Everything the app can do,
beyond the basics.

Every spread can flip through dozens of ready-made layouts. The up/down chevrons stacked above and below a spread change its arrangement; the left/right chevrons move between spreads.

1. Click the ▲ / ▼ arrows on a spread (or press ↑ ↓) to cycle layouts.
2. Below the spread, toggle the pill between Match photo count and All layouts.

Why the pill matters: with “Match photo count” on, cycling only offers layouts that hold exactly the number of photos you’ve placed — so you never drop a photo or leave an empty hole.

A visual catalog of every built-in and custom layout, as little preview cards.

1. Click Templates in the top bar to open the panel.
2. Click a card to apply it to the current spread, or its + to start a new spread from it.
3. Type in the search box to filter by name or number of photos.

Some built-in layouts use shaped photo slots — circles, arched windows and soft organic blobs. Drop a photo in and it’s cropped to that shape; cycle to another layout and it re-crops automatically.

You don’t have to start from a blank template designer — reshape a spread’s slots right on the page.

1. Double-click the spread to enter Edit Mode.
2. Use Add Slot, then drag a rectangle to draw a new frame.
3. Select any slot and drag its corner handles to resize, or the move handle to reposition. The trash icon deletes it.

Turn a whole design you’ve arranged into one you can reuse on any spread — not just the photo boxes, but the look.

1. In Edit Mode, open the Layout section of the sidebar.
2. Choose Save as Template and give it a name.

The template remembers your shapes, gradients, borders and decorations — apply it to another spread and only the photos are left to fill in. Your custom templates appear in the Template Browser alongside the built-in ones, forever.

Not limited to the seven presets — set your own album dimensions.

1. On the New Project screen, pick the Custom size chip.
2. Enter the width and height of the open spread in inches (e.g. 24 × 12″).

Mirror an entire spread left-to-right in one click — handy for balancing facing pages.

1. Click the flip icon in the spread’s header.
2. Every photo and decoration mirrors across. Click again to flip back exactly.

Grow or trim the album and change its sequence without leaving the filmstrip.

1. Click the + Add Spread card at the end of the album to add a blank spread.
2. Right-click a spread’s header for Insert Spread Left / Right, Delete Spread, Move Left / Right, or Move to position…
3. Or drag a spread by its header to a new place — the row reshuffles live as you drag.

Deleting a spread never deletes photos — any it held go back to the library as unused. If it still has photos on it, the app asks first.

Mark a spread as the album’s cover — a blank page for a title, artwork, or a single cover photo.

1. Right-click the spread’s header → Mark as Cover. It’s labelled Cover instead of a spread number; the other spreads keep their numbers.
2. Add a title with text, a background colour or image — or drag one photo onto it for a full-bleed cover image.
3. Right-click → Remove Cover to make it a normal spread again.

Marking a spread that already has photos clears them off it (after a confirmation). They go back to the library — nothing is lost.

Auto Build reads two things from your photos — the order they should appear in and their star ratings. Setting both in Lightroom before you export gives the strongest first draft.

1. Align the sequence. Arrange the photos in Lightroom in the exact order you want them in the album — the natural flow of the day usually works well.
2. Rate the images. Give your favourites 1–5 stars. The rating decides how large each photo appears — a 5-star can fill a whole spread, while unrated photos pack in tighter.
3. Bake the order into the filenames on export. Number the exported files sequentially (e.g. 001, 002, 003…) so they carry your chosen order — the app lays photos out in filename order, reading numbers naturally (so img2 comes before img10).
4. Include all metadata on export. In Lightroom's Export dialog, under Metadata, set Include to All Metadata — this embeds the star ratings so the app can read them on import.

The one setting people miss: ratings only come across when All Metadata is included on export. With “Copyright only” (or ratings stripped), every photo imports unrated and Auto Build sizes them all equally — you'd then re-rate inside the app using the stars on each thumbnail.

Turns your whole pool of unplaced photos into finished, laid-out spreads in one click — a strong starting point you then refine by hand.

1. Import your photos (naming them in shooting order helps — see the tip).
2. Click Auto Build in the top bar.

Order comes from filenames. Photos are laid out in filename order (numbers read naturally, so img2 comes before img10), which usually matches the flow of the day.

Your ratings decide how large each photo appears. This is the single biggest lever on how an auto-built album looks.

1. Hover a thumbnail and click its stars to rate it 0–5.
2. Auto Build gives higher-rated photos bigger slots — a 5-star can fill a whole spread; unrated photos pack many to a page.

Select several photos first and one click rates them all at once. Ratings can also be embedded from Lightroom on import.

Have a fixed album size in mind — say 40 pages? Tell Auto Build the target up front, and it keeps your star ratings while it fills them.

