Help

Set up your studio

After signing up you give your studio a name, a booking URL (like /your-studio) and a time zone. Every time you set is in that time zone. You can change the name and the time zone later under Account, and the URL on the Booking page.

Confirm your email

We send a code to your email. Until you confirm it, your open times stay off your booking page, so nobody can book you yet. Everything else already works.

Tips and video guides

A new studio is offered a short tour: five video guides, one after another. Skip moves to the next, Skip all ends it. They all stay under Video guides at the top of Help, to watch again whenever you like.

The first time each main screen opens, a few tips walk you through it, one after another (Next moves on, the small arrow goes back). Don’t show tips turns them off; Reset tips here in Help brings them all back, from the start. On a computer, resting the pointer on a button for a moment always says what it does.

The Get your studio ready card on the Dashboard ticks its steps by itself. If you hide it before they are all done, Help offers to bring it back.

Share your booking page

Your page lives at /your-studio. A new studio’s page starts private: until you switch on Public page on the Booking page (or press Publish page on the Dashboard), visitors get a page not found and nobody can book. You and your team can still look at it with Open.

Once it’s public, Share copies the link, ready for Instagram, WhatsApp or your website. Gallery links work either way.

Change your booking URL

On the Booking page you can change the address. It takes 3 to 60 lowercase letters, digits and single hyphens; a few words are kept for Fotoloft itself.

The old address stops working at once and doesn’t forward, and anyone may take the old name. Gallery links carry the address too, so links already sent stop working: share those galleries again. You’re asked before it changes.

Change the language

In Account, pick the language for your dashboard, booking page, galleries and client emails. Visitors to your booking page can still switch for themselves. Until you pick one, each person sees the language their browser asks for.

Keyboard shortcuts

On a computer, single keys do the common things. Press ? on any studio page to see the ones that work there. They stay quiet while you type in a field.

The most used: N new gallery, B book a photoshoot (back, on a photoshoot or a gallery), S save (search, on a list), A and D accept or decline a request (D marks an owed photoshoot delivered), O open, ↑ share, ← → step through weeks, months or tabs, and ` opens client activity. In a gallery, U uploads, P publishes and V opens the preview; on the calendar T goes to today. Declining, publishing and marking delivered ask first.

Calendar views

On a computer the Calendar shows a month or a week, on a phone a month or a day. Tap a day in the month to open it. Colours mark open, requested, booked, unavailable and buffer time.

Open times for clients

Tap Set working hours, or drag across empty time, to open a panel. On Open, pick the dates and hours, the photoshoot types the time is for (none ticked means all), and the working days it repeats on. + Add break splits the day in two, with the break in the middle; times start again right after it.

Clients can book these times as soon as you save.

Change working hours

Tap an open time and use the Edit tab. A change applies to every day that block repeats on. Bookings already made stay as they are.

How start times are worked out

Within open time, start times follow each other: one photoshoot’s length plus its buffer, then the next. With Fixed start times on a photoshoot type, they start every so many minutes instead (every hour unless you change it).

After a break, time off or a booking, they start again right where it ends. A time only shows if the whole photoshoot fits before the open time ends.

Buffer between photoshoots

Each photoshoot type can keep time free after it, to pack up or travel. Clients see only the photoshoot’s own time; your calendar shows the buffer too, and nobody can book into it.

Book a client yourself

On Book, pick the photoshoot type, the time and the client’s name, with a phone number or email. It’s booked straight away, and with an email the client gets the same emails as if they had booked themselves. With only a phone number no client emails go out, as when a client books with a phone; your own emails come as usual.

You aren’t held to your working hours or to how far ahead clients must book: any time that isn’t past and doesn’t run into another booking works.

Where Book starts, and Next free slot

Book opens on your first open time in the next two weeks that nothing is booked over, an hour long or shorter if the open time ends sooner. Previous and Next free slot step through those times; past the last one it says there are none in the next two weeks.

With no working hours ahead, it starts at the next whole hour today and says where to set your hours. Booking still works.

Move a booked photoshoot

Change When in the calendar’s details or on the photoshoot. You’re asked first, then the client gets an email with the new time and a fresh calendar invite, and the reminder moves with it. Without the client’s email, tell them yourself. Nothing can be moved into the past.

A request can’t be moved: accept it as asked, or decline it.

Take time off

Time off blocks hours or whole days. Clients can’t book them, and any open times inside come off your booking page.

Change the time zone

In Account. Bookings stay at the moment agreed with the client. Working hours and photoshoot types keep their hours of the day in the new zone, and so do time off and open times nobody has booked yet.

