Sundry Works Help · Post

Branded posts of your paintings

Branded static posts for Instagram, Pinterest, and Facebook.

Ready to post

At the top of the tab, under the picture, is a list of every painting that is waiting to be posted: it has a photo, its caption is written, and no post has been made from it yet.

Tap one and it opens below, ready to set up. Press Make and it drops off the list, so you can work straight down the queue without keeping track of where you got to.

This is the same rule as the Post tick on the Paintings tab, so the list and the ticks always agree. A painting turns up here the moment its caption is written on the Story tab.

It is at its most useful on the phone, where the posting tends to happen a long time after the writing. The list is worked out from the catalogue list you already have, so it appears at once even on a poor signal.

Caption

Under the Format panel is the caption for the painting you have open, with a Copy button beside it. It used to be a tab away on Story, which meant leaving the picture, finding the platform, copying, and coming back - every time.

It sits after Format rather than before it because the format decides which caption you are looking at, and the choice ought to come above the words it chooses.

One caption is shown, not eight: the one belonging to the format picked above. Instagram Feed and Instagram Tall show the Instagram caption, Pinterest shows Pinterest, Facebook shows Facebook, Threads shows Threads, Bluesky shows Bluesky, and X shows X. Change the format and the caption changes with it. It is the same one the Publish box opens with and the Share button copies, so what is on screen and what lands on your clipboard are never two different captions.

It is read-only here. To change it, go back to the Story tab and change it there; this is the same words with a Copy button, not a second place to edit them. Nothing on this tab affects it.

A locked caption is marked in brass. One written but not locked yet is marked "draft", so nothing is hidden from you. A format whose caption has not been written names the platform it is waiting on.

The Story format (9:16) is the one with no caption of its own - a story goes up as a picture - and the panel says so rather than showing an empty box. Pick a feed format above to see that one's words.

What this post is

At the top of the settings, above everything else on the left, is a row called "What this post is". It decides what everything below it means, which is why it sits above all of it - the same place the Card and Papers tabs keep their switch, and the Reel tab its strip of slides.

There are five answers. Until September 2026 there were two, "Full post" and "Painting only", and inside "full post" the layout was not something you could choose at all: the app looked at whether your photograph was wider than it was tall and picked one of two. So seven of the eight formats had two possible layouts between them, and the only way to make a 9:16 story feel different from a square Facebook post was to go and move sliders.

Let it choose is what every post you have already made is set to, and it draws exactly what that post drew before - the app picking from the shape of the post and the shape of the painting, as it always did. Nothing has moved.

Beside the painting is the painting in one column with your words in the other. On a wide post the words run down a strip beside it; on a tall or square one the story goes full width underneath. How the two columns divide is now worked out from the shape of the frame and the shape of the painting, so a tall 9:16 story gives the painting a good deal more room than a square post does - which is the thing you could not get to before at all.

Under a header is your logo and words centred across the top with the painting wide underneath. You can now ask for this on an upright painting; before today only a photograph wider than it was tall ever got it.

Words on the painting is the painting filling the frame with your website line and title sitting on top of it, wherever you put them. Choosing it puts the title on for you if neither line was on already, since otherwise it would draw the same picture as the next one.

Painting only is the artwork by itself, and it is the same thing it has always been. Not one element switched off - a kind of post. The panels that belong to the words are not greyed out, they are simply not there, and everything in them is kept exactly as you left it and comes back the moment you switch across.

Changing this changes nothing you have typed or coloured. The words, the colours, the background and the sizes are all still yours; only where the parts land is different, so you can try all five and come back.

The last two leave you five cards: what is ready to post, the format, the caption, "The painting", and - on "Words on the painting" - "The words". The painting card is where you put the artwork on the frame:

• Size - from 15% of the post's width to well past 100%. Past 100% the painting hangs over the sides, and whatever hangs over is simply not in the picture. There is nothing to crop and nothing to set up.
• Fill the frame - one press works out the size that covers the post completely, whatever shape the painting and the format are, and centres it. It accounts for the tilt, so pressing it on a tilted painting grows it enough to keep the corners covered rather than leaving four triangles of background.
• Left and right, Up and down - or just take hold of the painting on the preview and drag it. It goes anywhere on the post and a quarter of the frame past any edge, the same reach the collage has.
• Tilt - up to 25 degrees either way, which the plain painting could not do before.
• Put it back - the whole painting again, centred and straight. That is the way back from anywhere, including from a painting dragged so far out there is nothing left to take hold of.
• Border - the same border setting the full post uses, so setting it in one place sets it in both. It leans with the painting.
• Mark this painting - your watermark on the artwork. See below.

