fotostudio reviewers guide - fototime · the fotostudio security system can optionally watermark...

FotoStudio Reviewer’s Guide

Reviewer’s Guide


Table of Contents Introduction......................................................................................................................... 3 Getting Started .................................................................................................................... 4

Browser Requirements................................................................................................ 4 Signing up for FotoStudio........................................................................................... 4

Creating an account and setting prices................................................................................ 5 Creating an account..................................................................................................... 5 Creating Price Plans.................................................................................................... 6 Assigning price plans to albums (events) ................................................................... 6

My FotoStudio .................................................................................................................... 7 Using watermarks to protect photos ................................................................................... 8 Adding albums (events) and uploading photos................................................................... 9 Notifying customers.......................................................................................................... 11

Using Invitations....................................................................................................... 11 Creating a link to your album ................................................................................... 11 Shortcut URLs .......................................................................................................... 11 Custom Domains....................................................................................................... 12

Customer Experience ........................................................................................................ 13 Account activity and Order Status .................................................................................... 14 Contact Information .......................................................................................................... 15


Introduction Introducing FotoStudio, the newest addition to the FotoTime family of products. With FotoStudio, amateur and professional digital photographers can easily setup an online storefront showcasing their photos. FotoStudio is particularly suited to the needs of event photographers who shoot weddings, reunions, parties, and sporting events. With the new service, photographers upload photos to their FotoStudio ‘store’ and set prices for the print and gifts items for each event. FotoStudio includes marketing tools so that photographers can email the participants at each event. As customers make purchases through the FotoTime store, the FotoTime lab prints and ships each order, automatically handling all aspects of the order fulfillment for the photographer. FotoStudio tracks the profits for each sale and automatically makes payments to photographers each month by electronic funds transfer, check or PayPal. The FotoStudio security system can optionally watermark photos as they are uploaded. The watermarks protect the photographer’s work while potential customers are viewing the photos, but do not print on products ordered through the photographer’s storefront. In addition, the original images are not accessible by the customers, but can be retrieved by the photographer and are used by the lab when printing. This Reviewer’s Guide will take you step by step through the exact procedure photographers would take to setup an online storefront through FotoStudio.


Getting Started Browser Requirements To use FotoStudio, you only need a web browser. For Windows users, we recommend using the latest version of IE, Firefox, or Opera. For Mac users, we recommend Safari or Firefox. Some of the functionality of FotoTime uses popup dialogs to prompt for input, so if you have a popup blocker, be sure to configure it to allow popup windows from www.fototime.com.

Signing up for FotoStudio Getting started with FotoStudio is easy. Enter http://fotostudio.fototime.com in your browser address bar to go to the FotoStudio product page and to start the registration process. On that page, photographers can find more information and learn how FotoStudio can help them easily setup an online storefront to make money from their photos. To sign up, click the Sign me up now link below the Learn More button. On the registration form, enter the necessary information, then click the “Accept & Continue” button. Be sure to use a valid e-mail address, as FotoStudio will send you a Welcome e-mail with a confirmation link to activate your account.


Creating an account and setting prices After you sign up for a FotoStudio membership, the next step is configuring an account (in order to track customer purchases), and to set pricing for the variety of prints and gifts you want to sell from your photos. After registering, you should be on the “Welcome to FotoStudio” page.

Click the “Configure Pricing” button to start configuring your account, which will walk you through a three step wizard.

Creating an account In the first step, provide the information necessary so that customers can contact you for customer service, and so that we know how to pay your monthly commission payments. Enter the appropriate information, then click the “Save” button.