1. When creating the project, set the number of (blank) spreads you want.
2. Import your photos and click Auto Build. It fills those blank spreads instead of making new ones, still sizing each photo by its rating — a 5-star gets a spread to itself. Any spare pages are left blank.
3. If your ratings need more pages than you set up, the app asks: Add N pages (keep every rating as-is and grow the album), Fit into N pages (keep your page count — higher-rated photos still get more room, but share spreads), or Cancel.

Cancel also tells you roughly how many photos to rate lower if you’d rather keep the page count and give your favourites full spreads.

Layouts that balance neatly across the left and right page of each spread, rather than flowing across the center fold.

1. Turn on Split pages when you create the project.
2. Auto Build then composes each spread as a balanced left half + right half.

Change what part of a photo shows inside its slot without moving the slot itself.

1. Double-click the spread, then click the photo to select it.
2. Drag the photo to slide it within the frame; use the sidebar’s Zoom and Reposition controls for precision.
3. The crop-preview thumbnail in the sidebar shows exactly what’s visible — you can drag inside it too.

Slots aren’t locked to the template — reshape them freely, and let smart guides keep everything aligned.

1. Select a slot; drag its corners to resize or the move handle to reposition.
2. Watch for colored guides as you drag — center lines, edge alignment, equal spacing, and matching dimensions — and the slot snaps to center.

Slots may overlap on purpose — drag one photo partly over another for a layered, collage look. Hold Shift while resizing to keep a photo’s proportions.

Act on several items at once instead of one at a time.

1. Shift- or Cmd/Ctrl-click photos to add them to a selection — or drag a box across empty canvas, or press Cmd/Ctrl+A to select everything on the spread.
2. A box-select or select-all also picks up shapes, text and logos, so a whole arrangement moves as one.
3. Resize or move the group together, give the photos one border or opacity, or press Delete to remove them in one step.

Right-click the selection box for Move selected to new spread →, Delete N selected, or Clear selection.

Per-photo finishing touches, all in the sidebar while a photo is selected.

1. Border colour & width, and rounded corners.
2. Edge Softness to feather the edges into the background.
3. Tilt (whole photo) turns the photo and its frame together for a scrapbook, pinned-print look — or drag the round rotate handle above a selected photo (hold Shift to snap in 15° steps).
4. Angle spins the image inside its frame, and horizontal / vertical flip mirrors it.

While a photo is tilted its corner handles hide — straighten it, or use the sidebar, to resize.

Lay a translucent color wash over a photo — a dark-to-clear fade for a vignette, or a soft glow from one corner.

1. Select the photo and open the Image tab in the sidebar.
2. Turn the gradient on, then set the two colors, their transparency, and the direction — linear or radial.

When photos and decorations overlap, decide what sits on top.

1. Right-click a photo for Bring to Front / Forward and Send Backward / to Background.
2. Or use the sidebar’s Layer buttons, or Cmd/Ctrl+] and [.

Too many photos on one spread? Split some off onto their own page in one click.

1. In Edit Mode, select the photos you want to move (Shift-click or drag a box).
2. Click Move to new spread → in the sidebar, or right-click a selected photo → Move selected to new spread →
3. A new spread appears right after this one with those photos in a fitting layout, and the photos left behind are rearranged to fill their page.

Your crop, zoom, borders and other per-photo edits come along. One Cmd/Ctrl+Z undoes the whole move.

Decorative outlines — thin, double, ornate corners, or a torn-paper edge — to dress a photo.

1. In Edit Mode, open the Frames tab and pick a style.
2. Add one while a photo is selected and it binds to that photo — they then move and resize together.

Hearts, circles, stars, arches, clouds, lines, washi tape and more — as accents, dividers or backdrops.

1. Open the Shapes tab and add a shape.
2. Fill it with a solid colour or a gradient, invert it into a cut-out, and scale it — even past the page edge for a bleed.
3. Drag the round rotate handle to turn it (hold Shift for 15° steps), or use the Rotation slider.

Add names, dates, and captions with typography suited to a wedding.

1. Open the Text tab and choose a preset — Title, Heading, Sub-heading, or Paragraph.
2. Pick any font installed on your computer (listed under System fonts), or a curated set that includes formal script faces. Set size, weight, italics, alignment, and colour.
3. Fine-tune with Letter spacing and Line spacing, Rotation, and Vertical text.
4. Add a Highlight behind the words, an Outline (colour + width), or a soft Shadow so text stays readable over a photo.

Right-click a text box → Convert to Slot to turn it into an empty photo slot of the same size.

Get a photo cropped to a shape — a circular portrait, a heart-shaped detail.