Where the painting sits is kept for that painting, and held as a share of the frame rather than in pixels, so one placement reads on all eight formats. A painting filling a 4:5 feed post will not be filling a 9:16 story though, so press Fill the frame again after a change of shape.

Marking the painting

A bare painting is the one post with nothing on it saying whose it is, so both of the painting-only arrangements have a watermark tick. Ticking it opens the full set of watermark controls: the style - diagonal text, your logo once, your logo tiled, or ruled lines - the opacity, and for a logo its size and where it sits.

These are the same controls as the Images tab, driving the same setting. Move the watermark here and it has moved there; change it there and it has changed here. It is one mark, so there is only ever one answer to what your watermark looks like.

The two ticks are separate, because they are separate questions. "Add a watermark to exports" on the Images tab marks the files you download. "Mark this painting" here marks this post. Turning one on does not turn the other on.

The mark is laid out across the part of the painting you can actually see, which matters because the painting is allowed to hang off the edges. Anchored to the painting itself, "bottom right" would mean the bottom right of the painting, and a painting filled into the frame keeps its corners well outside it - so you would place your logo and it would simply not be in the post. Every position on those sliders is somewhere you can see.

The three covering styles - diagonal text, tiled logo and ruled lines - are cut to the painting's outline, tilt and all, so they mark the artwork and never stray onto the background beside it. A single logo is not cut: it is one object you put in one place, and a tilted painting's corners sit inside its upright box, so trimming a logo parked right in a corner would not tidy it, it would erase it. A logo can therefore overhang a tilted painting's corner by a little, which is the better of the two.

The mark goes on last of all, over the background effect rather than under it. The order is the post, then the painting, then the effect over the painting, then the mark. That matters with a vignette: parked in a corner, under the effect, your logo would sit beneath the darkest part of the ring and be swallowed by it. Being legible is the whole job of a watermark, so it is never dimmed by anything.

Whatever this post carries on it, the caption that goes out beside it is a separate thing and still works exactly as it always has.

Words on a bare painting

A bare painting posted to a feed says nothing about whose it is or what it is called, and the only answer to that used to be a full post, which is a different picture entirely.

So two lines are offered back, in a card called "The words" that appears when you choose the arrangement "Words on the painting": your website and the painting's title. Choosing that arrangement switches the title on if neither was on already, because otherwise it would draw exactly what "Painting only" draws and the button would appear to have done nothing. Tick either and it lands on the picture straight away.

There is no header for these to sit under and no column for them to be centred in, which is the point: on a bare painting a line of words is aimed at a spot on the picture, so it is placed by hand rather than stacked by a layout. The words go on last of all, over the painting, over the background effect and over the watermark, so nothing can dim them or cost you a title.

• Show my website - the same website line the full post carries, in the same brand font. Type it once and it is typed in both.
• Show the painting's title - the title of the painting you have open, so it changes when you change painting. The quote marks are a tick, the same one the full post has. A long title breaks onto up to three lines.
• Size - a percentage of the post's width rather than a number of pixels, so one setting is the same size on every format.
• Where it sits - nine arrows, one for each place on the post. An anchored line means the same thing on every format, which four position sliders never managed: a line set to 94% down sits 78px from the bottom of a 4:5 and 115px from the bottom of a 9:16. Or take hold of the line on the preview and drag it anywhere, which sets it free of the nine and keeps it exactly where you let go. Press an arrow to snap it back.
• Gap from the edge - how far in an anchored line sits, as a percentage of the short side, so the gap looks the same whichever way the frame is long. It does nothing to a line you have placed by hand.
• Colour - a swatch, plus White, Black and the painting's own lightest and darkest. This is the full post's colour for that line, so setting it here sets it there.
• Centre it - puts the line in the middle of the post, across, and leaves it at the height you have it at. Dragging can get a line very close to the middle without ever landing on it, and this is the one move the drag cannot make. It greys out when the line is already centred.
• Put it back - the way home from anywhere: centred along the bottom for the website, along the top for the title. It takes the height as well, which is the difference between the two buttons.

