Did you know we have a handy lightbox feature on our ºÚ¹Ï³ÔÁÏsite? Maybe you’ve seen it but weren’t sure how to use it, or what exactly to use it for? Hopefully once you get to the end of this blog, all of these questions will be answered, and you can start utilising this useful feature for yourself!
Why is a lightbox useful for me?
You might want to make a lightbox for a number of different reasons. The most practical of these could be in order to make a collection of shortlisted images before putting them into your cart and purchasing, or collating images for a project and seeing how these images sit with each other within a collection.
They’re also great for experimenting with creating different moods and themes, helping content creators or marketing teams decide which creative route they want to take with a particular project.
Another great use for lightboxes is for making shortlists of images to send to designers when creating layouts, for example for book design, ensuring they have the best options in front of them in order to quickly choose the most suitable image(s), and designers will always be grateful for more time spent designing than researching!
Additionally, authors and producers can easily use lightboxes collaboratively when collating a group of images of a specific historical event in history to use in books or films.
They could also be used as your own personal mood boards, but equally they’re very straightforward to share and can easily be linked to in a blog or an article, as you’ll find out later on.
How do I make one?
Now we get to the the most important part; how to create your own lightbox, it’s so easy once you know how!
- Make sure you’re registered and logged in to your ºÚ¹Ï³ÔÁÏaccount
Hopefully, you’ve already created your ºÚ¹Ï³ÔÁÏaccount, but if you need to register, you can do so here.
- Create your lightbox
Once you’ve logged in to your account, click on ‘My account’ at the top right-hand corner of the home page, and select ‘Lightboxes’. You can then select the ‘+ Create’ button and give your new lightbox a name. Press your enter key or click on the ‘Create’ button and hey presto your lightbox is now created and you’re ready to start adding to your collection!
3. Start adding images
There are two ways you can add images to your lightbox. The first way is useful if you have multiple images on a search results page that you want to add quickly. Simply hover your mouse over an image and you’ll see 4 options appear, click on the ‘+’ button and this will add the image to the lightbox.
If you’ve created more than one lightbox, make sure the image is going to be sent to the correct one by hovering over the ‘+’ button and this will show you which lightbox it’s going to end up in.
You can change which lightbox the image is sent to by clicking on the down pointing arrow icon, which will bring up the list of all lightboxes you have created.
The other way to add an image to your lightbox is by clicking into the image (ideal for if you want to get a better look at an image before deciding you want to save it), and then clicking the ‘+’ button directly below the image. As before, make sure you’re sending it to the correct lightbox by hovering your mouse over the ‘+’.
Lightbox hints and tips
Now you’ve created your lightbox, you’re ready for some hints and tips to ensure you’re making the most of your lightboxes.
- To quickly create a new lightbox, you can hover over the + button below an image, but instead of saving it to a lightbox, fill in the ‘create a new lightbox’ box with a title and click ‘save’.
2. You can curate your lightbox and change the order in which your images appear. Make sure you’ve selected ‘images view’ and you can then drag the images around and place them in an order of your choice. One of our favourite ways of curating a lightbox is in colour order, check out how visually impactful this can be here.
3. Once you’re happy with your lightbox you might want to share it! To do this, all you need to do is go into the lightbox and click the ‘Share’ button in the top right corner. Then enter the email address of the person you want to share it to. You can also get a weblink to your lightbox by doing this, as this link is what’s shared in the email. Once you have the weblink you can copy and paste this to anyone you want to share the lightbox with.
Button Guide
From left to right:
- Adds all images or selected images in your lightbox to your shopping cart
- Copies your selected images into another lightbox
- Moves your selected images to another lightbox
- Adds a comment to one or multiple images
- Moves a selected image to the top of your lightbox
- Moves a selected image to the bottom of your lightbox
- Prints your lightbox, or prints selected images from your lightbox
- Deletes a selected image or multiple images from your lightbox
Favourite lightboxes
To finish off, why not check out some of our favourite recent lightboxes, you might get inspired!