Design a gallery cover in Cover Studio

Cover Studio is available on desktop, not on phones. On a phone, use a gallery’s Design → Cover → Quick covers to choose a ready-made layout. Existing custom covers stay visible to clients; open Galleries on your computer to edit their artwork. The editor’s Phone view is for designing the client’s phone layout from your computer.

Cover Studio designs the opening of one client gallery. It is different from Homepage Studio, which designs your public portfolio page. Both use editable layers and private drafts.

Open Cover Studio and choose a preset

Open Design → Cover → Cover Studio → Open Cover Studio. Choose a cover photo first. A beta notice appears each time you enter, including on return visits. Choose Continue to Studio to open the editor. Cover Studio is ready to use, but you may encounter bugs while it is being refined. Contact support opens the Support Center in a separate tab so you can describe anything that is not working as expected. Closing the notice returns to gallery design without changing your draft.

Quick covers keeps the original eight styles available alongside the Cover Studio card; choosing a quick cover applies it immediately and keeps your Studio draft for later. Cover Studio offers editable presets across Editorial, Minimal, Romantic, and Statement. Search by name or style, or use the filters. Presets → New shows recent designs, including Broadside, Aperture, Colophon, Overleaf, Proof, Nocturne, Passepartout, Affinity, Interval, and Dedication. Every preset includes desktop and phone layouts. Choosing one changes your private draft and supports Undo.

To keep a built-in template handy, click the heart immediately to the left of its style label in Presets. The outline fills red when it is a favorite. Open Presets → Favorites to find those templates again, or click a filled heart to remove one. Favorites belong to your account and are available across galleries and devices. Hearting a template does not select it or change your draft or live cover. Saved holds custom compositions created with Save as my preset; use that action to keep your own edits.

Click the photograph on the canvas to Choose a photo. Pick from this gallery, search by filename, or Upload photo. Hidden, client-only, deleted, and video items are excluded. Replacing the photograph stays in your Studio draft until Apply to gallery; it does not change the gallery thumbnail or Quick cover photo. Built-in template changes keep your chosen photo. In the photo’s Properties, Use gallery cover photo returns to the gallery’s original cover.

Choose Side by side beside Desktop and Phone to see both compositions while editing. Edit phone or Edit desktop swaps the active canvas while keeping the other visible. Preview also lets you compare both layouts.

Find your tools

Above the canvas: Change photo, Design directions, Photo layouts, Motion, Background, Match gallery & email, and Social cards. These creative tools are in the toolbar above the canvas, not in the sidebar. Phone check and device views are also above the canvas. The header holds Studio signature, Version history, Preview cover, and Apply to gallery. The sidebar opens Presets, Layers, Library, and Properties.

Edit the composition

The artwork takes the main workspace. Use the labelled Presets, Layers, Library, and Properties tabs to open a panel when needed. Panels start collapsed and remember your visibility preferences. Clicking a panel’s collapse button returns it to its tab. Opening another panel closes the previous one unless you choose … → Keep panel open. Smaller screens show one panel at a time while preserving your pinned desktop arrangement. Hide panels hides all panels without clearing your selection or disabling editing; Show panels brings the same arrangement back. Properties shows settings for the selected item; drag its divider to resize it. Background in the toolbar, or clicking empty artwork space, opens background and overlay settings. The dotted workspace stays outside the finished cover. Click an element on the cover to open its Properties. Selecting rows in Layers keeps that panel open for multi-selection and reordering; double-click a row, or click the Properties tab, to edit its settings. Drag to move, use handles to resize or rotate, or enter exact values in the inspector. Text boxes resize independently of their type size. Fit text inside its box shrinks text when necessary; turn it off for deliberately oversized lettering.

