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What is Publisher and PhotoReflect.com?
PhotoReflect Publisher is a photo and order management application included with your PhotoReflect.com account. PhotoReflect Publisher and PhotoReflect.com work together to create a powerful management and e-commerce tool for your business.
With PhotoReflect Publisher you create photo packages that you associate with an event. When customers order from the event on your PhotoReflect.com storefront, they can select from the associated packages.
After shooting an event, you organize your photos by event using catalogs and photo groups, which are sub-catalogs. After your photos are organized, upload them to your PhotoReflect.com storefront so they are available for sale to your customers.
When your customers order from your storefront, the order appears in PhotoReflect Publisher. Also, you can create orders local yourself using the shopping cart in PhotoReflect Publisher. Finally, you print the orders by sending them to a Labtricity lab.
What is Labtricity?
Labtricity allows labs and professional digital photographers to work on a common automated platform. This platform provides photographers easy access to high-quality digital labs locally or anywhere in the world and gives labs new automated services to attract and retain the growing population of professional digital photographers.
Labtricity is a hardware independent fulfillment solution, offering open architecture compatibility with the industry's most popular professional digital cameras for the photographer, and thermal printers, digital mini-labs and large format devices for the labs.
A network of Labtricity labs are available to you for fulfilling your orders. To begin fulfilling orders, you select the Labtricity lab you want to print your orders. Next, you shoot your events using any digital camera. Using PhotoReflect Publisher, you organize your event photos and upload them to your PhotoReflect.com storefront. When orders come in from your storefront or you enter local orders within PhotoReflect Publisher, you can edit, proof, and print them. When you print, the order is sent electronically to your selected Labtricity lab. Alternatively, you can print to a CD to mail to the lab.
Getting Started with PhotoReflect Publisher
If you are new to PhotoReflect Publisher, you probably want to know the basics of using this application. Below you will find basic information on setting up and using PhotoReflect Publisher. For more details, see the PhotoReflect Publisher Application User Guide.
If you are upgrading to version 2.0 from a previous version, you will notice changes to the way PhotoReflect Publisher looks and to how it is organized. You might be wondering where to find the tools you are already used to using and what is new in version 2.0.
Using PhotoReflect Publisher for the First Time
To run PhotoReflect Publisher, you must be connected to the Internet. If you are using a dial-up connection, you must start your dial-up connection before running PhotoReflect Publisher. If you have an “always on” connection to the Internet, you do not have to do anything before running PhotoReflect Publisher. After logging in, you see four workspaces, indicated by the tabs at the bottom of the screen—My Photos, My Orders, My Storefront, and Setup.
Setting Up
The first time you run PhotoReflect Publisher, you should set up important information found in the Setup workspace. Enter your company and tax information in the Photographer Info area. This information is used as the contact information on your storefront and for calculating sales tax on orders.
Before you can sell packages to customers on your storefront, you must set up package groups. A package group is a collection of packages, and a package is a collection of print items, such as 8x10, 5x7, or 4x6 prints.
Package groups allow you to quickly switch groups you offer for promotions, events, and jobs. For example, you may have a special holiday promotion with different offerings and prices than your standard package groups, or you might offer different packages for your online storefront to cover your expenses and time. You can associate a package group with an event so when you publish to your storefront, customers can select a package from the associated group.
In the Setup workspace, you can create shipping groups and discount groups, which allow you to create shipping and discount levels. Associate a shipping group and a discount group with an event so when you publish to your storefront, shipping fees are calculated for an event, and discounts appear on the event page of the storefront. Setting up and associating shipping groups with an event is required. Discount groups are optional.
Customizing Your Internet Storefront
Your Internet storefront is a website within PhotoReflect.com. PhotoReflect Publisher assists you in creating your storefront. The storefront promotes you, the photographer, and displays your company logo, contact information, sample portfolio, and most recently published events. Most importantly, your storefront provides your customers a simple way to view and purchase photos from an event.
You set up your storefront in the My Storefront workspace. In the My Storefront workspace, you can view your storefront, select a predefined design for your storefront, and view reports about the activity on your storefront. The contact information you enter in the Photographer Info of the Setup workspace appears automatically on your storefront home page.
You can personalize your Internet storefront with your own custom logo. This is a complimentary service and greatly enhances your advertising and identity to your customers. Also, if you choose to use a watermark on the storefront photos, you can use your logo as the watermark. This is not only good copyright protection, but it is also great advertising for your business as people preview their photos. All you must do to personalize the site with your logo is send the logo to ExpressDigital either electronically or by mail. You can find details on logo requirements in the Application User Guide.