Creating Price Plans In the second step, you will set the prices that you want to sell your items for. Click the “Do Step 2 – Create Price Plans” button to get started. By default, FotoStudio automatically creates three sample price plans for you. Although you can use the default price plans provided by the system, we recommend that you create your own plan so that you have complete control over your prices. To create your own price plan, click the “Add New Plan” button. Enter a name for the price plan at the top of the page, and then start entering the prices. As a shortcut, if you want to markup all of your prices by a fixed percentage, you can enter that in the “Markup Percentage” box, or you can simply tab through each field and set the prices individually in the “Override Price” column. As you enter prices in the override price column, the system shows you how much profit you will make each time you sell that item. The profit is calculated by subtracting your cost for the item (what the lab charges your for the item) from the selling price. You can also choose to not sell some items if you don’t want to offer them in your storefront. For example, if you don’t want to offer canvas prints of your pictures, simply un-check those boxes under the “Sell Item” column. Once you have completed configuring your price plan, scroll to the bottom of the page, and click the “Save” button. You can create as many different price plans as you want. Some photographers that shoot several different types of events, for example weddings and sporting events, may want to charge more for prints sold from weddings than sporting events. Creating multiple price plans allows you to do this. Once you are done creating price plans, click the “Done Editing Plans” button. Assigning price plans to albums (events) In the next step, you will configure which price plans you want to use. Click the “Do Step 3 – Assign Plans to Albums” button to complete the final step of the wizard. On this page you will choose your default price plan – meaning what default prices you want to charge as you add albums/events to your online store. Use the drop down box to select the price plan you just added above, then click the “Save” button at the left. As you add new albums, you can either use the default price plan, or you can set a specific price plan for each album. If you return to this screen later, after adding albums, you also have the option of choosing a different price for your new album, or keeping the default price plan which you just setup. That’s it. You have completed the initial setup of your account and you can now start adding photos as you shoot new events. Click the “Initial Setup Complete – Continue” button to continue.


My FotoStudio The “My FotoStudio” page provides useful information, and links to common functions. To access this page, click the “My FotoStudio” link in the top blue menu bar. There are several sections on the “My FotoStudio” page which provide information in different categories. The “Getting Started” section provides access to the most common functions you might use – uploading photos, viewing photos that you have uploaded, and inviting customers to view and buy your photos.

The “My FotoStudio Account” section provides summary information about your sales and profits. At the left, it shows your balance, and at the right, it shows you most recent transactions. You can click the “View All Transactions” link to view the entire list. The other links in this section allow you to view the account activity (which shows the profits from each sale as well as the monthly commission payments), configure your price plans, setup watermarks, and take you to the seller menu.

The final section, “My Account”, contains several useful links including order status and tracking, editing preferences, setting up watermarks and more.


Using watermarks to protect photos In the past, professional photographers used contact sheets to allow potential clients to choose from the different photos and purchase the prints they wanted. Contact sheets protected the photographer’s work because they only provided thumbnail images that were not large enough to be copied. In today’s digital world, photographs are protected using watermarks. FotoStudio makes watermarking photos easy for the photographer because they don’t have to watermark each photo before they upload them to their store. To view the watermark settings, and the different options provided, choose the “Watermark Settings” link from the “My Account” section in My FotoStudio. On the watermark settings page, you can either use the default watermark, provide your own graphic watermark (in PNG format), or use a textual watermark. Make sure you check the first box on the page “Use watermarks – when guests view my pictures”. You can experiment with the different watermark settings, and then click the “Update Preview” button to see the effect of your settings on a sample picture. Once you have the settings configured to your preference, click the “Save” button.


Adding albums (events) and uploading photos After you have everything configured, you are going to upload photos to an example event album called The Smith Wedding. To get started, return to the “My FotoStudio” page by using the “My FotoStudio” option in the blue menu bar. From there, click the “Upload Pictures” link in the “Getting Started” section. Notice the several different upload methods that FotoStudio supports for uploading photos to your store. The tabs along the top let you select from the different upload options, and may be different than shown below depending on what browser you are using.

By default, the system creates a sample album called My Pictures. In your case, we want to add a new album called The Smith Wedding. Click the “Add New Album” button to add the new album. On the Add New Album page, enter The Smith Wedding next to the name prompt, and whatever you want for the description. Use the default options for the other fields on the page, then click the “Add” button.