Clear a stretch of time

Clear removes everything in the range: open times, time off and, after you confirm, bookings and requests. All day clears whole days. Clients whose bookings or requests are cleared aren’t notified, so let them know yourself.

What the client does

On your booking page the client picks a photoshoot type and a free time. The time is held for them for ten minutes while they enter their name and an email or phone number. No account needed.

How clients find a free time

Your booking page opens on today and shows a week. A day with nothing free offers the next day that week that has a time; an empty week looks up to about three months ahead and offers the first open time. The times shown are the ones for the photoshoot type the client picked.

Accept or decline requests

A booking arrives as a request on your Dashboard and in Photoshoots. Accept confirms it and emails the client at once; Decline asks first, then frees the time and emails them. While a request waits, its time is taken, so nobody else can book it.

Answer by the time set under Booking rules on the Booking page: an hour before the photoshoot unless you change it. The request shows the time to answer by. If you don’t, it’s declined on its own: the time is freed and the client gets the same email as for a decline.

Declined and cancelled requests stay under Requests, marked Cancelled; Hide cancelled tucks them away.

Booking rules

Under Booking rules on the Booking page you choose how far ahead clients must book (from an hour to two weeks; times starting sooner aren’t offered) and how long before its time a request must be answered (from an hour to a day).

The answer time is never longer than how far ahead clients book, so no request arrives already past it: raising one moves the other with it. Booking a client yourself isn’t held to either.

Which emails go out

The client gets an email when their request arrives, then one with a calendar invite when you accept it, and a reminder 24 hours before the photoshoot (not for one booked less than a day ahead). A client who left only a phone number gets no emails; the page tells them you’ll be in touch.

Client emails come from “Your studio via Fotoloft”, and a reply goes to your email. You get an email for every new request, and, if you switch on calendar invites in Account, an invite for each booking you accept or enter yourself.

No double bookings

Two bookings can never overlap, buffer time included. Times on your booking page are shown in your studio’s time zone, which is written next to them.

What a photoshoot is

Every job you take on, booked by a client or added by you with + Book photoshoot. Photoshoots is your list of them; clients never see it.

From request to delivered

Requests wait for your answer, and a new one shows up by itself while the page is open. Accepted ones move to Upcoming as you tap. Once the time has passed, or you start uploading, a photoshoot moves to Delivery. It’s Delivered when you publish its gallery, or with Mark as delivered if the photos went out another way. Hide delivered keeps the list short.

Photoshoot types

A type is what clients choose from: a name, price, length, buffer, location, description, a cover photo and a few example photos. Manage them with Photoshoot types on Photoshoots, or on the Booking page, where dragging sets the order clients see.

Cancel a photoshoot

A request or an upcoming photoshoot can be cancelled while its galleries are empty and unpublished. It stays in your list as Cancelled, its empty galleries go, the time is freed, and the client gets an email.

Create a gallery

Create gallery on Galleries, or Add new gallery on a photoshoot. Link it to a photoshoot or keep it on its own. One photoshoot can have several: the full set, a print selection, a teaser.

Upload photos

Drag photos onto the gallery or use Upload photos. Hundreds at once is fine, up to 5 GB each, RAW files included (they show with the preview the camera stored). A photo you already have in your studio is stored and counted once. Web-sized versions are made automatically.

A file with the same name as one in the gallery asks whether to Replace it, Keep both or Skip it, once for the whole upload if you like. Files that fail are listed with Try again. The progress panel says about how long is left, from how fast the photos have been going. You can pause, and hold the progress panel to drag it out of the way. Leaving the page asks first, then stops the upload.

A photo says “Preview unavailable”

Its web-sized version wasn’t made. Opening the gallery sends it to be made again; your original is safe. If it still doesn’t come, a RAW file may simply have no preview inside it.

Change how it looks

Gallery options hold the name, the header photo, the header’s texts and the photo layout. On a phone or tablet, Options (the cog) in the header opens them. Save as default starts new galleries with the same look.

Desktop and Phone above the photos pick the screen you set up: on Phone the page shows the gallery in a phone’s shape, the header its full height and the photos in a phone’s columns. Each screen keeps its own look: what you set on one never changes the other. A phone opens on Phone. On the Photos tab, Original shows each photo at its own shape, in columns; where a gallery opens with two rows of photos all of one shape, the first photo of another shape is brought up into the second row, so the columns don’t line up into a plain grid. The order you set stays as it is.