1. Right-click a shape (or a text box) → Convert to Slot.
2. Drop a photo into it; the photo is clipped to that exact outline, and you can reframe it like any slot.

Add a border to a shaped slot and it traces the shape’s outline — a ring around a circle, an edge along a heart — not a rectangle around it.

Your own groupings that cut across the fixed categories — “Drone shots,” “Black & white,” “Must-includes.”

1. Click New Bin and name it.
2. Right-click a photo to add it to a bin; click a bin pill to filter the library to it.

A photo can live in as many bins as you like, all at once.

See at a glance which photos still need a home.

1. Use the All · Used · Unused tabs above the library.
2. Each thumbnail shows a checkmark when placed — and ×N if you’ve used it more than once.

Place a batch of photos and let the app choose the layout.

1. Select several photos in the library.
2. Drag them onto a spread — the app picks a layout that fits that count and places them all.

A bird’s-eye view of every spread at once — the fastest way to sequence the album.

1. Click the grid icon in the top bar.
2. Drag cards to reorder spreads; double-click one to open it for editing.

Move a photo between two far-apart spreads without endless scrolling.

1. In Grid view, Cmd/Ctrl-click two (or more) spreads to select them.
2. Click Compare & Swap — the chosen spreads open side by side.
3. Drag a photo from one onto the other to swap or move it.

Reuse any photo, shape, frame, or text — on the same spread or a different one.

1. Select an element in Edit Mode.
2. Cmd/Ctrl+C then V to copy/paste, or Cmd/Ctrl+D to duplicate in place (also on the right-click menu).

Give a page a color behind the photos — subtle paper tones or a bold blackout.

1. In Edit Mode, use the Background section: pick one of 10 curated tones or any custom color.
2. Choose Apply to all spreads to set the whole album at once.

Keep both hands moving.

• ← → move between spreads · ↑ ↓ change a spread’s layout · Esc leaves Edit Mode
• Cmd/Ctrl+Z undo · Cmd/Ctrl+Shift+Z redo
• Cmd/Ctrl+S save · Cmd/Ctrl+Shift+S save as
• Cmd/Ctrl+A select all · Cmd/Ctrl+C / V copy / paste · Cmd/Ctrl+D duplicate
• Cmd/Ctrl+] / [ layer order · Delete removes the selection

Accidentally dropped the same folder twice? The library won’t fill up with copies.

1. Import as usual — the app recognises a photo that’s already in this project by its contents, not its filename.
2. Duplicates are skipped and a message tells you how many, e.g. “Imported 8, skipped 2 duplicates”.

Right-click a slot → Replace photo always imports the file you pick, even if it’s already in the library.

Produce the final files — and a client-friendly proofing copy — with print in mind.

1. Click Export; choose PDF, PNG, or JPEG.
2. Export all spreads, just the current one, or a page range.
3. Turn on Proofing to stamp each page with its number and every photo with a reference number for feedback.

Print-ready by default: exports carry a standard sRGB colour profile so prints match your screen. Before you export, a warning flags blank spreads and low-resolution photos: amber below 200 PPI (may print soft) and red below 100 PPI (will pixelate). Click a Spread N → link in the warning to jump straight to that page and fix it. The same amber/red badge shows on the photo itself while you design.

Retouch a photo in Photoshop (or any editor) and have the album update itself.

1. Right-click a photo → Edit with External Editor.
2. Edit and save in that app — the album detects the change and reloads the updated photo automatically.

Pin your preferred editor once in Settings so every photo opens straight into it.

Your work saves itself, and picking it back up is one click.

1. Save the project once (Cmd/Ctrl+S); after that, Save writes to the same file without asking, and it autosaves on an interval you set in Settings.
2. Use File → Save As… (Cmd/Ctrl+Shift+S) to save a copy under a new name or place — later saves go to the new file.
3. The opening screen lists your recent projects — click one to jump straight back in. You can also double-click a .wdalbumprj file to open it.

Close the window with unsaved changes and the app asks Save, Don’t Save, or Cancel — nothing is lost by accident.

Build a brand-new layout by drawing empty photo slots on a blank page.

1. Click Templates in the top bar, then + New to open the Template Editor.
2. Use Add Slot and drag to draw each slot; drag the corner handles to resize, or the move handle to reposition. Slots snap to a light grid — hold Shift to place freely.
3. Give it a name and Save — it joins your library alongside the built-in layouts.

A spread's own live layout can also be reshaped and saved without this editor — see the next entry.

Design a spread just the way you like it, save it as a reusable template, and drop it onto any album later — next time you only fill in the photos.