You can include portfolio photos on your storefront home page. This allows your customers to see some of your best work as soon as they visit your site. In the My Photos workspace, you create a library of catalogs, which store photos from events. PhotoReflect Publisher provides a built-in catalog called My Portfolio. Include photos you want to show off in the My Portfolio catalog and publish it to your storefront to display them on the home page.
Managing My Photos
The My Photos workspace is a photo library where you capture, store, organize and manage your photos. The library consists of a collection of photo catalogs, which are the events you shoot. Within each photo catalog you store photos, photo data, event information and other photo groups. Photo groups are sub-catalogs inside a catalog used to organize and break up larger events. This method of organization makes the thousands of photos you shoot more manageable. Good organization makes your workflow much simpler and allow you, your employees, and your customers to easily locate photos.
To organize photos from events, create new catalogs representing your events, and add photos to the catalogs. After you add photos to a catalog, you can view the photos by selecting the catalog in the tree.
With your photos organized into event catalogs, you can publish one or more events to your storefront. This transfers thumbnails of the photos to the storefront so customers can view and purchase photos for their event. If you add or remove photos from a catalog, you must re-publish to update your storefront.
When you no longer need to offer photos from an event for sale, you can un-publish an event from your storefront, and archive the photos to CD or to any hard drive.
Ordering and Printing Packages
When customers order packages from your PhotoReflect.com storefront, the orders appear in PhotoReflect Publisher. You can also place orders from PhotoReflect Publisher using the shopping cart in the My Photos workspace. By default, the shopping cart is hidden. To open it, click the Show Cart button at the bottom right corner of the screen. With the shopping cart open, you can select a photo from a catalog, select a package, and place the order.
In the My Orders workspace, you can view the orders and send them to a Labtricity lab for printing. See Using Labtricity for more information on sending orders to the lab.
What’s New in 2.0?
Although the interface looks different than version 1.4, the organization is mostly the same. The workspace called My Events in 1.4 is now called My Photos. You have the same capability of organizing your event photos, but you now have improved color balancing.
The workspace called My Account in 1.4 is now called Setup. The new treeview allows easy navigation. The treeview navigation for package groups makes viewing and editing your package groups simpler.
New setup features allow you to create discount groups, set tax rates, add photo services, as well as other options. Order creation and viewing features make your ordering process more streamlined. Quick keys, searching, and archiving capabilities make organizing your photos even easier.
Setup
When setting up packages, you can rename print items by clicking “edit item properties” on the toolbar. Changing the names is useful if you want to display a simpler name for your customers. For example, your lab might have a product called 8x10 Luster-Finish Print. You can rename the item 8x10 Print, which is what your customers see when they order from your storefront.
You can create discount groups for offering volume discounts. A discount group can contain multiple levels of discounts based on the amount a customer orders online. When you associate a discount group with an event, a discount notice appears on the event page on your storefront so customers are immediately aware of the discount they can receive.
You can set up both local and lab photo services, such as red-eye removal, to add to packages. These services are only available for orders you place within PhotoReflect Publisher. They are not visible on your storefront because customers may not know what textured spray to add or finish to select, for example.
We listened to your requests and added more control on setting tax rates for online orders. You can now specify the tax rate you want to collect for online orders per state. When you select Your Tax Info under Photographer Info in the setup tree, you can select one or more states and specify the tax rate for each. The sales tax for online orders is calculated for customers based on their state and the rate you specify for that state.
New default settings are available in the application options setup. You can choose to use the built-in CD writing capability for archiving events or creating Labtricity CDs to send to the lab. To be sure your CD recorder is supported by this feature, you can test the compatibility before selecting this option. Other default settings allow you to set a preferred shipping method for local orders and display a receipt when you place orders within PhotoReflect Publisher.
System information is now at your fingertips. In the Setup workspace, you can view important information about your system and PhotoReflect Publisher, such as available disk space and the version of PhotoReflect Publisher you are running. If you need to contact customer support, this information is readily available. You can also find links to important websites under Websites in the treeview. The built-in Web browser allows you to view these sites from PhotoReflect Publisher so you do not have to open your Internet browser and navigate to these sites.
Order Viewing and Creation
Improvements to the My Orders workspace allow you to easily view new, pending, and completed orders by selecting the appropriate tab. You will also find a clickable customer email address on the order page, and you can click the photos in the order detail to view them. If you need to quickly find an order in a long list of orders, you can use the Find feature to locate the order by order number.