Use Add text, Add shape, Add monogram, or Add button, up to 24 layers. New custom text is ready to type immediately. Add shape opens an illustrated chooser: rectangle, rounded card, circle/oval, arch, divider line, and outline frame. Shapes are decorative; add a separate text layer for words.
Text can follow the gallery names, date, or studio credit, or contain your own words. Monograms follow the names automatically.
Typeface opens a dedicated wide browser beside the artwork, temporarily replacing the other panels. Its font list scrolls independently, while search, filters, Use typeface, and Cancel stay visible. Closing it restores your panels. The browser shows your text in each font. Hover a sample, scroll the list, or use arrow keys to preview it on the cover. Search by font name or filter by style. Switch between heading and text faces. Click a sample or Use typeface to keep it; Cancel, Escape, or clicking outside restores your saved font. Browsing does not change the draft or add undo steps.
Text settings and the font chooser appear first for text layers. Expand More typography options for weight, alignment, letter spacing, line height, and uppercase treatment. Appearance and Size & position fold away when you do not need them. Expanded sections and color pickers scroll into view inside their panel.
Adjust fill, text or outline color, opacity, borders, corners, and shadow. Use Shape outline to switch between a rectangle, ellipse, or arch; rectangles also have an adjustable corner radius.
Duplicate, hide, lock, delete, or bring layers forward/backward. Drag rows in the Layer stack to reorder them: the top row appears in front. Copy, forward/backward, and delete actions sit beside the stack. Use the grip with Space, arrow keys, and Space again to reorder with a keyboard; Escape cancels. Locked layers must be unlocked before dragging. Order changes save to the private draft and support Undo. Each row identifies its type and whether it is hidden or locked. Clicking a locked item on the cover offers Unlock item.
Use Box select to draw a rectangle around multiple items, or Shift-click to add/remove individual layers. Select / move returns to dragging. Ctrl/Cmd+A selects all unlocked, visible layers.
Group selection (Ctrl/Cmd+G) keeps selected layers together when selecting, moving, resizing, rotating, duplicating, or reordering them. Rename the group in Properties. Open Inside… in Layers, or Alt-click an item, to edit a member. Ungroup (Ctrl/Cmd+Shift+G) separates them. Groups have one level; grouping groups combines their members.
Multi-selection offers alignment and horizontal/vertical spacing controls. Group resizing scales its type size too. A locked group member protects the entire group from moving.
Select Cover photo to move or resize the image frame and adjust crop, zoom, rounded corners, and black-and-white treatment. Background in the toolbar controls the background, photo visibility, and overlay color/strength.

Phone adjustments to element position, size, rotation, and text size are independent of desktop. Colors, words, and other typography settings are shared. The phone crop can also be changed independently.

View options → Snap helps align elements. Preview cover opens a full-window view of the draft with desktop and phone options. Editing tools and shortcuts are unavailable there. Clicking the artwork explains that editing is paused and offers Resume editing. Back to editing or Escape returns to your existing selection and workspace. Preview does not apply the draft. The zoom menu supports 10–300%; choose 100% for actual size or Center canvas to reset pan and zoom. Hand / pan, or holding Space, lets you drag the view. After panning with Hand, a single click returns to Select / move. Scrolling pans; Ctrl/Cmd + scrolling zooms at your pointer. View changes do not edit your cover.

View options → Rulers & guides shows measurements in design pixels. Drag from the top ruler for a horizontal guide or the left ruler for a vertical guide. The + Vertical and + Horizontal buttons add centered guides. Drag a guide to move it; drag it off the artwork, double-click it, or press Delete while it is focused to remove it. Arrow keys nudge a focused guide. Guides snap items into place, save separately for desktop and phone, and never appear in the published gallery.

Move panels by dragging their headers. Drop at a workspace edge to dock, or over the artwork to float. Each panel’s … menu contains Dock panel, Keep panel open, and Hide panel. Floating panels can move and resize. Arrange panels → Reset workspace restores the default docking positions and collapses the panels. Panel positions are remembered in this browser. Small screens stack the panels below the artwork. Zoom sits in the bottom status strip; Center canvas is in the sidebar. The saved cover carries its own typeface settings, so the applied gallery uses the same fonts.

Save, reuse and apply

See Save and reuse cover designs, logos and brand kits for Save as my preset, Library → Design blocks, Library → Brand kits, logo uploads, design import/export, and your default Studio signature.

To delete, select an item and click Delete, or drag it onto the trash area below the cover. The trash changes to Release to delete when you are over it. Locked layers and the cover photo are not deleted this way. Undo delete immediately restores removed layers and their positions. You can also use the regular Undo button.

Help, in the canvas toolbar, explains selection, resizing, stacking, deletion, phone layouts, and publishing.

Undo, Redo, and keyboard shortcuts support experimentation: Ctrl/Cmd+Z, Ctrl/Cmd+Shift+Z, Ctrl/Cmd+D to duplicate, Delete to remove unlocked layers, and arrow keys to nudge (Shift for a larger step). These shortcuts leave normal text-field editing alone.