Where each line sits is a share of the frame, the same way the painting's own placement is, so a line placed on a 4:5 feed post is placed the same way on a 9:16 story. Made wide enough, a line can run off the sides - the preview shows you as you do it.

How the tab is laid out

Above the blocks, at the very top of the settings, is the row called "What this post is" - the five arrangements. It is above the numbering rather than inside it because it decides what all four blocks mean.

The settings run in four numbered blocks. "1 This post" is what belongs to the painting on screen - the format, its caption, and the collage or the painting's placement. It has a gold outline and never folds, because the format it holds decides what everything below it means. "2 The look" keeps a look to come back to. "3 Every post" is the look itself, which the app keeps and carries from one painting to the next: the content sizes, layout, glow, background and brand. "4 Make the post" comes last.

The last two - Every post and Make the post - start folded, and press Open to unfold either. Folded, a block leaves one line saying how it is set - which colours and glow you are on, or what size the post will come out - so closing one never hides the answer you would have opened it for. Your choice is remembered on that device. The look is the block you are least often there for, which is why it starts away: you set it once and it follows you from painting to painting.

The longer notes in each card wait behind the small ? beside its heading. What stays on show is only what the screen needs to be understood right now - a warning, the size the format comes out at, why a control is greyed. Press the ? to read the rest, and the × to put it away. Between the blocks and the notes, the page went from nine phone screens of scrolling to under three.

Block 2, The look, is the way back from a change you wish you had not made. Press Keep this look and everything that dresses the post is kept - the sizes and spacing for every format, the colours, the glow, the background and the brand. Try something different, and Go back to my kept look puts it all back; an Undo appears beside it and returns what you had, in case you went back by mistake. It is one look for all your paintings, and it is kept until you press Keep again.

Left out on purpose: the format and the arrangement, which are about this post rather than the look, so going back never moves you to another shape or out of the mode you are working in; and the title, an uploaded background picture and the collage, which belong to one painting. Everything you change is still saved as you go either way - the kept look is a second copy to return to, not where your work lives.

That split was always true underneath - the look is saved once and the collage per painting - and the headings just say it out loud.

Under it is Named looks, which is the other half: a way of dressing any post, kept under a name. It holds the arrangement, the colours, the background, the glow and how the type is set - and no sizes at all. That is what lets one look sit on a 4:5 feed post, a 9:16 story and a square Facebook post without being wrong on two of them: putting a look on turns Auto-fit on and the sizes are worked out against whichever shape you are cutting. It never carries your website line, your call to action, a painting's title, its photograph, or where you have placed anything by hand.

The app brings four to start from - Gallery wall, Studio night, Just the painting, and Header and wide painting. They are offered, never installed: pressing one dresses the post in front of you and adds nothing to your list. Type a name in "Keep this look as" and press Keep to make one of your own, which you can put on any post afterwards, or Forget to be rid of it.

What it's for

The Post tab creates branded static images for the most common social-media formats - Instagram Feed (1080 × 1350, 4:5), Instagram Tall (1080 × 1440, 3:4), Pinterest Pin (1000 × 1500, 2:3), Story (1080 × 1920, 9:16), Facebook Post (1080 × 1080, square), Threads (1080 × 1350, 4:5), Bluesky (1080 × 1350, 4:5), and X (Twitter) (1200 × 675, 16:9). The Story format is a full-height vertical still that fits Instagram and Facebook Stories, TikTok, and YouTube Shorts. Pick a format, and the canvas adjusts automatically.

Threads and Bluesky are both 4:5 for the same reason. Both are mostly words, so the picture sits in a column of text rather than filling the screen, and 4:5 is the tallest that is still seen whole without tapping.

There are two Instagram feed sizes because the profile grid now previews posts at 3:4. Instagram Feed (4:5) is the long-standing standard and looks right in the feed, but gets a slight top-and-bottom crop in the grid thumbnail. Instagram Tall (3:4) is a touch taller, fills a little more of the feed, and shows uncropped in the grid. Either one publishes to Instagram with the same feed caption, so pick whichever you prefer per post.

