Backgrounds & Overlays

Adding Backgrounds and Overlays

The power of Hotfolder is not only being able to automatically lay out images on a page, but also the ability to automatically add background and overlay graphics to the layout as well. Background and Overlay images are useful for adding branding, frames and more complex designs around the photos.

*Note: Using an overlay or background image is optional.

In this Guide

• Setting the Assets Folder
• Adding a Background Image
• Add an Overlay Image
• Setting a Background Color

Setting the Assets Folder

Before you can add a background image or an overlay you need to specify where these files will be stored. This is done in File > Preferences by setting Folder containing background and overlay images to where your assets are stored (or where you plan to store them).

Click the “…” to select the folder.

Once set, you can either add the files background.jpg and overlay.png to the folder manually, or, use the import option as explained below.

*This is usually a different folder to where your incoming images and saved layouts will be stored.

Background Image

The background image should be the same size in pixels as the printed output (e.g., 1844 × 1240 pixels for a 6”×4” print from a DNP DS40 printer). It will be centered on the page, however if it is larger, the excess will be cropped from the top, left, right, and bottom; if it is smaller, it won’t fill the page.

Adding the Background

You can add a background image to your layout, by:

• adding a file called background.jpg to your image asset folder
• clicking Import Background and selecting a JPEG image
• dragging and dropping a JPEG file on to the Print Layout Editor window

*To delete a background image, save the print layout and close the editor window. Then delete the background.jpg from your images asset folder.

Overlay Image

The overlay image should be the same size in pixels as the printed output (e.g., 1844 × 1240 pixels for a 6”×4” print from a DNP DS40 printer). It should also be saved as a 24-bit color PNG file with an 8-bit alpha channel containing transparency information.

Adding the Overlay

You can add an overlay image to your layout, by:

• adding a file called overlay.png to your image asset folder
• clicking Import Overlay and selecting a PNG image
• dragging and dropping a PNG file on to the Print Layout Editor window

*To delete an overlay image, save the print layout and close the editor window. Then delete the overlay.png from your images asset folder.

*The current layout can be saved as a JPEG file by holding down the Shift and Ctrl keys and then clicking on the “Print Test Page” button.

Background Color

Normally, the page background is white, but it can be set to any color by clicking on the “…” button next to the colored square beside the Show background color checkbox.