On the Header tab, Layout sets how the photo and the words share the header, nine to pick from: it shows the line of three with the one in use, and Show all opens the rest. A layout with less room for the words makes the texts’ sizes smaller by as much (150 becomes 50 in a third of the room), and the Texts tab shows the new sizes to change as you like. Each layout keeps its own: back on a layout you already tried, its sizes are as you left them, the first layout’s too. Background under it makes the header Light (white) or Dark (black): the colour around and under the photo, and the one Faded eases into. Until you pick one, it follows the colour behind the photos, set on the Photos tab. Frame draws a thin line just inside the photo’s edges, in a colour of its own; Overlay lays a Dark or Light wash over the photo so the words read on a bright picture; Animation sets how the header comes in.

The Texts tab holds the header’s words: the title (the gallery’s own, also in its emails) and up to ten texts and ten links, each with its own font, size, weight, colour, alignment, capitals and underline. A link takes clients to the address you give it, such as your website or Instagram, in a new tab. + View gallery adds the link that scrolls the header away to the photos. Each text has a name only you see (Header, Title, Description…); click it to rename it. Desktop and Phone each keep a text’s own position, size, font, colour and style; the words and links are the same on both. Sizes are the pixels drawn on a 1440px-wide screen or a 390px-wide phone, shrinking in proportion only on a narrower one. Texts keep at least 20px from the edges of their space and never lie over one another: when one grows into the text under it (longer words, a larger size, or a narrow phone breaking it onto two lines), the text under it moves down to stay clear, and back up as a group if that would take it off the bottom. Only when the texts cannot fit their space at their sizes, even moved apart, are they all drawn smaller together, just enough to fit; while you change a gallery, the smaller sizes are written into their Size fields.

To place the texts, use Move texts over the header and drag them; a line shows when a text lines up with the middle, the margins or another text, and texts never sit on top of one another. Done (or Escape) saves where they are at once, with no Save needed; Cancel beside it puts them back. Adding a text starts Move texts for you, and so does holding a text on the header for half a second: it comes up in your hand to drag at once, and Done or Cancel then keeps or undoes the move.

To reframe the header photo, use Reframe over it and drag the photo; Done (or Escape) saves the framing at once, Cancel puts it back. It moves the way the header crops it: up and down in a wide header, left and right on a phone’s tall screen. On Phone the framing is the phone’s own. A new header photo starts centred. Removing the header photo from the gallery takes it out of the header too, so a gallery emptied of photos has no header photo left.

A new gallery starts ready: your studio’s name (linking to your booking page) over the title in a script, right under it a place and month to write over (your time zone’s city and the current month), and View gallery at the foot, in white over a slightly darkened photo, set for a computer and for a phone.

Link preview shows how the link looks when you send it: the gallery image, which is the first photo unless you pick another. Set as header image and Set as gallery image in a photo’s menu save at once, as do uploading or removing the header photo, with no Save needed. Removing the photo you picked from the gallery goes back to the first one.

Password and expiry

Add a password and clients enter it after opening the link. Set an expiry date (turned on, it starts a month from today) and from that day the link no longer opens; the gallery and its photos are deleted within the day (a photo another gallery also holds stays there). Your Portfolio gallery can’t expire. Under Gallery size on the Gallery tab, Published says when the gallery was last sent out (for galleries published from mid-October 2026 on); a hover over its status at the top says the same.

Publish and share

Preview shows exactly what the client will see. Publish gallery makes it live and marks its photoshoot as delivered; a gallery needs photos to publish. Share gives you the link to copy, a QR code, or Send email to up to 20 addresses at once with a note, each getting their own. Anyone with the link can open the gallery.

What clients can do

Open photos full size, download one at a time, or use Download all photos for a zip. On a phone, pressing and holding a photo (or tapping its download) shows the original to save. No account needed.

To share a gallery for viewing only, turn on Disable downloads in its options. Clients still see and favourite the photos, but nothing offers to save them.

To know who did what, turn on Ask for email to download or Ask for email to favourite or comment (each on its own, both off to start). The first time a client downloads, or favourites or comments, they enter their email, and a name if they like; it is only checked for its shape. Their browser remembers it, so they are not asked again, and Client activity names them by it, such as “dejo@gmail.com favourited 3 photos”, and on a photo you see it under each comment’s name. Other clients never see it. Over the photos, Favourites then opens a list of those emails, each with how many photos they picked, to see one client’s favourites or everyone’s.

