Simple Mode is the fastest path to a working photo booth — no template design required. It lives inside the Choose Experience flow stage, right next to Template Editor, as a simple toggle.
Simple Mode vs Template Editor — which one do I pick?
| Simple Mode | Template Editor | |
|---|---|---|
| Best for | Quick private events, overlays-only setups | Complex, heavily-customised events |
| Output options | Toggle on/off per type | Multiple canvases and ratios per template |
| Customisation | Overlay per output type | Text, images, video, audio, effects, layers |
| Guest experience | Conventional photo booth flow | Fully branded, multi-step flow |
| Time to set up | Minutes | Longer — but more control |
If you just need to drop an overlay on top and go, Simple Mode is the right call. If your client needs a heavily branded, multi-canvas experience, use Template Editor.
Enabling Simple Mode
- Open your event and go to the Flow tab.
- Select the Choose Experience stage.
- Toggle Simple Mode on. Template Editor and Simple Mode appear side by side — only one can be active at a time.
Choosing output types
With Simple Mode active, you'll see individual toggles for each output type:
- Stills — standard photo captures
- GIFs — animated loops
- Boomerangs — bounce-loop clips
- Video — short video clips
- AI Images — generative AI photo transformations
- AI Video — generative AI video clips
Enable the types your event needs. Any combination is supported.
Adding overlays
Each output type gets its own overlay. Overlays are ratio-aware — if you set an output to 1:1, you'll only be offered 1:1 assets as its overlay, so you can't accidentally stretch a square overlay onto a portrait capture.
To add an overlay:
- Select the output type.
- Upload or choose your overlay asset.
- Repeat for each enabled output type.
One output type? The screen skips automatically
If your event offers only a single output type, Pictor skips the "choose your output" screen and sends guests straight through — no dead-end screen for guests to stare at.
Note: A bug was caught in July 2026 where events with a single output type still showed the selection screen. This has been ticketed and is being fixed.
Flow flexibility
Because Simple Mode is a stage inside the normal event flow, you retain full control over the surrounding experience:
- Reorder stages — move Simple Mode before or after other stages as needed
- Add Terms of Service — drop a ToS stage wherever it fits
- Test in Simulator — use the on-screen iPad preview to check your build without hauling in hardware
What happens to my existing simple events?
Events built in the old standalone Simple Mode keep working exactly as they were. The only change: you can no longer create new simple events from that old path, because Simple Mode now lives inside Choose Experience.
The old "simple only" filter button in the event list is also going away as part of this cleanup.