Sparkbooth Photo Booth Software News

New Easter Photo Booth Theme

Easter photo booth theme and layouts

New Easter theme and layouts are now available in Sparkbooth. This update also includes:

Tweak layout of login and prompt screens
Fix color filter selection and reset

Unofficial Sparkbooth Layout Library

A1 Photo Booth Sharing Library Site

Check out A1 Photo Booth's "Unofficial Sparkbooth Layout Library". Joe has created this site as central place where Sparkbooth users can browse, download, share the layouts they have created. There are layout backgrounds, overlays, and SBL files created with the Sparkbooth Layout Creator.

Please leave Joe some feedback or thank him if you find it useful.

**UPDATE**: Joe has added How To Instructions and a place to upload your layouts

Go To A1 Photo Booth's Layout Library

Tags: layoutcreator, photolayout

New Sparkbooth Photo Album Kiosk

Photo Album Kiosk screenshot

Sparkbooth Photo Album Kiosk is a standalone application for creating a separate station where your guests can browse, print, share on Facebook/Twitter, or email photos taken from your photo booth. Just share your photo booth computer's photos folder with your kiosk computer, and your guests can get prints and share photos without stopping your photo booth.

Check out Epic Party Booth's article on their experiences with setting up a separate print and upload kiosk.

If you are currently using the "Photo Album Kiosk" mode in Sparkbooth, please take a look at this beta. The "Photo Album Kiosk" mode will be removed from Sparkbooth, and you will be required to use this application. The setup is also much easier with the standalone version.

Download Sparkbooth

Tags: album, photokiosk

New Hollywood Theme Perfect for Oscars Parties

Just in time for your Oscar Night party this weekend! Sparkbooth now includes a Hollywood Award theme and layouts.

Hollywood Awards Theme for Oscars Party

Download Sparkbooth

Tags: oscar, release, themes

Happy Valentines Day and Chinese New Year

Sparkbooth maintenance update changes include:

Optimized several themes to improve CPU usage. If you were experiencing slow downs with some themes, please update.
Added camera setting to flip video vertically. Some Windows 8 laptop webcam are sending video upside down. Go to Camera settings and check "Flip vertically" to correct the video
Fixed saving of Custom Uploader settings
Fixed urls in help links
Improved Mac update installer

_Feb 18, 2013 Update_. Additional update to add themed widescreen layouts, fix settings import/export for multi-byte characters, fix rendering of preview layouts after changing photo size, and fix database layout update problem.

Download Sparkbooth

Tags: release, themes

Layout Creator Updated

New beta update for Sparkbooth Layout Creator. Changes in 0.9 include:

Rotatable photos (Requires Sparkbooth 3.7 to import)
Multi-select photos. Use Shift +click
Copy and paste photo selection, Use ctrl + C and ctrl + V
Alignment guides
Add EULA and privacy policy
Add update installer

Please post your questions and issues to the Sparkbooth Layout Creator support site.

Download Sparkbooth

Tags: layoutcreator

Sparkbooth 3.7 Released!

Sparkbooth 3.7 update is now available! This release includes some new themes and matching layouts.

New Layouts

Valentines Theme

Birthday Theme

Wedding Theme

Changes in this release:

Valentine's Day theme and photo layouts
Wedding theme and photo layouts
Birthday theme and photo layouts
Photo Album mode buttons are now labeled (Print, Facebook, Twitter, and Email)
Other minor fixes and optizations

Upgrade to Sparkbooth 3.7 from 3.5 or 3.6 by pressing the update link on the About screen, or press the Download button below.

Download Sparkbooth

Tags: birthday, themes, valentine, wedding

Overlay Layouts Using Sparkbooth Layout Creator

This is a guest post by Joe Connell of A1 Photo Booth

Your client that wants a landscape layout with 3 photos as shown below.

Layout example

As you can see this requires a background image and a overlay of a girl. So the client has the background image and a photo of his son to be used.

Client's background image

Photo of client's son

The background image needs to be resized and cropped to 1200 x 800 so it fits the 4 x 6 landscape layout size. We used IrfanView, a FREE photo viewing program with a ton of features, to do this. [Note: Paint.net can also be used to for this]

For the overlay image, we need create a transparent 1200 x 800 PNG image, and place the photo of the son in the bottom-right and add the text "Happy Birthday" plus the date.

We used Paint.net to remove the white background color around the Son and Box. Use the Magic Wand tool to select the background, and press ctrl+X to cut the background away.
Blank overlay image with transparent background in Paint.net
Create a new blank 1200 x 800 landscape image in Paint.net. Press ctrl+A to select the entire image, and ctrl+X to cut the selection so you are left with a transparent background.
Copy and paste the image of Son and Box in the bottom right of the blank overlay
Use the Text tool to add text for "Happy Birthday" and the date
Now select File > Save As and save the overlay as PNG type. Why not JPG? You cannot save the transparent background with JPG, and image is less "muddy" in PNG.

Finished overlay image with son photo, 'Happy Birthday', and date text

Next we opened SB Layout Creator and...

Open the layout selection list and select one of the READ ONLY Landscape WIDE layouts with 3 or 4 photos in it... [ ... 4 x 6 Landscape, Wide ]
Use the Clone Layout button to the right of the selection box (also on the top left) and Name this new layout something short and simple that relates to what you are doing.
Now you should be seeing a landscape wide layout with 4 photo boxes (all wide) and we only needed 3 so we Clicked on the #4 color box to select it and used the Delete Photo button (2nd btn next to Photo) to remove the extra photo we didn't need.
Here is where it could get tricky or confusing... How do I know where to place the photo boxes? The easiest way I have found is to add the Background image and then adjust the Photo boxes around it. See upper right area under Paper Properties and click the paper clip next to Background and go to the folder where you created & saved the background
You can now resize the photo boxes by clicking on one to select and grabbing one of the Black squares in one of the corners and draging to make larger or smaller. Under Photo Properties you can be more precise on your size.
At this point you should have your photo boxes sized and placed where they look just right for this new layout you are creating.
Now it's time to add our Overlay image... On the right side under Paper Properties click the paper clip next to Overlay and go to the folder where you created & saved the Overlay and select it...
If one or more of the boxes need adjusting/moving do so by clicking on it to select it and adjust it where it fits just right for this new Layout...
Layout in Sparkbooth Layout Creator
Press the Preview button (Eye icon) to test the layout
Preview of custom layout
Just to the right of the Preview button is the Export Layout button that will save your new layout as a SBL file that can be added to your Sparkbooth Photo Booth program.

Open Sparkbooth now

Press F1 for Settings
Select About Sparkbooth to make sure you have the latest version 3.6 or later will work but I suggest you Check for updates and download the latest version. John Updates so often with new features and you should stay on top of what is happing with your Sparkbooth program.
Next select Photo Layouts and what ever the last layout you were using will be there... but now you should see an icon on the top left that looks like a File Folder... Click it to go get that new SBL (layout) file you created...
Imported Layout in Sparkbooth