Friday, September 28, 2007

Export to Microsoft Money and Quicken

StudioCloud is excited to announce the Basic Suite now has the capability of exporting your financial information to Microsoft Money and Quicken by Intuit. We expected to have the capability of exporting to Microsoft Accounting and QuickBooks released at this same time but there have been a few complications that have slowed the development in these areas. Stay tuned for another announcement because these capabilities will be coming soon.

Check out the support tutorials at http://studiocloud.com/index-4.html. They will be updated next week with instructions on how to use all of the latest features that have been added.

StudioCloud, It's Just that Easy!

Tara Bates
StudioCloud

Wednesday, September 19, 2007

Where Did The Website Templates Go?

Thank you to everyone who has given feedback on the website templates. Usually when you purchase a website from online companies there will be multiple other photographers who have the same one unless you pay thousands of dollars to have a custom one built. Here at StudioCloud we realize that each photographer has their own unique style and we want you to display your work on your own unique website without the steep price.

Due to the feedback we have received from you we are revamping this portion of StudioCloud to give you the power of customizing the look and feel of your website without having a custom one built. There will be general layouts that will allow you to change the colors, fonts, menu bars, images, and layout features with an easy to use interface. These websites will be fully integrated with StudioCloud's Basic Suite and Online Gallery. At a price you can afford you will have your own unique website and not a cookie cutter template. Please be patient as we finish developing these components.

Please continue to give your feedback and suggestions. It is photographers like you that are helping StudioCloud to become the most dynamic, user friendly photography software on the market!

StudioCloud, It's Just that Easy!


Tara Bates
StudioCloud

Friday, September 14, 2007

Brand Your Online Gallery

It's no secret that branding your customer's experience is an important step in establishing a successful marketing presence. StudioCloud Online Gallery is here to help! Now your logo will upload to the Online Gallery and you can select the background color to give a consistent feel between your customer's website experience and your Online Gallery.

To incorporate these changes, simply go to StudioCloud Basic and click "Setup" in the black navigation bar, then click the "Online Gallery Settings" tab.

StudioCloud, It's Just that Easy!

Scott Astin
StudioCloud Development Team

Tuesday, September 11, 2007

Manage Online Albums Your Way - At a Price You Can Afford

One of the largest frustrations professional photographers experience in selling or proofing their work online is the sheer cost and complexity of doing so. Countless photographers have bemoaned the fact companies charge them for every download, upload, sale or minute their galleries show on the web. With the advent of the Online Gallery, StudioCloud has integrated the process from start to finish and provided a simple solution - Here's your space, you organize and manage it as you like! Never again worry about extending the time a photo can be online or pay hundreds of dollars a month to upload a small portion of your work. StudioCloud Online Gallery gives our customers 5 gig of storage and an optimizer that allows photographers to upload over 60,000 photos. (Using the small optimize setting). If you need more, you can purchase additional space, but most photographers find no extra space necessary. All this for $34.95 a month!

Scott Astin
StudioCloud Development Team

Sale Gallery Name Change - Now "In-Studio Gallery"

A bedrock of StudioCloud development is to make the program as intuitive as possible. We have noticed some confusion over the name of "Sales Gallery" with people not entirely understanding the products in-studio proofing capability. In order to make things clearer, StudioCloud has decided to change it's name to In-Studio Gallery. All the functionality you've come to expect will remain - only the name has changed!

Scott Astin
StudioCloud Development Team

Product Codes - Will be great for UPC codes!

We had three people suggest a category for product codes. We have included product codes in anticipation to using these with UPC codes as well to further expand the point-of-sale capabilities of the program.

Scott Astin
StudioCloud Development Team

Thumbnails as Gallery Loads now Optional

We had a great suggestion from Kate in Australia. She suggested having an optional thumbnails flash as a gallery loads into the Online Gallery. This gives the photographer the option to further customize the client's experience. Great suggestion Kate.

Scott Astin
StudioCloud Development Team

Selling Your Work Beyond the Client

Your work is your best friend when it comes to referrals. I was recently talking with Peggy from Florida and she suggested something we should all be doing. As she photographs for weddings she photographs guests and tells them how to log into the gallery to see not only the bride and grooms photos but their own photos as well. She says she has great results in moving these people to paying customers.

To help, StudioCloud now provides three ways to publish an album online, allowing you to select the option that works best for the particular client and album you are publishing:

  1. You can list the album with no password, allowing anyone who visits your site to see the album
  2. You can list the album on your site, but require a password of your choosing to view the photos.
  3. You can publish the album online for your client, but it will not be listed on your website. An email is sent directly to the customer with a link to access the online gallery. No one will be able to view the gallery without the link contained in the email sent to the customer. This allows you to provide secure online proofing for photos that are more sensitive in nature.

A great marketing process outlined by Peggy, backed up by great tools to make it happen.

Scott Astin

StudioCloud Development Team