Q. Where is the site hosted?
A. Your images will be hosted on our server system. Our servers are connected via a DS3 line and three redundant T-1 lines, offering you continuous high-speed access and nearly zero downtime.

Q. What is my site's URL/Web Address?
A. We have different ways to accommodate your needs. Please contact us for more information.

Q. Will my site look like everyone else's?
A. No. Although your site is created with our Website Creator, you have control over layouts, colors, and content. Your Internet storefront will be complete with your company logo, contact information, sample portfolio, and published events. The entire storefront is designed to promote you, the photographer.

Q. How many images can I put in an event?
A. You can put as many images as you like in a given event. Of course, at some point it doesn't make sense to continue adding images to an event because it becomes too cumbersome for your customers to navigate. As a rule of thumb, you should not put more than 1000 images in any given event. It's also possible to place an event to the web in sections based on subject matter, and have the same password for each section.

Q. How does it work?
A. It is literally as simple as 1,2,3,4.

Step 1: Digitize Your Photos If you shoot with traditional film, simply take the pictures, scan them from prints or negatives or take them to a lab to be digitized and put on a CD. This, we have found, is the easiest way to archive your photographs. If you use a digital camera, simply shoot the photos and archive them.

Step 2: Publish Your Photos Publish the digitized photos to your own Internet storefront at http://www.YourStudio.com, using our PhotoManager software, which is included in the subscription cost.

Step 3: Receive the Order After previewing their photos, customers can order them instantly in a variety of custom options, simply by logging on to your site.

Step 4: Fulfill the Orders Send your orders to us and enjoy the quality you have come to expect!

Q. What if I already have my own web site?
A. Many of our customers have a custom web site. Whether you choose to keep your current hosting company or host with us, you can keep your custom site. Once you have been set up, just add links to you web page that point to your Events list and Portfolio pages. These will be supplied in your new registration email. The links are:

http://YourDomainName.com/mp_client/pictures.asp
http://YourDomainName.com/mp_client/portfolio02.asp


This provides your customers with easy access to their photos from your existing web site. In order for our program to work, we need to either host your site, or we can create a subdomain to redirect to from your main site.

Q. Does your system work on a Mac?
A. Yes. You will need the following:

• Mac G4 or newer.
• OSX Operating System.
• Hard drive with at least 100 MB of free disk space.
• Modem baud rate of at least 56,000 bps (56K). A broadband connection such as Cable, or DSL is preferred.
• Firefox, Mozilla, or Netscape browser.

Q. What Internet browsers are compatible with your system?
A. The following web browsers are compatible with PhotoManager:

• Microsoft Internet Explorer 5.0 or higher
• Mozilla / Firefox
• Netscape Navigator 6.0 or higher
• America Online (AOL) 5.0 or higher

Q. Can you collect Email addresses for future mailing?
You will be able to collect email addresses from customers who purchase from you and who create a favorites folder. You have the option to require email addresses to view pictures as well.

 Back to Top

Q. Do I need special software to use your system?
A. Your subscription comes complete with our PhotoManager software, which allows you to easily set-up and maintain your Internet storefront, as well as publish your photos online.

Q. How do I make money using your system?
A. The advertising value of having people take notice of your work is the main draw to our system. You make money by selling your photos online 24-hours a day, seven days a week to your customers. You are in complete control. You define the photo packages and determine the pricing. More options and greater service and convenience to your customer translates into more business for your studio. Our system takes care of the business hassles and lets photographers do what they like to do best, take pictures.

Q. How much does your system cost?
A. Please contact us for pricing.

Q. How do I get paid?
A. The photographer is paid from Richard Photo Lab.

Q. What if I forgot my username or password?
A. E-mail us and include your Business name and contact name. We will get your password out after verification.

 Back to Top

Q. Do you ever sell customer email addresses?
A. We do not sell our customers email addresses. In fact, we do not share any kind of information about you in any manner.

Q. Why is your e-commerce system so safe?
A. Safe Technology: Our Secure Sockets Layer (SSL) Thawte Server software enables us to provide the highest industry standard of 128-bit-encryption. It is among the best and strongest of the software available today for secure online commerce transactions. It encrypts all of your customer's personal information, including credit card number, name, and address, so that it cannot be read.

 Back to Top

Q. What are the system requirements?
A. Our system does not require that you have any special hardware or software to create, host and maintain a site. In order to operate and manage our program the following system requirements are needed:

To use our software you will need the following if you are using a PC:

• Pentium 800 or higher, or 100% compatible computer with a minimum of 64 MB RAM (Random Access Memory). 128 MB of RAM is recommended.
• Hard drive with at least 100 MB of free disk space.
• A standard VGA or SVGA video card/monitor capable of displaying 65,000 colors (16-bit high color at 800 x 600 resolution.)
• Modem baud rate of at least 56,000 bps (56K). A broadband connection such as Cable, or DSL is preferred.
• Windows 98 or higher operating system. Windows XP is strongly recommended.
• Netscape Navigator 6x or higher, or Internet Explorer 5x or higher, or Mozilla Firefox.
• CD ROM drive.
• Mouse and Keyboard
• Internet Service Provider (ISP) for Internet access.
• PhotoManager software.

• Mac G4 or newer.
• OSX Operating System or greater.
• Hard drive with at least 100 MB of free disk space.
• Modem baud rate of at least 56,000 bps (56K). A broadband connection such as Cable, or DSL is preferred.
• Firefox, Mozilla, or Netscape browser.

