1. Lock the image set
Choose a reviewed collection first: a year, a trip, a branch of the family, a memorial set, or a holiday grouping.
Selected image sets
Calendar layouts
Photobook templates
Turn curated archive picks into things people can actually hold, gift, and revisit.
The selection step is only half the job. After people, dates, and captions are attached, the archive should flow into calendars, family yearbooks, memorial books, trip books, and keepsake layouts with template logic for different sizes.
Workflow
Publishing should be a clean next step after archive review.
The site should move from selected images to output format without making the user rebuild the story from scratch each time.
2. Pick the physical format
Calendar, square photobook, portrait book, landscape book, or wall piece. The format decides aspect-ratio pressure and caption space.
3. Pick density and rhythm
Hero spread, balanced rhythm, collage month, yearbook page, timeline spread, ancestor profile, or archive atlas.
4. Export proof and print
Generate a proof copy first, then export full-res print files with bleed, trim, and safe-area cues matched to the chosen template size.
Formats
Different physical products want different image behavior.
This is the part that should feel like a builder, not just a gallery page.
Calendar
Wall, square, desk, and poster calendars
Choose a calendar size, how many photos you want to show each month, and whether the result reads like a clean planner, a story calendar, or a memory collage.
8.5x11 wall
12x12 square
Desk strip
Poster layout
Launch Calendar Studio
Photobook
Square, portrait, and landscape book systems
Move from a selected image set into yearbooks, event books, memorial books, family-branch books, and dense archive atlases with size-aware spread templates.
8x8 square
8x11 portrait
11x8.5 landscape
12x12 layflat
Launch Photobook Studio
Next lane
Gift packs and print bundles
This first pass covers calendars and books, but the same template logic can extend into postcard sets, framed print packs, memory decks, and reunion handouts.
Card sets
Wall collections
Reunion packets
Use archive review first
Narration
Interview-led albums and voiceover scripts
Use the life-story interview page to gather quotes, transitions, and closing lines before you lay out a memorial book, narrated slideshow, or family story album.
voice notes
album script
grandparent stories
Open Interview Page
Prep
Print output should respect the source quality of the archive.
The deep-research notes make one thing clear: not every scan can support every print treatment equally well.
Phone scans are a triage lane
Phone captures are excellent for emergency preservation, family review, and small supporting slots, but not every phone scan wants to become a full-bleed heirloom page.
600 dpi print scans travel well
A clean 600 dpi print master is usually strong enough for calendars, moderate photobook spreads, and most family reprints without inventing fake detail.
35mm needs a stronger lane for hero spreads
If a 35mm frame is supposed to run big in print, the capture lane matters much more. Dedicated film scans or camera-rig captures hold up better than casual fallback scans.
Never crop the only master
Page trims, safe areas, and book-specific crops belong in derivative layout files. Keep the uncropped archival master separate from the print-build version.
Studios
Use the dedicated studio that matches the output.
Each studio has its own size logic, template families, and pacing rules.
Calendar Studio
Month-by-month layouts
Best when the story is seasonal, annual, memorial, family-branch, or birthday oriented.
OpenPhotobook Studio
Story-driven spread systems
Best when the archive needs page rhythm, chaptering, captions, and room for chronology or commentary.
OpenGuide
Go back to the archive guide
If the image set is not stable yet, return to scanning, restoration, metadata, and review before laying anything out for print.
Return to Guide