Publishing a portfolio
Studio saves your work as a draft. Publishing turns that draft into the public portfolio that visitors can open.
On this page
Draft, preview, and live are different
| Status or metric | Meaning |
|---|---|
| Not published | The portfolio exists only in Studio. No public portfolio is live. |
| Unpublished changes | A live version exists, but one or more saved Studio changes are not live yet. |
| Live | The current successful publish matches the saved public draft. |
Publishing requirements
- Verify the account email and accept the current Terms when Studio requests it.
- Reserve a public username. This becomes username.iso100.photos.
- For an image cover, choose a Public, Ready photo or let ISO100 use an eligible photo. Text cover and Title only do not display a cover image; the portfolio still needs publishable photographs.
- Create at least one Public gallery without password protection, and add at least one Public photo whose status is Ready.
- Stay within the current plan's gallery, photo, published-photo, and storage limits.
- Resolve rejected or restricted public photos before publishing.
Preview before publishing
- Open Portfolio
In Studio, open Portfolio. The Publishing panel shows whether the portfolio is live and whether saved changes are waiting.
- Review the change list
When Review changes is available, open it to inspect added, updated, and removed portfolio, gallery, and photo items before publishing.
- Generate a preview
Select Preview portfolio or Preview changes. ISO100 builds the draft and opens a temporary preview without changing the live site.
- Check the real viewing experience
Open the portfolio root, each changed gallery, and several photo views. Check phone and desktop widths, cover crops, text contrast, gallery order, captions, links, and password gates.
Publish the current draft
- Return to the Publishing panel
After the preview is correct, select Publish or Publish changes.
- Wait for completion
Publishing creates static public pages and can take a moment. Do not assume a tab close or timeout means the previous live site was damaged; a failed publish leaves the last successful version live.
- Open the public address
Use View portfolio after publishing. The main address is username.iso100.photos unless an active custom domain is connected.
Publishing frequency
ISO100 allows 20 publishes on Free and 100 on Plus in any rolling 24-hour period. These are fair-use safeguards for unusually frequent updates, not targets you need to manage during normal portfolio work.
Each accepted publish counts once. If it ultimately fails, it is removed from the total. Selecting Publish again while the same draft is already being published continues the existing attempt, and a draft that already matches the live portfolio is not published again.
What becomes public
Published portfolio pages can show Public photographs, Public galleries, Unlisted pages at their direct URLs, contact options where enabled, footer links, license or rights notices, and search and social metadata.
Original uploads stay private by default. Public pages use processed display variants.
- Draft galleries and Draft photos are excluded.
- Unlisted galleries are omitted from portfolio navigation and search indexing, but anyone with the direct link can open them unless a password is also required.
- Password-protected galleries publish a password gate and are excluded from the portfolio gallery index.
- Each Public and Ready photo has its own page and can appear in search results, whether it belongs to no gallery, one gallery, or several. The portfolio still needs one visible Public gallery before it can be published.
- An Unlisted and Ready photo can appear in unlisted or password-protected galleries. It is excluded from public galleries without a password and from search indexing.
- A photo used only inside password-protected galleries has no standalone page, so its gallery password cannot be bypassed.
Publish later changes
- Save the edit
Use Save changes in Edit portfolio, Save gallery, Save photo, or Save in Appearance. The public version does not change yet.
- Check Unpublished changes
Open Portfolio and review which items differ from the live version.
- Preview and publish again
Generate a fresh preview, then select Publish changes. Gallery order, photo order, metadata, visibility, URLs, covers, and appearance changes all require a new publish.
Take the portfolio offline
- Open Danger zone
In Portfolio > Publishing, expand Danger zone.
- Select Unpublish portfolio
Confirm the action. The public portfolio and its gallery pages go offline, while the editable draft remains in Studio.
- Publish again when ready
Return to Portfolio and publish the draft at any time. Unpublishing is not the same as deleting the portfolio or account.
Restore a previous live version
- Open Publish history
In the Publishing panel, expand Publish history and select Open publish history.
- Choose a successful version
Compare the published date and gallery and photo counts, then select Restore this version.
- Confirm the restoration
The selected version replaces the live portfolio. Your current Studio draft does not change, so you can return to it and publish it again later.
Before your first publish
Pages and blog posts
Use Content to add supporting pages and photo stories with Plus. Save each entry, then publish your portfolio to make it live. New blog posts have Keep as draft turned off and need content and a thumbnail before publication. Select Keep as draft to exclude unfinished work from the next publish.
Open Studio to make the change.
Still need help? Contact support and tell us what you expected and what happened.