Content

Each element keeps its words and its size in one place, so there is no hunting between panels: Title, Subtitle, Story and Footer each have their own section here, and the website line has its own in the Brand panel.

• Words: Smaller / As fitted / Bigger - one press that nudges every line on the post, about a tenth either way from the size Auto-fit worked out for the shape you are cutting. There used to be seven size sliders here and on the Layout card; Auto-fit has been on by default since 2026, so they sat greyed out for almost everybody. There is a matching press for the painting on the Layout card.
• Title - auto-fills from the open painting. Wrap it in quote marks if you like.
• Subtitle - the painting's medium and size, under the title. Leave the box empty and it reads them off whichever painting you have open, so it is right on every one without you typing anything. Type in the box and those words belong to that painting alone - clear it again to go back to its own details. "Show the subtitle" takes the line off altogether, the way the footer's tick does.
• Footer - a call to action, pricing note, or website, with its size and the bold and italic toggles. A new one starts a step under the story size, since it is the quieter line, but it is yours to set from there.
• Story - which written version runs below the artwork, chosen separately for each format, with four answers: Auto, Caption, Story and No story. A tall Story frame has room for the story, where a square Facebook post usually wants the one-line caption, so the picker sits under the format's name and remembers its own answer. Its size sits directly beneath, and "Fit" grows the text to fill the space it has, with bold and italic toggles under that. Italic starts ticked, which is the slant the story has always been set in - untick it for an upright story, or tick Bold to give it the weight of the title. Auto-fit measures the story in whichever of the four it is set to, so switching to bold re-fits it rather than letting the longer lines run over.
• Auto is where every format starts: the app reads both and runs whichever fills the space under the artwork better, and the line under the picker says which one that came out as. Caption and Story hold the one you name, on that format alone. No story takes the words off altogether, for a post you want to carry the painting and nothing else - the artwork grows into the room they had.
• There is a fifth answer, "My own words", and it is offered whether or not you write stories - a post is often the one place you want to say something different. Pick it and a box appears under the picker to type in. It is the same "About this art" box the Story page shows, one field on the painting, so whichever you type in they are the same words. If you have switched stories and captions off in Configuration, Auto, Caption and Story leave the menu and this is what a post runs.
• This picker is its own switch, separate from Auto-fit in the Format panel, and it never greys out. Auto-fit sizes whichever story you have named, and naming one does not cost you the automatic fit. Turning Auto off leaves the kind it last chose showing, so it is a nudge rather than a fresh start.
• If a painting hasn't got the kind a format asked for, the post runs the other one rather than going blank, and a line under the picker tells you that is what happened. File the missing one on the Story tab and the post switches to it on its own.
• Hovering any of these sections lights that element up on the preview, so you can see which one you are about to change.

Auto-fit

"Auto-fit this format" sits in the Format panel, right under the size buttons, and every format has it. It starts on, on all eight, so you can ignore the sliders entirely until you want them: the app fits the post for you, sizing the story, title, subtitle, footer, artwork and logo and setting the padding, so the piece fills its frame with an even gap around everything. Drop a painting in, switch between the formats, and take the PNGs.

Which story runs is not part of this - it is the Story picker's own Auto, in the Content panel, and the two switches work independently. Auto-fit sizes whatever story you have named, and leaving the choice on Auto costs you nothing if you later untick Auto-fit and take the sliders over.

That Auto chooses the caption or the story by the size the story would need. If it fits at a comfortable reading size it runs; if it would have to shrink too far, the caption takes its place. That usually means the taller frames - Instagram Feed and Tall, Threads, Bluesky, Pinterest, Story - carry the story, while the square Facebook post and the wide X strip take the shorter caption. A painting with only one of the two filed simply runs that one.

Nothing is hidden while Auto-fit is on. The sliders it sets are greyed out where they normally live, so you can always see the sizes it chose, and unticking hands them straight back holding those values - a fitted starting point to nudge rather than a blank slate. Everything it does not touch, like the border, the background and the glow, stays yours throughout.

Auto-fit belongs to the format you have open, like the sizes it drives: untick it on Instagram Feed and Instagram Tall keeps its own setting. The words, colours, background and glow stay shared across all eight formats either way.

