made in the overlay, the way the template builder does it: the corners the shape leaves are filled in from the background, the border is drawn around the shape, and the shape itself is cut out so the photo shows through. This happens when you save, and Preview shows exactly the result.
• Your overlay is kept. The editor keeps your original overlay next to the saved one, so you can change or remove a shape later, even after closing the editor. The booth, and a downloaded package, only get the finished overlay.
• It replaces what the overlay draws inside the window's box. If the overlay has art there, such as a ribbon or a frame, a shaped window redraws that part from the background. Move the window, or leave it without a shape, to keep the art.
• The border follows the shape. The thickness and color you set under Border are drawn around the shape instead of around the box.
• You need a background. Without one the corners have nothing to match, and you see Add a background first.
• Turning works. A rotated window turns its shape with it.
• Windows that overlap. Where two shaped windows overlap, the corner of one shows the background, not the other window.

Text

Text items are for words that are not already in the artwork: a guest's name, a hashtag, a date to change each time.

1. Add it. Choose Add text in Layers (Text in the bottom bar on a phone). On a computer, type right on the canvas: Your text here is selected, so your first keystroke replaces it. With a finger or a pen, the Content field in Properties opens and takes the keyboard instead.
2. Finish. Press Esc or click elsewhere. To edit the words again, double-click the text or select it and press Enter.
3. Style it. In Properties choose a Font, a Size (8–200 pixels) and a Color. A new text starts black or white, whichever reads better on the picture behind it.
4. Shape its box. Text is left-aligned, wraps at the width of its box and is centered vertically on it. Drag the box's dots or set Width and Height, or press Fit height to text.

Background, overlay and canvas size

Two pictures make the artwork: the background under the photos and the overlay over them. Both fill the whole template.

Replace a picture

1. Show the template's own settings. Click empty canvas or press Esc, so nothing is selected.
2. Choose Replace… under Artwork, on the Background or the Overlay card, and pick a JPEG, PNG or WebP file. You can also drop a picture anywhere on the editor, or paste one with Ctrl/⌘ V; the editor then asks Use this picture as… and suggests the overlay when the picture has see-through areas.
3. Fit it, if asked. A picture that is not exactly the template's shape opens a dialog: Crop to choose the part to use, or Stretch the whole picture. It warns you when the picture is small enough to look soft once enlarged.
4. Press Use this picture. Undo brings the old one back.

• Pictures that already fit are used as they are. A JPEG background or a PNG overlay with see-through areas, at exactly the template's size and within the size limits, is saved byte for byte. Nothing is re-encoded, so quality is untouched, and so is anything stored in the file: a photo from a phone can carry where it was taken. Anything the editor has to crop, resize or convert is saved without that information.
• An overlay needs see-through areas. Otherwise it would hide every photo. The editor asks This picture has no see-through areas and offers Use as background instead or Use as overlay anyway.
• Remove takes a picture away. Plain color… makes the background one flat color. The eye icons in Layers only hide a picture while you work.
• Canvas size. Under Canvas choose one of the four sizes. All print 4 × 6 inches; a bigger size means a sharper print. Changing it rescales your windows, text and both pictures together.

Keep windows in the overlay's see-through areas

Photos only show where the overlay is see-through, and those openings can be any shape: circles, arches, hexagons. A window without a shape is a rectangle, so it has to sit over its opening. (A window with a shape makes its own opening and needs none.)

If you move or resize a window off its opening, part of it ends up behind the artwork. The editor notices:

Click to enlarge Enlarge this picture

✕

A warning triangle appears next to the window in Layers…

Click to enlarge Enlarge this picture

✕

…and Properties says what is wrong and offers the fix.

1. Select the window that shows the warning.
2. Press Match to the see-through area under Fit to the artwork. The window moves and resizes to fill the opening it belongs to.

For the whole template, select nothing and open See-through areas in Properties. Fit windows to the areas pairs every window with an opening in the way that moves them least, and Add missing windows adds a window for each opening that has none.

Preview

See the template the way a guest will, before you save it.

Click to enlarge Enlarge this picture

✕

Preview fills every window with the same sample photo, a group of cats and dogs, cropped to each window's shape.

• Press Preview in the top bar to switch it on and off, or hold P to peek. The blue outlines, handles and guides disappear.
• What you see. Borders, the overlay and text are drawn the way the booth draws them. The photo is a stand-in, so you can judge framing and crops, not faces.
• The saved preview. The same sample photo is in the preview image that is saved with each version, the one on your template's card and page.

Saving, copies and versions

Every save adds a new version and keeps the old one, so you can experiment freely.

The Save button

The Save menu

The arrow beside the Save button opens a menu:

• Save as copy… (Ctrl/⌘ Shift S) makes a new template from what is on screen and leaves the original as it was.
• Version history… lists every version so you can restore one (below).
• Download package (admins only) gives you the template as a file for the booth app.
• Open in the booth app opens the app straight to this template.
• Discard changes goes back to the version you opened. Undo brings the changes back.
• Take a tour… walks you around the editor with the spotlight on each part, and puts everything back as it was when it ends. It also begins by itself the first time you open the editor.
• How to use the editor opens this guide in a new tab.
• Keyboard shortcuts shows the list below.

What the status chip says

Drafts and leaving

While you work, the editor keeps a draft of your unsaved changes in this browser. If the tab closes or the connection drops, the next time you open the template it asks Picked up where you left off? and offers Restore or Start over. A draft stays for 30 days, on that browser and device only. If you try to leave with unsaved changes, the editor asks first: Keep editing, Leave or Save and leave.

Go back to an earlier version

1. Open the menu beside Save and choose Version history…. Each version shows its picture, when it was saved and by whom; the live one is tagged Current.
2. Choose Restore on the version you want, then Restore as new version.

Restoring never deletes anything: it saves the old version again as the newest one. Restore is off while you have unsaved changes; save or discard them first. The editor keeps up to 20 versions: the original (version 1) and the newest ones.

When it was saved somewhere else

If the same template is open in two tabs or on two devices and one of them saves, the other cannot quietly save over it. A tab in the same browser tells you right away: Saved in another tab (version N). Otherwise the editor tells you when you try to save: Saved somewhere else. Either way, choose Reload latest (your unsaved changes are kept as a draft you can restore) or Save as a copy.

Use it in the booth

Changes you save here do not change a booth until you load the template there again.

1. Save the template. Saved · v… in the top bar means it is stored.
2. On the booth device, open Glitzycam and go to Settings → Templates, then switch to Glitzycam Web and sign in with the same account.
3. Find the template and load it.
4. If the booth already has it, the app asks Replace “Name”? and explains that loading replaces it with this version. Choose Replace.
5. Set it as the default, if you like, from the notice that appears after loading.

• A shortcut. Open in the booth app in the Save menu opens the app straight to this template. Admins can also Download package for a file to bring in with Import under Settings → Templates.
• Built-in designs cannot be replaced.
• A template made before the editor existed may have no identity yet. Your first save gives it one, and a booth that already has the old one loads the saved version as a new copy once. After that, saves replace it.

On a tablet or a phone

The editor measures the room it has and rearranges itself. Everything above works; only where the panels sit changes.

Click to enlarge Enlarge this picture

✕

A phone (left) and a tablet held upright (right).

Touch gestures

Keyboard shortcuts

Press ? in the editor to see this list. ⌘ is for a Mac; use Ctrl on Windows and Linux. Shortcuts stay quiet while you are typing in a field.

Edit

Move and resize

Select

View

Limits and requirements

The editor keeps templates within what the booth can print.

Troubleshooting

Find the symptom, then the fix.