A photo calendar puts a favorite picture on the same page as the dates. The challenge is making both work: the photo should look good, and the calendar should still be easy to read and write on. This guide explains how photos are placed in the Free Yearly Calendars maker and how to get the crop right.
Which layouts accept photos
- Classic Monthly: one photo per month, or one photo for every month, in three placements.
- Yearly Photo: one photo beside a full-year grid.
- Other layouts (Monthly 5-Day, weekly, and the plain Yearly Calendar) do not include photos.
Photo uploads unlock after you enter your email once on your device. That sign-up also records your agreement to receive Free Yearly Calendars emails. Email delivery and a formal unsubscribe process are still being configured. Your photos are processed in your browser to build the PDF.
The three placements on Classic Monthly
- Top: a wide banner across the top of the page, with the calendar grid below it. This gives the photo the most impact.
- Watermark: a faded version of the photo behind the grid. It is decorative and subtle.
- Corner: a small square in the header area. It never covers the dates, so it suits a calendar you will write on a lot.
What cropping means
A crop is the part of a photo that fits inside a frame. The top banner is very wide and short, so a typical phone photo, which is taller, has to lose some of its top and bottom. The corner is square, so a wide landscape photo loses some of its sides. The maker keeps your original photo whole and only chooses which part to show.
Example: keeping a dog's face in the banner
Say you upload a vertical photo of your dog sitting on a lawn, with its face in the top third. The banner starts by showing the middle of the photo, so you might see mostly body and grass. Move the Top ↕ Bottom slider toward Top, and the visible strip slides up until the face is in view. If the dog was sitting to the left, move the Left ↔ Right slider the same way.
Using the position controls
- Upload a photo. Position sliders appear below the upload buttons.
- Drag Left ↔ Right and Top ↕ Bottom while watching the preview.
- Press Reset position to return to the center.
- For multi-month calendars, the sliders adjust the photo for the month you are viewing; if you used one photo for every month, they adjust that shared photo.
The PDF uses the same position as the preview, so what you see is what will print.
Keeping notes readable
With a watermark, the photo sits behind your dates and notes. A busy, high-contrast photo, like a forest or a crowd, can make handwriting hard to read. Calm photos with soft areas, such as sky, sand, or a plain wall, work better. If you plan to write a lot on the page, choose Corner or Top instead.
Choosing good photos
- Use bright, sharp photos. Dark images often print darker than they look on screen.
- Leave space around the subject so a crop does not cut off heads or edges.
- Pick photos that suit each month: snow for January, a beach for July.
- For a yearly photo, choose one image you are happy to see all year.