Q. What materials do I need to setup a site?
A. Creating your site is easy- it just requires providing us with information. about your company. You will need:

• About Us Information
  This is the information about you or your business. This is a great section for displaying your photographic talents. Any credentials, awards, certificates, or honors that you have received would be in this section.
• Ordering Information
  Your customers will be able to pay via credit card online. We are taking care of this one for you.
• State Tax
  The state tax information is essential for us to keep everything in order.
• Shipping and Handling
  This fee is decided by the photographer. It includes any place that you may find a customer, for all sizes of pictures. Most commonly $7, but is set by you.

Q. How do I set up my Portfolio?
A. Setting up your Portfolio is just like setting up an event to be moved to the web. On the Update screen, change the Event Type to Sample and finish just like you would any other event.

 Back to Top

Q. How do I get my images digitized?
A. Today, there are a myriad of options: shoot digitally or scan film/slides/prints.

Q. What type of digital photo files can I publish?
A. PhotoManager can publish the following digital photo files:

• TIFF, JPG, JIF (JPEG File Interchange Format)
Reads 8-bit grayscale and 24-bit JPEG.

Q. What's the best file format for transferring images?
A. Any file format listed above can be imported into PhotoManager. When images are being uploaded to the web, they are converted into a .JPG file and compressed to about a 26K file.

Q. At what resolution should I scan?
A. For web display, it is generally not necessary to scan images at resolutions lower than 600 dpi. Scanning at lower resolutions creates smaller file sizes but has a noticeably poor display quality.

Q. How big can the file be?
A. The software used to upload images to your website is called PhotoManager. PhotoManager reads each image in a folder, makes a copy of it, and then resizes that copy to 600x600 pixels (1200x1200 pixels if using the zoom feature) maintaining the aspect ratio of the image. Therefore, the source image can be any reasonable size.

Q. What dimensions should the image be?
A. Imported images are used to create two files: a thumbnail, and a full size. Ideally, uploaded files should be no larger than 5,000 by 5,000 pixels. Pick the resolution that yields the highest quality picture, and PhotoManager will do the rest.

Q. Do I need to crop the image?
A. If the picture needs any cropping, this should be done before importing into PhotoManager. What you upload should resemble what you are selling.

Q. Can I use your system if I shoot traditional film?
A. Certainly. Our system is designed for traditional photographers, as well as digital photographers. However, your photos must be digitized in order to be published to your Internet storefront for sales.

 Back to Top

Q. What is FTP?
A. FTP stands for File Transfer Protocol. FTP simply allows Internet users to move files from one computer to another. Using FTP is just like using the web; you need a software program (called an FTP client program) that lets you connect to FTP hosts (just as a web browser allows you to connect to http hosts).

Q. Do I need to use an FTP Program?
A. PhotoManager utilizes an FTP type file transfer to send your files to the web. We made it easy for the photographer to handle the uploading and manipulation of photographs on our site so photographers can do what they like doing best, taking pictures. No need for an FTP Program. However, if you are doing your own site design, you would need an FTP program. There are many FTP client programs and any will work, but we recommend CuteFTP for PC's. CuteFTP is made by GlobalSCAPE.

 Back to Top

Q. How long can I keep a photo event on my Internet storefront?
A. There is no time limit for photo events that have been published on your Internet storefront. However, we suggest that you remove any photo events that are no longer being requested by your customers. This will allow new customers to find more recent events quicker and increase order efficiency.

In our months of testing trials, events listed for 30 days got more orders then events that were listed for 60 days.
Testing showed an overall 20% average decrease in total sales for 60 days event listings compared to 30 day listings.
Discount pricing almost DOUBLED our orders, based on a 20% discount for the first two weeks of a 30 day posted event and 10% discount on portrait photographers for the first two weeks of a 30 day posted event.

Q. What do you do to protect and secure my photos?
A. The published photograph is approximately 26K in size and specifically designed to maximize viewing quality for your customers while protecting you against unauthorized copying. Right-click ability has been removed, and all preview photos viewed online are protected using a "digital" watermark, thus further protecting your copyrighted photos from unauthorized use.

Q. How long does it take to publish a photo event?
A. The time necessary to publish a photo event depends on two things; the number of photos in the event and the speed of your Internet connection. Below is a list of approximate times to publish a single photo to your Internet storefront.

 Back to Top

Q. Can different events have different prices/products?
A. Yes. Each event can automatically default with your preferred pricing, but each event can have its own products and prices. You can also have several default pricing schedules saved and discount defaults.

Q. Can I delete images?
A. Yes. After the images for an event are uploaded to the web, just go to the Online Manager. Choose "Event Manager" and after entering in your username and password, choose the event you want to modify, then click "Photos". Here is where you can delete images out of an event.

Q. Must events be password protected?
A. No, the image gallery does not require a password, however you have full control over whom you give the password to. The Portfolio section does not have password protection.

Q. How do I let customers know about the site, event name and password?
A. The most popular way of notifying your customers that they have images available on your website is by making business cards with your website address, their event name, and the password that corresponds to their event. Another method commonly used is collecting all the e-mail addresses of the guests, and e-mailing the information to them.

 Back to Top

Q. Can I get website statistics?
A. Yes, you can get an easy to read report with tables and graphics to analysis information on your website visitors.

Q. How up-to-date are these reports?
A. These reports are compiled nightly, so every day you can see updated stats information. This is a great way to keep track of a special mailing, promotional or other marketing efforts.

Q. What if I want to cancel the stats service?
A. This is a prepaid monthly service, so if you would like to cancel, you can do so at anytime and you will not be charged for the next month’s service reports.

 Back to Top