Photo Booth Upload is a powerful content creation tool that can make green screen images, animated GIFs, photo strips, slow motion videos, VR360 images, and much more. This series of Getting Started tutorials will give you the tools you need to setup a multi-photo layout, adjust camera settings, and some other general settings.

Photo Booth Upload works hand in hand with Photo Party Upload, so you must use PPU if you want to print or share from PBU. You can find our getting started tutorials for Photo Party Upload HERE.

In Part 1 of this series we'll go over the basics of the interface and the Preferences tab of PBU settings. Let's get started!

When you first open PBU you'll be presented with a screen similar to this (but without the ridiculous face):

A full screen live view of what your camera sees, and a Photo button. This is called the Main Screen. You can take a photo right now, if you wish, but let's shrink the live view a little bit first so we can see the background.

1.

Press S on your keyboard or triple click on the bottom right corner to open Settings. You should now be presented with this screen:

Welcome to PBU Preferences! If you look at the top of the screen you can see all the various tabs that will display different functions of PBU. There's a lot here, but let's focus on changing the size of the live view.

2.

At the bottom of the screen you should see an Options section with a lot of check boxes in it. At the bottom right of this section, you should see an option called Live View Scale currently set at 100. Click the minus button and set it to 90. Click OK at the bottom.

Much better! Now we can see our software background, and the preview isn't so overwhelming. Let's take a photo and see what happens...

3.

Press the Photo button at the bottom of the screen. You should see (and hear if you have speakers) a countdown in the upper left for 3 seconds, then the photo will take.

If you're running Photo Party Upload Helper (as you should) and have an event selected, you should now be presented with a share screen. It will display all sharing options enabled in your PPU event.

Try sharing if you like or press Done to go back to the beginning.

4.

Now that we know how to take a simple photo and change the Live View Scale, let's dive into PBU Settings and learn how to change some important things. We won't go over everything! Just enough to get you going.

Press S or triple click the bottom right corner of the screen.

Before we continue, take a look at the OK and Cancel buttons at the bottom of the screen. Think of the OK button as a save button. If you hit Cancel, any changes that you made while PBU Settings was open will NOT be saved. You must hit OK to save any changes that you make. The same is true for any OK and Cancel buttons you see in any of the windows in PBU. If you're making a lot of changes, we recommend you press OK periodically to save your work.

Onward!

In the upper left of the Preferences tab have a look at the Folders section. This is where you'll change the location to where your images/videos/GIFs are saved.

Before we continue, again, take note of the small blue question mark bubble in the upper right corner. The same symbol is scattered all over PBU, and clicking it can give you some valuable information about what you're seeing.

Originals Folder is where the original, unprocessed files from the camera are saved.

PBU takes those original files, processes them, and saves them to the Output Folder.

You can change the location of both folders by clicking the Browse buttons on the right. To make things simpler, check the box labeled Make Sub-folder of output folder. This will create a folder named Originals inside the Output Folder and keep all your files organized.

Pro tip: Make a new folder for every event! That will make it much easier to organize your media as you do more and more events.

Note: If you are running Photo Party Upload Helper (as you should), changing the Output Folder will automatically change the Watched Folder for your event to match.

Filename Prefix will add whatever you input into that field to the beginning of every file you make in PBU.

Append Random Sequence: Check this box if you would like PBU to add a random sequence of characters to the end of the file name. 

Software Background will change the green and red bubbly background in PBU to the image of your choice. The image will be stretched to fit, but for best results your image should match your screen resolution.

5.

To the right of Folders is Hot Keys:

This displays the hotkeys you use on your keyboard to open Settings, Minimize PBU, and Exit PBU. They are only usable while on the Main Screen, but you can press the Hot Keys button in this section to bring up a set of buttons that will allow you to Exit and Minimize PBU from with the Settings screen.

You can change the Hot Keys by clicking in their respective fields and then pressing whatever button you want to use on your keyboard.

6.

Below Hot Keys is Trigger Photo With:

This section will determine how your Camera is triggered. We'll go over the most commonly used settings.

Countdown is the default setting that you've already experienced when you took the photo earlier. A timer will appear counting down the same number of seconds you set in Duration.

Clicking Countdown Settings will allow you to change the color and position of the countdown, as well as enable or disable an audio countdown.

Mouse will trigger the camera when you use the right mouse button. You can also tap the left and right side of the screen outside of the Live View area to trigger the camera. This is our preferred method at events! It provides the most control and speed. Give it a try!

Mouse with Countdown combines the two. You trigger the countdown with the right mouse button or by tapping the side of the screen.

