Build a Template by Describing the Shoot

A template is the most useful thing you can own inside On-Model. Save one, and every product you run through it comes back in the same scene, the same light and the same framing, whether you run three garments or three thousand.

It was also the hardest thing to make. Each shot inside a template holds around twenty settings: pose, background, style, expression, mood, colour palette, camera framing, angle, lens, aperture, lighting direction, quality. Most people know exactly what they want their photos to look like. Far fewer want to spend an afternoon writing it out field by field.

So we built a different way in. Describe the shoot the way you would to a photographer, and the app plans it with you. It is live now on the Templates page.

Start by saying what you are making

The chat opens by asking one question, and it is the right one: which kind of template are you building. Flat-to-Model templates hold the photography around a person wearing your product. Create Packshot templates hold the product on its own. They hold different things, so this is worth settling first.

Then it asks how you want to start, and there are four honest answers to that question.

You might already have a photo whose look you want to copy, which is the most accurate start there is. You might want to take one of our templates and change it. You might want to describe the scene in your own words. Or you might not know yet, in which case it asks a few questions about your brand and catalogue and works it out with you.

If you would rather fill in the fields yourself, the form is still there. Set it up myself at the bottom takes you straight to it. Nothing has been taken away.

Watch the plan build on the right

This is the part that makes it usable. Everything you settle in the conversation shows up immediately in the panel on the right: the name, the tool, and the list of shots.

Here is a real example. One message, in the words a merchandiser would actually use, and the plan comes back as three shots covering full length, waist up and a detail crop.

Notice the second message. "Warm the whole set up a little" is not an instruction about one shot, it is an instruction about the shoot, so it lands on all three at once. That distinction matters more than it sounds: it is what keeps a set from drifting apart, where the first image is cool daylight and the third is somehow golden.

Tap any shot to read what it will be. The description of the shoot sits at the top, marked as shared by every shot, so you can see exactly what the three have in common.

Change a template you already have

The same conversation works on templates that already exist, including ours. Open any template and use Tune with chat.

The template loads with all of its shots already written, and the chat says plainly what happens next: anything you settle here becomes a new template of your own when you create it, and the one you started from is left exactly as it is. Nothing you have already built can be overwritten by a conversation.

From there you can ask for anything. Make it night. Change the studio to beige. Add a shot where the model is standing. Swap the third one for something else entirely. You can also just ask questions about it, which is often the faster way to work out whether a template is the one you want.

And here is the part worth understanding, because it is what you pay for. Ask for one shot to change, and only that shot is re-written. The others keep their settings exactly, down to the word.

What it costs

Talking is free. Planning is free. Loading a template is free. Changing your mind is free.

You are charged one credit per shot that has to be written, and only when you press Create template. A three-shot template from scratch is three credits. A copy of an existing template with one shot changed is one credit. A copy with nothing changed is free.

The number sits on the button and updates as the plan changes, so you always see it before you commit rather than after.

Where the template lands

Straight into the normal template editor, as a template like any other. Every field is filled in and every field is editable, so you can go in afterwards and adjust a background colour, set exact output dimensions, or rename a shot by hand. The conversation is a way to get there quickly, not a place your template is trapped.

One thing has not changed, and it is the thing that makes templates work at all: a template never touches your garment. It holds the photography around the product, the scene, the light, the pose and the framing. That is exactly why the same template can run across a whole catalogue without flattening the differences between the products in it.

When to use it

Use the chat when you are starting something new, when you want to adapt one of our looks to your brand, or when you know how the photos should feel but not which field that belongs in.

Use the form when you know precisely which field you want to change and you just want to change it.

Use Extract a Template from Your Photos when you have reference images and want the look pulled straight out of them. You can also drop those same references into the chat, which is often better, because you can then say what you want done differently.

Templates are on the sidebar under Templates, and the Create template button opens the conversation. There are also 24 ready-made Flat-to-Model templates to start from if you would rather adapt than invent.