You will then be re-directed back to the “Upload Page”, and the new album you added will be shown in the “Upload To” section. The steps to upload differ slightly with each of the different upload methods, although the concept is the same – browse your computer for the photos you want to upload, add them to the batch, then send the batch to FotoTime. We recommend using Internet Explorer along with the “Batch Upload” method (the first tab). Using this method, you use the tree at the left to browse the different folders on


your computer for pictures. Once you find the correct folder, thumbnails of your pictures will show on the right. Using the same methods for selection as you would in Windows Explorer (drag a range, shift-click, or control-click), you can select either single or multiple photos, then click the “Add Photos & Videos Now” button to start the batch upload. A progress bar shows as each photo is uploaded to your store, and a counter shows how many of the photos in your batch have completed so far. Once your batch has completed uploading, you can click the “Return To Photos” link at the top of the page to view the photos you have just uploaded. A sample album is shown below.

Note that your color scheme may appear differently than shown above. If you want to change the color scheme of your sample album, you can do so by picking from the several different system supplied styles that FotoStudio provides (or you can create your own if you know CSS). You can change the display style by using the “Admin Menu” link at the left, and then choosing “Select Display Styles”.


Notifying customers Now that you have a sample album uploaded, it’s time to notify the participants from the event and other potential customers. FotoStudio offers a variety of ways to do this.

Using Invitations Use the FotoStudio invitation system when you know the e-mail addresses of the participants at the event. E-mail invitations are generated and sent by FotoStudio, with the body of the e-mail containing a link to direct customers to photos of their event. You can access the invitation system by using the “Share Pictures” menu at the left, and the “Send E-Mail Invite” option from the share pictures menu. Note that the only e-mail sent to the customer is the invitation. FotoTime does not send any other e-mails to invited guests.

Creating a link to your album Use the FotoStudio “Create Link” option to generate a link or URL to a specified album or event. You can create links to all albums, selected albums, or individual pictures. You can access the “Create Link” option by using the “Share Pictures” menu at the left, and the “Create Link to Pictures” option from the share pictures menu. You can use the URL that the create link option generates in several different ways including linking to your events from your own personal website, sending it in an instant message, or sending it in an e-mail.

Shortcut URLs FotoStudio also offers easy to remember shortcut URLs to your albums. They are in the form of: http://www.fototime.com/users/your_email_address/the_album_name For example, let’s say that your FotoStudio account was under the e-mail address of [email protected], and the album name was “The Smith Wedding”, you could give customers the following URL to view photos of their event: http://www.fototime.com/users/[email protected]/The%20Smith%20Wedding


Note that at the bottom of each album in the footer of the page, FotoStudio automatically generates a shortcut link for you, as highlighted in red in the following screen capture.

Custom Domains FotoStudio also allows you to choose your own custom fototime.com domain name. For example, you could choose “specialevents” as your custom domain name. To configure a custom domain, choose the “Admin Options” link from the “Tools” menu in “My FotoStudio”, then click the “Custom Domain Name” link. After picking a custom domain name, you can give customers the following shortcuts to your albums: http://specialevents.fototime.com – takes guests to your default album http://specialevents.fototime.com/welcome - takes guests to a page that lists each event and lets them pick the album for the event they are interested in http://specialevents.fototime.com/The%20Smith%20Wedding – takes customers directly to your Smith wedding album. Note that the “%20” is used where spaces would be in the album name.


Customer Experience Once your albums (events) have been uploaded, and you have invited your customers, they can visit your FotoStudio store to buy prints and gifts from photos of their event. Customers can walk through a slideshow of the photos from their event, and use options under the “Shop” menu to purchase prints of the photos they like in either glossy or matte format.

Once your customer has finished viewing and selecting images, they can use the “Checkout” button to complete the transaction and submit their order. After the order has been submitted, FotoStudio e-mails your customer a receipt, and sends you a more detailed copy with the details of the order. The lab automatically prints and ships the order to your customer and no steps are required on your part for order fulfillment.


Account activity and Order Status As your customers make purchases, profits from each sale add to your account balance on FotoStudio. The “My FotoStudio” page shows the balance as well as the most recent transactions.

For more details about each order and to see the entire list of transactions and orders, along with the shipping status of each order, you can click the “Account Activity” link. The account activity screen displays all transactions including orders from customers and outgoing commission payments, and uses a familiar checkbook register format.


Contact Information Technical Contact Jeff Kelling FotoTime, Inc. Email: [email protected] www.fototime.com PR Contact Barbara Kohn Kohn Public Relations Email: [email protected] Phone: 650-342-9853

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