Editing orders is even more powerful. The Edit & Proof feature includes tools that allow you to change cropping, adjust orientation, zoom for a better view, change filenames, add products and services, and change customer shipping information. You have options for correcting color, as well. After you achieve the best color for a photo, you can save those color attributes and apply them to the remaining photos in the catalog. You also have the option to use color profiles.
You can create orders using the shopping cart in the My Photos workspace. By default, the shopping cart is hidden. Open it by clicking the Show Cart button at the bottom of the screen. To add to the shopping cart, select a photo and click the package name you want to add to the cart. When you click the Place Order button, the order appears as a new order in the My Orders workspace. You can also batch order to quickly create multiple orders. Use these local ordering features to place Labtricity orders. See Using Labtricity for more information on sending orders to a lab for printing.
Photo Organization
You can further categorize your event photos by creating multiple levels of catalogs and photo groups (sub-catalogs). Both catalogs and photo groups can contain photo groups. The C and G quick keys allow you to quickly create catalogs and photo groups, respectively.
To find a catalog or photo, you can use the Find Catalog and Find Photo tools in the My Photos workspace. You can find catalogs by multiple criteria such as event name, city, or photographer notes. You can locate photos by filename, photo notes, or film number.
When you no longer need to offer photos from an event for sale, you can archive the photos to CD or to a folder on your hard drive. When you archive, an index is created that allows you to search archived catalogs and photos. If you need to view information on an archive CD, you can “mount” a catalog CD for viewing.
Reports and Help
Because your storefront is a selling tool for your business, you should know how much business you are receiving from the site. From the My Storefront workspace, you can view monthly and year-to-date storefront sales activity, unshipped orders, orders pending payment, all orders, sales for which you’ve been paid, and sales tax.
If you need help using PhotoReflect Publisher, you have detailed resources available to you. Not only do you have this Quick Start Guide, you also have a detailed Application User Guide, which details all the features of PhotoReflect Publisher.
Using Labtricity
Labtricity connects you with your lab. You can send orders for printing to your selected Labtricity lab through PhotoReflect Publisher. First, you must set up an account with a Labtricity lab of your choice. Then, in PhotoReflect Publisher, you can either electronically send your orders to the lab, or print them to CD for sending to the lab. The first time you send an order electronically to the lab, you are asked to enter your credit card information. Subsequent orders are charged to the card automatically.
Note: If you are currently using EZ Prints, we attempt to convert your existing package items to similar offerings on the Labtricity network; however, there may be certain products that are not available. If this is the case, you will receive a message, and you can update the packages by selecting similar items.
Before fulfilling orders with Labtricity, you must select a Labtricity lab. You can do so when you are creating package groups by clicking “choose labtricity lab” on the toolbar. You can also search for labs on the Labtricity website, which you can access from the Websites area on the Setup workspace. When selecting a lab, you can view the lab’s offerings and prices by clicking the website link. We recommend you send sample orders to labs you are interested in to check the quality of the product you will be providing your customers. Some labs offer color test prints you can use to evaluate prints of your photos. You can always select a different lab to print to when you receive orders, but it is much quicker to have your packages set up with the lab you plan to use.
When creating package groups for Labtricity fulfillment, add lab print items to the packages. If you want every item printed at the lab, your packages should consist of all lab print items.
Note: You cannot print items locally through PhotoReflect Publisher. If you want to print items locally, click “add local print items” on the toolbar to add locally printed items to packages. If you print locally, you must mark orders as shipped after you fulfill the order rather than printing the order through PhotoReflect Publisher. Express Digital has numerous other software packages that allow you to print locally, as well as perform many other tasks relevant to your photography business. Visit www.expressdigital.com for more information on other Express Digital products.
Be sure your shipping charges cover the lab shipping costs if you have the lab drop-ship the prints to your customer. Your shipping table set up in the Setup workspace is used for shipping charges rather than the lab’s shipping charge. Note that some labs will not drop-ship to your customers; they only ship orders back to you.
After adding lab items to packages, orders created using those packages are sent electronically to the lab when you print the order. Alternatively, you can print the order to CD to send to the lab by mail. If you have an order containing both local print items and lab print items, the lab will receive only the lab print items. Before printing the order, you can select “edit & proof” on the toolbar to correct errors in the photo. When you print an order, a receipt appears indicating your lab costs. You have the option cancel the order at that time.
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