The 30-Second Moodboard: A Workflow Shortcut
We’ve all been there: You’re mid-shoot or just wrapping up, and someone asks
to see a quick "vibe check" of the day. They don't need a high-end contact
sheet or a curated 1 page that you need to tinker with in
Photoshop/Illustrator; they just want to see how the images sit together to
get a sense of the continuity, but you've got other things you need to focus
on.
Standard tools are great, but they can be overkill for a last minute request.
That’s why I built
Mood Board Studio.
What It Is (and What It Isn’t)
To be clear: this isn’t meant to replace contact sheets from Capture One, Bridge, Lightroom, or First Contact. Contact sheets have their own time/place.
Mood Board Studio is a quick, low-effort way to toss images into a document
when you need to see the flow of a session without the hassle of manually
arranging them in another application. It’s built for those moments where
speed and vibe matter more than a perfect grid or expertly curated mood
board.
How It Works
- Easy to use: Drop Images in and toggle a few settings then click generate and export to .pdf. Nothing gets uploaded.
- Randomized Layouts: Instead of meticulously sorting by name or date, the tool randomly sorts images into a layout. If you don’t like the first look, just hit "Generate Board" again until it clicks. There's also the option to sort the images by the filename if you need a little more control
- Intuitive Tweaks: You can select an image to delete it, and the rest of the page will automatically re-flow to fill the gap. You can adjust the padding between images and margins of the page. Page orientation is an option as well.
- Information: You can have title first and subtitle on each page with an 3 font sizes and few styles (I personally find the "Medium" setting to be the sweet spot).
- Simplicity: Keeping the options at just the right amount to not make it bloated but still give a enough control fro the final output.
Privacy by Design One of the most important features to me is that all processing is done locally. Once you access the link, you can actually go offline. Nothing is uploaded to a server, and no one else can see your images. In a professional environment where privacy is paramount, this was a non-negotiable for me.
What’s Next?
This is a tool I’m actively using and evolving. I’ll continue to tweak the layout logic in the background.
It’s simple, it’s fast, and it stays out of your way.
Check it out at
moodboard.fainimade.com
Learn a bit more about it in the
Read Me