Changes automatically save to a private draft. Apply to gallery makes the composition visible on the gallery and shared-set pages; it does not publish an unpublished gallery. Closing saves the draft without applying it. Failed saves keep the edits on screen for retry or export. Other Design-tab controls continue to save directly as before.

Existing V1 custom Minimal covers remain as applied. Opening one in Cover studio converts its draft into editable layers; Apply is required to replace the live cover.

Match the gallery and delivery email

Yes, your gallery delivery email can match your cover’s colors. Choose Match gallery & email above the canvas, review the real email at Desktop or Phone width, and choose Apply cover & matching. This applies the cover and matching gallery/email styling together; it does not send mail. Email uses its own layout and a compatible serif or sans serif font. Follow Match your gallery and delivery email colors for the exact steps and troubleshooting.

Design directions and multi-photo layouts

Design directions suggests compositions for your photograph: Editorial, Gallery, Immersive, Masthead, Monograph, and Cinema. Compare Recommended or All 6 in Desktop and Phone views, then choose Use this direction. Cancel leaves the draft unchanged. These are editable starting designs; moving elements yourself keeps your custom arrangement.

Photo layouts combines two to four gallery photos. Select and reorder the photographs, compare Diptych, Contact sheet, Album opening, or Film stills, then choose Use photo layout. Diptych and Album opening use the first two photos; the others can use up to four. The result has editable layers and separate phone positioning. Review the new composition before applying; Undo returns to the previous draft.

Check the phone composition

Choose Phone check above the canvas to flag small type, overlapping text, text near the edge, and text fitting. Fit all text enables fitting; Edit phone layout takes you to the phone canvas. Warnings are prompts to review, not a guarantee that every layout issue has been found.

Under Keep this area visible, drag a box around the people or details that should stay in frame. You can use Protect center, Adjust protected area, or Clear area instead. When the crop cannot fit the protected area, the whole photograph stays visible. Choose Save to draft, review the result, then Apply to gallery when ready.

Add motion

Motion is marked Beta. Choose Still, Slow drift, Photo sequence, or Silent film, preview it, and choose Save to draft. A photo sequence uses two to five photographs, changing every six seconds. Silent film uses a cover video already added to the gallery; add that first if the option is unavailable. Slow drift requires Fill frame and no protected area. Motion respects reduced-motion preferences and keeps a still fallback. Apply the cover to show it to visitors; email and social-card exports are still images.

Social cards downloads the cover’s photograph and type as a PNG: Story · 1080 × 1920 or Square · 1080 × 1080. This does not post to social media, send an email, or apply the draft. A social-card PNG is different from an editable Export design file.

Recover an earlier cover

Choose Version history in the header. Select an entry to preview it; Restore to draft first keeps a checkpoint of your current work, then restores that cover privately. Use Apply to gallery only when you want visitors to see it. Save checkpoint now keeps a checkpoint before an experiment.

History captures changed drafts about every five minutes, previous layouts when the preset name changes, and applied covers. The latest 50 non-applied checkpoints are kept; applied versions are retained separately. It cannot recover work overwritten before history was available. Undo and Redo handle edits within your current session.

Editor guidance

On your first visit, a short tour points out Presets, Layers, Properties, Preview, and Apply. Skip tour or Start designing dismisses it for your account. Replay it from Help → Take a quick tour. The tour floats over the workspace without taking space from the canvas. If you have turned off tips, it stays available in Help without opening automatically.

The sidebar explains each tool before opening it. Presets are ready-made compositions shown as large artwork cards with search and style filters. A preset replaces the draft layout and supports Undo. Layers adds and arranges individual pieces; Library holds reusable logos and styles; Properties edits the selected item.

Panel headers show the panel name, a drag grip, and … for panel layout. Docking, pinning, and hiding live inside that menu, separate from artwork controls. Layers, Library, and multiple-selection Properties keep explanations behind ? help buttons. Properties leads with the selected item or item count, followed by editing controls.

Arrange panels and Hide panels sit at the bottom of the sidebar. View options reveals snapping and rulers when needed; zoom stays in the compact bottom status strip, and Center canvas resets the view. The narrower sidebar and compact toolbar leave most of the workspace for the cover. On phones, panels stack below the canvas.