7.

In the upper right of the screen is the Settings section.

Here you can Export all graphics and settings in PBU to a file that you can Import later, use as a backup, or use on a different computer that also runs PBU.

It can be very convenient to create all your settings on another PC without setting up your booth! You can even do so on an unlicensed version of PBU, transfer to a licensed version, and your graphics and settings will work perfectly.

Download PBU HERE to try it!

Pro Tip: Always Export your PBU file before your event! Sometimes, files can get corrupted or deleted and it's always good to have a backup.

Restore Generic will restore all the generic graphic files that come with PBU.

Clear All will delete all graphics files. It will not effect the Preferences screen nor will it delete the LED patterns used in the INFINITE booth. We usually Clear All before we make the settings for an event, to keep everything nice and tidy. It has the added benefit of making your exported PBU file much smaller!

8.

At the bottom of the screen you'll see the Options section. We've already changed some things here, but now I'll describe some other important functions.

Disable Photo: Removes the Photo button as an option for your guests. This will prevent you from taking photos (plain or green screen) and using Page Designs.

Disable Share Screen: Skips the Share button screen after the guests' photo/video/GIF is captured.

Quick Mode: Eliminates transitions between screens. If only one activation is enabled with Auto-Apply, Quick Mode will ready the activation immediately following the previous session.

Enable Home Button: Adds a Home button to the bottom left of the screen that will cancel the current session and return to the home screen. Please note that the home button is hidden during a live video capture and will be available after the capture.

Disable Live Preview: Disables the Live Preview on the Main Screen.

Save "Processing" Preview: Saves a thumbnail of the media (typically from a GIF or video) that guests can share while their media is being processed. When the media is fully processed, it will be shared instead of the thumbnail. This allows guests to share immediately without having to wait for their media to be processed.

Enable Redo: Allows guests to retake their photos. You must click Accept for each photo to proceed.

Enable Photo Edit: Allows guests to make changes to green screen, text, and photo placement after the photo is taken.

Enable standard photo positioning: Allows guests or attendants to resize and re-position standard (non-Green Screen) photos prior to capture and in the photo edit screen. 

Play Shutter Sound: Plays the sound of a camera shutter when a photo is taken.

Show disclaimer before shooting: If you have a disclaimer turned on for your event in the Event Manager, enabling this option will make it so that the disclaimer appears after the activation button is selected (Photo, Animate, Video, etc.) but before the content is captured. Otherwise, the Disclaimer will appear by default after a share option is selected in PBU or PPU Kiosk.

Enable settings password: Checking this box will add a field into which you can type a password to restrict access to your settings in PBU. The password will be required whenever a user attempts to enter Settings, Minimize, or Exit the application.

Enable Single Share: Return to the beginning immediately after sharing with one method.

Enable Gallery Bar: The Gallery Bar will show as a small up arrow on the bottom of the screen, and when pressed will show a gallery of the photos captured. This is handy if you do not have a sharing kiosk and need to find previous photos to re-print/re-share. Please Note: You should also enable the Gallery Bar if you are capturing AI photos without the Kiosk App. The final renderings will appear in the Gallery Bar once processed. If you select 'Enable Sessions' the gallery bar will reset after each photo session (for privacy reasons). You may view more about the Gallery Bar here.

Edit Final Message: A message can be toggled on or off to be displayed at the end of the guests' session. This includes options to add text, adjust duration (in seconds), text color, and font.

Edit Welcome Video: Welcome videos can be set to play as guests begin their session for a variety of different activations. These activations include Photo, Video, Gif, Zoom-Scape, Light Painting, Morphing and VR 360. Simply check the box to enable a welcome video under your desired activation, then import a video from your PC. You also have the choice to loop the video.

Idle/Splash Screen: Idle and Splash screens can be enabled and will allow you to import an image or video (generally brand or logo) that will appear before and/or after selecting an activation. When activated without an image uploaded, the default text "Click to Start" will appear.

Preview Screen: Gives you options to add a full screen preview at the end of the guest session. You can set a specific amount of time that the preview appears, or don't set a time and the preview screen will stay up until it is dismissed by a tap/click.

Live View Scale: Sets the scale of the Live Preview as a percentage of the full screen.

Phew! That's quite a lot to cover. We did skip some things to make our getting started tutorial more digestible, but if you're still hungry have a look at our in depth overview of the Preferences tab HERE.

In Part 2 of our Getting Started series we'll go over the basics of the Camera Settings. That's where you'll make sure your images turn out the best they can be! Click HERE for Part 2!