Layout and brand

The Layout panel holds the artwork - its size, border and colour - and the padding. The Brand panel sets the website line, logo and colours; these match the Reel tab, so if you've set them up there, they carry across. Press Make to export a PNG ready to upload.

"Padding" is a single slider that sets the space between everything: the frame edge and the content, the two columns, the stacked logo, website line and title, and the room around the painting and the story. There is one gap rather than five separate ones, so a post breathes in and out as a whole and no two things can end up touching. Turn it up for an airier post, down to pack more in.

Every size and spacing belongs to the format you have open, and only that one, as does the story picked in the Content panel. Set the title size on Instagram Feed and Instagram Feed changes; Story, Pinterest and the rest keep theirs. This is deliberate - a title that sits right in a 4:5 feed post is lost in a 9:16 story - so each format gets fitted once and then stays fitted, however much you fiddle with the others.

Everything else is shared by all eight: the words, the colours, the background, the glow, the logo. That is your look, and you want it the same wherever the post lands. The panels name the format their settings belong to, so you always know which one you are nudging.

The collage is shared across the formats too - one arrangement per painting, used by every format, held inside whatever room each of them leaves. That means a layout worked out on a tall Story still reads correctly on the wide X strip, though it is worth pressing "Lay them out again" after a switch to have it placed for the shape you are now on.

The eight formats all start out identical, carrying whatever sizes you were already using, so nothing looks different until you deliberately change one. Auto-fit is already on when you get there, so to take a format over by hand, switch to it, untick Auto-fit and nudge from the sizes it worked out.

The post's fonts come from Brand type on the Business tab: the website line is the Brand, the title is the Serif (it stays in Fraunces until you choose a Serif), and the subtitle, story, caption and footer are the Sans. Auto-fit measures the words in the fonts you chose, and a watermark's text is set in the same Sans.

The Footer section has a "Show footer" tick. Untick it to leave the footer off a post while keeping its text saved, so you can drop it from one image and bring it back later without retyping.

Collage

The Collage card puts several pictures where the painting would have gone: the piece itself and the progress photos filed against it. It is the same composer the Reel tab uses for its collage slide, working in the room the post gives its artwork rather than across a whole reel frame. Tick "Show a collage in place of the painting" to turn it on.

That tick belongs to the painting, not to the app. Switching it on for one piece leaves every other one alone, so a painting you have never set up starts without a collage and one you have keeps whatever you left it at - arrangement included, whether you come back to it in a minute or a month.

A collage carries anything from one picture to four. Every picture the painting owns is listed with a tick box, and you choose which of them are in - the painting itself and up to three of its progress photos, or any four you like. At four the remaining boxes go dead until you untick one, so there is no way to overfill it. Untick everything and the post simply carries the painting on its own, as it always has.

The pictures are a row of thumbnails, on screen the whole time the collage is switched on. Click one and its tick, size and tilt appear underneath - one picture at a time rather than every picture's controls at once. A picture that is left out is dimmed in the row but still there, so unticking the last one is never a dead end. Arrangement and Picture mounts wait until at least one picture is in, since neither of them means anything without one.

One picture is a collage too, and a useful one: it is the piece mounted and tilted on the background rather than sitting flat, which the plain post cannot do.

The pictures come from the painting's own progress photos, added on the Paintings tab - there is nothing to upload here. Add or remove one there and the collage picks it up next time the painting is opened.

Everything else on the post is unchanged. The title, story, footer, logo, background and glow all sit where they always did, and Auto-fit still works out the room the artwork gets - the collage simply fills that room instead of the single painting. The artwork Size slider shrinks the whole collage inside it, and the border and border colour in the Layout panel belong to the single painting, so they stop applying while the collage is showing.

The pictures are laid down in the middle of the post: the background - its colour, image, wash or vignette - is behind them, and every piece of type is in front. The logo, website line, title, subtitle, story and footer are all drawn over the collage, so a picture pushed past the artwork's room spreads out behind the words rather than blotting them out. That holds on all eight formats.