Clients can also pick photos to print: Print, beside the heart when a photo is open. It always asks for their email, so you know whose prints they are, and Client activity says who picked how many. Over the photos, Print shows the picked photos, everyone’s or one client’s from its list, and each photo shows how many picked it. In the gallery, each client’s own buttons for their prints, favourites and comments show only what they picked or wrote themselves, never anyone else’s.

Favourites and comments

Clients open the photos they want printed and tap the heart. Hearts are kept per browser, so on another phone a client starts fresh, and several people on one link each keep their own. You see every heart: filter the gallery by Favourites.

Comments are open to everyone with the link; a name is optional. They show on the photo for you and for clients.

When a gallery doesn’t open for a client

A draft tells them it isn’t ready yet. A studio over its storage after the grace days shows it as paused. Past its expiry date it says it has expired. Otherwise, a password is asked for if there is one.

See client activity

Client activity in the sidebar (on a phone, the bell at the top) shows when clients open a gallery, favourite or comment on photos, and download them. A comment or a heart opens the gallery on those photos.

Archive or delete

Archive moves a gallery out of your way; the client’s link keeps working. Delete removes the gallery and its photos for good, unless another gallery uses the same photo.

A gallery that has gone out is never left empty for a client: removing every photo from a published gallery makes it a draft again until you add photos and publish it, and from an archived gallery deletes it.

Name, description and logo

On the Booking page, set your studio name, one line about what you shoot, and your logo.

Cover photo

A wide photo across the top. Choose whether it fills the space or shows whole, and drag to reframe. It can also switch to each photoshoot type’s cover when a client picks one.

Portfolio photos

The first five show at the top of your page on a computer, three on a phone; See more opens the rest. They live in a gallery called Portfolio, so you add and reorder them there.

Colours and corners

The main colour sits behind your name and logo, the highlight colour marks everything clients tap. Corners set how round buttons and cards are.

Working as a team

On Pro, other photographers can work under your studio. They share your photoshoots, galleries and calendar; billing and the team stay with you, the owner.

Invite or remove someone

On Account, under Team, enter their email. The invitation works for two weeks and can be withdrawn. Removing someone takes their access away at once; their work stays with the studio.

From the link, someone new to Fotoloft only gives a name and a password and is in your studio: no sign-up, no studio of their own, no code to confirm the email (the invitation already reached it). Someone who has an account signs in to accept.

Plans

Every studio starts on the Free plan: 5 GB, no card and no end date. When you need more room or a team, pick a plan in Account. If you stop paying, the studio goes back to Free; see If you stop paying for what happens above its 5 GB.

Solo: €5.99 a month, 100 GB, for one photographer. Pro: €10.99 a month, 500 GB, with a team and extra storage at €5.99 a month per 500 GB.

What is stored

Your storage holds two things: your data and its thumbnails.

Your data is every photo and RAW file you upload, kept exactly as you uploaded it, at full size and with its metadata. A photo counts once, however many galleries hold it. Photos on your booking page count too: header photos, photoshoot type examples, your logo and cover.

Thumbnails are smaller copies we make of each photo: a small one for the grid, and larger ones to view and download. Browsers can’t open RAW images, and full-size photos load slowly, so galleries need thumbnails to work and to open fast.

Thumbnails also protect personal data. A camera writes details into each photo: often where it was taken, sometimes the owner’s name or the camera’s serial number. Thumbnails leave the location and personal details out, so what clients and visitors see in a gallery or on your booking page never shows them. Your originals keep everything, for you and for the downloads you allow.

A small JPEG that is already the right size is shown as it is, with no extra thumbnail, as long as it carries no location or personal details. Its camera details and the time it was taken can then be seen; its location never.

Deleting a photo frees its space, thumbnails included, once no gallery and nothing on your booking page uses it.

A day after upload, most originals move to cheaper storage. Nothing changes for you or your clients.

Extra storage

On Pro, add 500 GB at a time for €5.99 a month, up to 20 times, in Account. You’re asked before the bill changes. It ends with the plan.

Change or cancel a plan

Pick another plan in Account. Solo has no team, so remove team members before moving to it. Cancelling runs to the end of the period paid for, and Resume takes it back until then. A plan the Fotoloft team gave you says so, with its end date.

Export everything

Request full export in Account packs every original, RAW files included, into a zip with one folder of photos and emails you a download link that works for seven days. It’s free, always. The button shows when it’s being prepared and when it’s sent.

Delete your account

Take the full export first, then use Delete account on Account and type your email address to confirm. Your studio, its photos, galleries and bookings, and your account are deleted straight away, and your clients’ links stop working. If your plan would renew, cancel the subscription first; you can delete the account right after. A team member who deletes their account removes only that account.