1. Double-click the spread to enter Edit Mode.
2. In the sidebar's Layout section, choose Save as Template and give it a name — it joins your library alongside the built-in layouts.
3. On any spread, open Templates and click your saved card to apply it (its + adds it as a brand-new spread instead).
4. Changed your mind about a saved design? Use Update existing template… in the same Layout section to overwrite it with this spread’s current look. The template the spread is using is picked for you.

Templates remember the whole page design — slot shapes, borders, corners, gradients, the background colour or image, decorative shapes, text, and any logos or artwork — not just the photo boxes. Apply one and only the photos are left to fill in.

Apply a ready-made design set like a preset — one click styles a whole spread, art and all. Import a pack once and reuse it across every project; each pack is a single .wdtpl file that carries the artwork and backgrounds inside it.

1. Import a pack: in the Templates panel click Import and pick one or more .wdtpl files — each appears grouped in its own folder.
2. Apply a design: click a card to style the current spread, or its + to add it as a new spread. To lay down a whole set at once, right-click a pack's folder → Apply all to new spreads.
3. Share your own: right-click a card → Export (tick several for Export selected, or use Export all) to hand designs to another computer or person.

Because images are embedded in the pack, a shared set works on a computer that has never seen those photos — it arrives complete.

The Templates panel is a full manager, not just a picker.

1. Search by name, photo count, or page size; filter by page size — the panel opens showing the layouts that fit the album you're in (switch to “All sizes” to see everything).
2. Right-click a card to Duplicate (works on built-ins too, giving you an editable copy), Export, or Delete (your own templates only).
3. Drag the panel's header to float it, drag its edge to resize the width, and use the slider to zoom the preview thumbnails.

Import PNGs, logos and vector art once and reuse them across every project — as an overlay on a page or as a page background.

1. Click Assets in the top bar to open the library, and import your files into the Assets or Logos tab.
2. Drag an asset onto a spread to place it, or use a card's Add as overlay / Set as background buttons. Resize, rotate, and set its opacity like any element.

Assets you place become part of any template you save, and travel inside shared .wdtpl packs — so a shared design arrives complete.

Alongside wedding albums, the opening screen can create Instagram posts — a separate project type with its own canvas and its own saved file.

1. On the launcher, choose New Instagram Post.
2. Pick a format — 1:1 square, 4:5 portrait, 16:9 landscape, or 9:16 story — and how many posts to start with.

Every post can cycle through post-sized templates, including ready-made multi-photo collages and fully designed pages.

1. Use the ▲ / ▼ arrows to cycle layouts, or click Templates in the top bar to pick from preview cards — grids, framed, rounded, circle, story bands, nine-grid, scrapbook and more.
2. The Aesthetic collection (4:5) adds eight complete designs — moodboard, taped print, editorial bands, lookbook and more — with the text, tape and backgrounds already in place. Apply one and just drop in photos.
3. Select several photos and drop them on a blank post — it chooses a collage that fits the count and places them all. Drop them on a designed post and they fill its slots in order.

In the Asset Library panel, the Templates tab groups designs by collection, then plain layouts, then your own saved templates.

Make a multi-slide carousel, or split one wide photo seamlessly across several slides.

1. In the sidebar's Layout section, set a post's Span (1–4) to widen its canvas across that many slides. A dashed page-break line marks each boundary.
2. Drop a single photo full-bleed across a spanned post to slice it into a seamless carousel — or place a different photo on each side of a break.

Export produces one image per slide, in order — upload them to Instagram as a carousel and they line up.

Turn an album spread into a carousel: in the album, Export → JPEG → Current spread only (2× quality). Start a New Instagram Post, import that JPEG, drop it on the post and set the Span. Best fits: 12×24″ and 10×20″ → 2 square slides; 12×36″, 10×30″ and 8×24″ → 3 square slides; 10×24″ → 3 portrait 4:5 slides (all exact); 12×30″ → 3 portrait 4:5 slides (about 4% trimmed). Watch the demo →

All the album editing tools apply here too — reframing, shapes, text, backgrounds, and logo/artwork overlays — with the same alignment guides.

1. Double-click a post to edit; drag photos and elements with the same snapping and centre/edge guides as the album.
2. Select several photos (Shift-click, drag a box, or Cmd/Ctrl+A) to move, resize or restyle them together.
3. Click the preview (eye icon) to see the posts as a real Instagram carousel — swipeable slides, dots, and a caption.

Sequence the carousel, keep your favourite layouts, and export ready to upload.

1. Switch to Grid view to drag posts into the order you want.
2. Save a post's arrangement as a reusable Instagram template (Layout → Save as Template), or overwrite one you already saved with Update existing template…
3. Export each post as PNG or JPEG (at 1×, 2× or 3×), or the whole set as a PDF.