Proofing
Share the album with your client, collect their comments and photo changes, and get it approved.
Proofing is where your client reviews the album and shows you what they would like changed, right on the spreads. You work through their feedback in the editor, publish an updated version, and repeat until they approve.
This page covers albums made in the new editor. Their album card says New editor. Albums made with the Classic editor use an older proofing flow, see Classic Albums.
Four Words to Know
- Comment: text on a photo or on a whole spread. It stays private until your client sends it.
- Change: Remove, Replace or Swap on a photo.
- Feedback: all comments and changes together. Your client sends it in one go.
- Message: the conversation. It arrives the moment it is sent.
Share the Album
Open the album and choose Proofing. For new-editor albums, proofing opens right inside the editor.
- Open People and access and create a link with your client's name, email and an Access until date.
- Under More options, you can require a password, pick the language your client sees, and choose what the link allows: Allow comments and messages and Allow photo changes.
- Tick Email the invitation to send the link with an optional message, or copy the link and share it yourself.
Your first link shares the album as you last saved it. That is version 1. Your client only ever sees versions you have shared, never the design you are still working on.
The main client is the one person who sends feedback and approves the album. The first person you add gets that role, and you can change it under People. Everyone else is an observer: they can look through the album and join the conversation.
You can also set Feedback requested by, one date for everyone. On the Free plan, links have limits on people, on how long they stay open and on proofing emails per day. The link form shows the exact numbers.
What Your Client Can Do
On their first visit, your client gets a short How proofing works guide that mentions only what their link allows.
- Click a photo to Add comment, Remove, Replace or Swap. Add comment needs Allow comments and messages. The other three need Allow photo changes.
- Click an empty part of a spread to comment on the whole spread.
- Replace offers only album photos that are on no spread of the album as your client currently sees it, their unsent changes included.
- Swap trades two photos on the same spread.
- Remove takes the photo out and lays out the rest again: the whole spread when it shares one layout, or just that page when each page has its own. The remaining photos keep their crops.
Replace and Swap keep every frame's size and position. The incoming photo gets a centered crop that fills its frame, so give it a look when you apply.
Comments and changes wait in a private draft. Until your client sends, they can undo a step, edit a comment or remove any item. Then they send everything at once. You can see that your client has unsent feedback, but not what it says.
Messages work differently. They go straight to you and to everyone else on the proofing, and they need Allow comments and messages.
After sending, your client keeps seeing the album as they sent it. They can keep messaging, and new comments and changes open with your next version.
When nothing is pending, your client can choose Approve album. That means no unsent feedback and nothing still open from earlier rounds. If they sent feedback on a version, approval opens again with your next one.
Work Through Feedback
When your client sends feedback, you get a notification and an email. In proofing, Review feedback takes you to the first open item in Changes & comments. Each item offers the actions that fit it:
- Apply proposal is for changes. It shows the spread as your client proposed it and applies it to your working design. It applies the whole spread, so other open changes on that spread come along, and the dialog lists them.
- Edit this spread takes you into the editor to make the change yourself. It replaces Apply when a change can no longer apply automatically, for example because the spread changed after your client made it.
- Mark done records that you handled it. It is the main action for comments.
- Decline records that you will not make it. No reason needed.
Actions that are not the main one sit in the More actions menu. Your client sees each outcome on their card. Nothing you apply reaches them until you publish.
Publish an Update
When the feedback is handled, choose Publish album. It shares your saved design as the next version through the links your clients already have, and emails everyone with active access. It stays locked while any feedback is still open, and it needs at least one active link.
If your client had feedback they had not sent yet, it is still there. They check it against the new version before sending.
Approval
When your client approves, you see who approved which version, and you get a notification and an email.
Approval is your client's sign-off. It does not lock export, so you decide when the album is ready for print.
Classic Albums
New albums use the new editor unless you turn on Classic editor when you create them, and an album cannot switch editors later. Classic albums keep the earlier proofing page. There, open comments and change requests block export until you resolve them.