• Arrangement - Neat grid, Stacked column or Loose collage. Choosing one places every picture afresh against the room the format on screen leaves it, and "Lay them out again" redoes it without changing layout.
• Picture mounts - the white border around each picture, its colour, and a drop shadow behind it. The border is measured against the room the collage has rather than in flat pixels, so it looks the same weight down a narrow column as across a full-width post.
• Which pictures, and where each one sits - click a thumbnail in the row and you get its tick, its size and its tilt. Position is not a slider: drag the picture on the preview. Taking hold of one there picks it out in the row as well, so the preview, the row and the sliders always point at the same picture. "Send back" and "Bring forward" set which sits over which where they overlap, and that is the order a press picks them out in too - the one on top is the one you take hold of. A picture left out keeps where it was put, so ticking it back on returns it there rather than somewhere new.
• Pictures are moved by dragging them on the preview itself - press one and it follows the pointer, anywhere on the post and a quarter of the frame past any edge, so one can be left hanging off the side. Its thumbnail lights up in the row as you go, and its position is written underneath it. Size runs to 120% for the same reason - past the room the artwork has - which is the way to a bold single shot rather than a tidy group.
• A thin line appears while you drag if a picture's centre comes close to the middle of the post or to another picture's centre, and letting go there holds it exactly on the line rather than wherever the pointer happened to be. It only ever catches near-misses - drop well away from the middle or another picture and nothing snaps.
• Size and position are measured against different things, which is deliberate. Size is a share of the artwork's room, so the arrangements fill whatever the format gave them and the artwork Size slider scales the group. Position is a share of the whole post, because the artwork's room is only ever a column down one side and a picture confined to it could never be dragged anywhere else. The three arrangements always place things inside that room, so "Lay them out again" is the way back - including from a picture dragged so far out that there is nothing left on screen to take hold of.
• The arrangements themselves never place a picture outside the artwork's room, whatever mix of shapes and formats they are handed, so anything seeded is a post that holds together. Going past that edge is something you do deliberately, with the Size slider.

Text glow

The "Text glow" card puts a soft halo behind every text element - website line, title, subtitle, caption, and footer - the way an image editor's glow effect does. It's the quickest way to keep type readable over a busy painting or photo background.

• Colour - black for a shadow-like glow that lifts light text off a pale background, white (or the painting's lightest) to make dark text pop.
• Size - how far the halo spreads out from the letters.
• Strength - how solid the halo is. Low is a faint haze; high is a firm outline.
• Fill - how solidly the halo sits behind the letters. Strength on its own stays see-through however high you push it, because a soft halo spreads its colour thin - that is why turning it up never quite blocked out the painting. Fill thickens the halo outwards from the letters instead, until it closes up into a patch the artwork cannot show through, while its outer edge stays soft and it still reads as a glow rather than a box. Leave it at 0% for the halo the app has always drawn; wind it up when type is still lost in busy brushwork.

