Oftentimes slightly reformatting your print layout is necessary, because many of our layouts are not rectangular in shape and therefore don't fit nicely on a 4x6 or 5x7 print.
This reformatting can cause the graphics that you have added to the Photo Design panel fail to match up with your pictures properly, which means you may need to design a print-specific graphic.
Learn more about when this is necessary and how to go about making print graphics in this article.
Determining If You Need Print Specific Graphics
Logos
Logos will always appear on your prints regardless of your print settings.
Backgrounds & Overlays
Force Fit Disabled
Background and overlay graphics added to your Photo Design panel will appear on the prints as long as Force Fit is disabled.
Force Fit Enabled
Background and overlay graphics will be automatically disabled from your prints when Force Fit is enabled.
The Force Fit tool adjusts the pictures in such a way that your overlay and/or background file may no longer match up with the photo frames.
Trial & Error
If you plan to use Force Fit, you may or may not need to design a print-specific graphic, depending on how intricate your design is.
We recommend importing your existing overlay to your print panel and trying a test print as a first step to see if redesigning the graphic is even necessary. If you do need to tweak your design, follow the steps below.
Designing Print Specific Graphics
1. Make Your Initial Adjustments
If you haven't already, follow our formatting guide to fine-tune what your layout looks like.
You may find you don't need to use Force Fit at all, and therefore don't need print-specific graphics.
2. Make A Test Print
Your goal is to line up the red border that appears on the print preview and print out itself with the edges of the paper you are using.
If the border doesn’t match up perfectly (i.e., you can see blank space outside of the red border, or can’t see the red line on each side), adjust your padding to get things just right before proceeding to step 3.
3. Design Your Print Graphics
You are ready to start designing the print graphics.
Start by pressing the “save template” button at the bottom of the print panel to export a template you will use to design around.
Export the template (Email, AirDrop, etc.) from your Camera Roll to a computer so you can open it in your graphics editing program.
In your graphics editing program, start with the same graphics and elements from your digital overlay and/or background. You can then adjust the graphic elements to accommodate for the reformatted print layout.
Be careful to design within the red borders that appear on the layout. Any graphic elements that appear outside of the red border will be cut off from your prints.Save the newly designed print graphic and upload it to the print panel for your preset. Be sure to remove the template you uploaded to design around before saving.
4. Make Another Test Print
Take some test prints to ensure that the print graphics turn out as expected.
You may need to revisit step 3 for fine-tuning.
The red borders will only ever appear on the test prints that you can send from the print settings panel. Once you launch the booth, these red lines will not appear.