Background

• Style - flat colour, or a wash, gradient, radial, grain, or vignette built from the painting's own palette (or from the background colour, if you tick that box).
• Image background - tick "Use the painting itself as the background" to fill the whole post with the painting already loaded, no upload needed. A soft scrim keeps the text readable.
• Or a different image - uploading one overrides the painting and fills the post behind the art. It is kept with the painting you uploaded it on, so it doesn't appear behind every other piece you open afterwards, and it goes when that painting is deleted. The rest of the layout is still shared across paintings and still saved as your default: colours and fonts across every format at once, sizes and spacing per format.
• An image just for this post - the section under the upload, and the one to use for anything that is not about the painting: a flyer, a show poster, a card you laid out somewhere else. Choose a file, drop one onto the panel, or copy a picture anywhere and press Ctrl+V. On a phone, Choose is also the camera and your photo library.
• It is held for that one post and nothing else. It is not saved with the painting, it is not in your catalogue, and it is in no backup or export - it goes into the post you download or schedule, and that finished picture is the only copy of it that lasts. Leave the Post tab or open another painting and it is gone, and you choose it again. That is deliberate: the upload above is the one that stays, and a poster has no business joining a painting's record.
• While one is held it shows instead of both the saved background image and the painting, because it is the one you just chose. Style, Strength and everything else in this card still work over it exactly as they do over an uploaded image. Take it back off to get the saved background again.
• JPG, PNG and WebP all work. An iPhone HEIC photo may not open - iPhones and iPads can read them and computers mostly cannot - and if it will not, the panel says so and says what to do: export it from Photos as a JPEG, or set Settings > Camera > Formats to Most Compatible so the camera writes JPGs from now on.
• Style and Strength still work over an image: the wash, gradient, grain or vignette is laid on top of it, and Strength sets how strongly it shows. Flat leaves the image untouched.
• Put the effect over the painting instead of behind it - a tick that moves the style layer to the front. Behind the painting it is scenery the artwork sits on. In front it becomes a treatment of the picture itself: a vignette that darkens the painting's own corners rather than the frame's, or grain across the whole frame so the artwork and its ground read as one photograph rather than a picture pasted onto a colour.
• It is one layer either way, not two. Move it forward and the background behind the painting goes back to its flat colour, because the thing that was decorating it is now in front. It always stays under the words, so nothing it does can cost you a title, and the tick only appears once there is a layer to move - on Flat there is nothing to put anywhere.
• Forward, it covers the room the painting has and no more. On a painting-only arrangement that is the whole post, since the painting has the frame to itself. In a full post the painting sits in a box the layout worked out, so the effect is fitted to that box: a vignette rings the painting's own edges and the website line, title, story and footer keep their clean ground. Fitted to the frame instead, its bright middle would land wherever the middle of the post happened to be, which is usually not on the painting at all.
• Clear middle - a slider that appears with the vignette, and the one to reach for if it is eating too much of the picture. It sets how much of the middle is left alone, measured out from the centre towards the nearest edge, so turning it up pushes the darkening out into a narrower ring around the rim and leaves the painting as you painted it. Strength sets how dark the ring gets; this sets where it starts.
• Vignette is the one style that works at full strength, because it is clear in the middle by design. The others fill the whole frame, so over the painting they need Strength brought down until the picture shows through. Around a quarter is a good place to start with grain.
• The vignette is a good deal stronger than it used to be, and it is now an oval the shape of the post rather than a circle sitting inside it. That is what was really wrong with it: on a tall frame the corners are much further from the middle than the sides are, so a circle wide enough to darken the corners had barely started by the time it reached the long edges - and the long edges are what the eye reads. All four now darken together, down to almost black at full strength, with the middle of the picture held clear so the darkening is all in the outer half. The darkening also carries on past the corners rather than stopping at the edge of the frame, which is what used to leave a faint hard arc across each corner - a gradient that runs into a flat patch reads as a line even when the two tones match. Every setting is darker than it was, so a post or reel you set up before will want its Strength turned down.

Publishing directly

Four places can be posted to at the press of a button: Instagram, Facebook, Threads and Bluesky. Pick one of those formats and, if that account is connected, a publish card appears at the bottom. It shows the caption that will go out - you can edit it right there before posting. The caption is loaded from the social captions you wrote on the Story tab, but any changes you make here are just for this post and don't overwrite the saved caption.

It does not have to be one place. "Where it goes" lists all four with a tick beside each, and one press sends the picture to every one you tick, exactly as it stands on the canvas. Instagram, Threads and Bluesky are all 4:5 and Facebook shows a 4:5 whole, so nothing is cropped by sending one shape to all four.

Each place takes its own words. The box on this tab holds the caption for the format you are looking at; the other three take theirs from the Story tab, where they have been written all along. Typing in the box changes that one place and leaves the other three alone. The list under "Where it goes" names the caption each place is about to use, so you can see what is going where before you press.

A place with nothing written for it says so in red - "no caption written on the Story tab". It does not stop you, because a picture standing on its own is a real answer and it is yours to give. But it is said in the list, again in the confirm box, and again in the Post later panel, so it is never something you find out about the next morning.

Each connection is asked about separately, because they are separate accounts. Instagram and Facebook come together; Threads is its own; Bluesky is its own. If the card does not appear, that particular account is not connected yet - see its help topic below.

Pinterest, Story and X have no publish card. There is no free way to post to them from an app, so those are made here and posted by hand.

It works on the phone too, from 1.72.0. What differs is only what happens when you press. On the computer the post is handed to the platform there and then. In a browser it is put in the queue with the time set to now, and goes out within about a minute - the button says "Queueing..." rather than "Posting..." so you can see which one you are doing, and the list further down the page shows it waiting. Until it goes you can still call it back from that list. Signing in to the four accounts works on the phone too, from 1.73.0 - see the Configuration tab.

Under the Publish button there may also be "Post later instead", which sends the post at a time you choose rather than now - and it goes out whether the computer is on or not. It appears once the scheduler is set up, for the four places it can handle: Bluesky, Instagram, Facebook and Threads. See "Posting on a timer" below.

With more than one place ticked, that panel also has a "Space them out" row: Together, 1 hour, 2 hours or 4 hours. The same picture landing everywhere in the same second reads as a machine posting, because it is one. Instagram goes first, then Facebook, then Threads, then Bluesky, and the panel names the real times underneath so there is no arithmetic to do.

The words are frozen at the moment you press. Whatever is written then is what goes out, so rewriting a caption on the Story tab afterwards will not change a post that is already queued. Call it off on the Calendar tab and line it up again if you need to.

The publish card warns you before you repeat yourself. If the painting on screen already has a post lined up for that place, a line at the top of the card says so and names the time - pressing Publish does not call that one off, so you would get two. A quieter line underneath says when that painting last went to that place. Both are about that place alone: going to Facebook last week says nothing about Instagram.

How long a caption can be

Threads and Bluesky both have a ceiling, and the box counts as you type so you find out before you press rather than after.

Threads stops at 500 characters and cuts the rest without telling you. The note turns brass and says how far over you are, but the button still works - the post will still go out, just shorter than you wrote it.

Bluesky stops at 300 and refuses the post rather than trimming it. So the button greys out and says "Too long to post" until you shorten the caption. Pressing it could only ever fail, so it is held shut instead.

Instagram and Facebook have limits so high that a post caption will never reach them, so those two are not counted.

A post on a timer is stricter than the button. It refuses to be queued at all until every ticked place fits, Threads included, and says which one is over and where to shorten it. Pressing the button shows you a refusal in a second and you fix it; a post in a queue gets no such moment, and would sit looking perfectly well until it failed at nine the next morning.

The layout and brand settings are saved, so once you've set it up the way you like, every painting gets the same look automatically. Sizes and spacing are saved per format, so fitting each social size is a job you do once, not once per painting.

The rest of the Help

Start here

• Getting started with Sundry Works - What Sundry Works does and how the tabs fit together.
• Using Sundry Works on your phone - Setting up the phone, whether or not there is a computer as well.

Your catalogue

• What's due and what's unfinished - The first tab: what's coming up, what's still to do, what's unfinished.
• Cataloguing your paintings - Your catalog - add paintings and open the one you're working on.
• Reviewing everything one painting makes - Everything the open painting makes, on one page, with the one decision each needs.
• How to price a painting consistently - Work out a consistent price for the open painting.
• Tracking what sold and who bought it - What sold, who took it home, and what it brought in.
• Printing show labels and a portfolio - More than one at a time: a whole show's labels, or a portfolio to send.

Making things from a painting

• Writing a story for a painting - Generate a written story for the painting and keep the best one.
• Making a printed card for a painting - Lay out the printed card for the painting.
• How to make a certificate of authenticity - A painting's two printed documents: its certificate, and the label for its back.
• Web-sized copies of a painting's photo - Export web-sized copies of the painting's photo.
• Branded posts of your paintings - Branded static posts for Instagram, Pinterest, and Facebook.
• Making a reel of a painting - Build the vertical reel frame and video for social media.
• Designing an artist's business card - The card you hand out, laid out down to the last millimetre.

Running the business

• Setting up your artist brand - Set up once: your identity, brand assets, colours, and AI key.
• An address book for galleries and collectors - A simple address book for galleries, collectors, suppliers, and more.
• Checklists for shows and studio jobs - Reusable checklists for shows, errands, and anything you repeat.
• A calendar for shows and deadlines - Shows, deadlines, and events, with a countdown to each one.
• All your post comments in one list - What people said on your posts, from every platform, in one list.

Connections and setup

• Posting to Instagram and Facebook - Connect your accounts so you can post directly from Sundry Works.
• Posting your paintings to Threads - A second Meta connection, separate from Instagram and Facebook.
• Posting your paintings to Bluesky - The easiest connection of the four - a handle and an app password.
• Scheduling posts to go out later - Line a post up now and let it go out later, with the computer off.
• Configuring Sundry Works - Where everything plugs in: your social accounts, your website, your AI service, and where the catalogue lives.