Yesterday we hosted our second intro to Queensberry’s plug-in for Aperture 3 webinar. Danny and Stephen explained the history behind the project and demonstrated the plug-in, covering everything from downloading and installing the plug-in to ordering an album.

If you missed the live presentation not to worry, we’ve just uploaded a recording to our Vimeo Channel.

Or you can stick around and watch it right here. (To watch it in full screen and high definition click here.)

Cheers, Nigel

PS. Haven’t heard about Queensberry’s new plug-in for Aperture 3? It allows professional photographers to design and order a selection of our albums directly within Aperture 3. More info here.

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Photojunction version 1.36 introduced a change to the way in which Photojunction sends your orders to Queensberry.

Your order is not sent to Queensberry until you hit ‘Upload Now’ to send us the bundle of files associated with it. This is necessary whether you’re printing with us or not. It means Queensberry will receive your order in one send, behind-the-scenes automation will be improved, the amount of time Order Processing spends on your orders reduced – and you’ll get your albums faster.

The steps in Photojunction to sending your order are exactly the same, but, to repeat, whether you’re printing or not, it’s important to hit the ‘Upload Now’ button when you reach this stage of the process…

If you do decide to ‘Upload Later’, Photojunction will remind you of this change to procedure before allowing you to continue.

Cheers, Nigel

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It’s a fiddly job assembling an album, but our assembly team can save you the time and hassle. They assemble thousands and thousands each year – so they’re pretty good at it!

And the pay-off is another 2-3 hours saved per job that you can put to better use.

Just think … all of our systems are integrated – design, colour correction, printing, album construction, and assembly. Hit the Send Order button in Photojunction and apart from the small matter of paying, that’s pretty much it until the album arrives back ready for your client.

And of course if necessary we’ll contact you to make sure everything is perfect and just as you’d have it.

We’ve invested hugely in equipment, resources, training and people to help you simplify your business. Invest a little in Queensberry, and you’ll get a lot in return.

Cheers, Nigel

PS This is how the vast majority of our clients work, and no wonder.

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I have to say this. That leather is beautiful.

Well I certainly think so. It’s is part of our new contemporary range, specially made for us. Heather and I were lucky enough to visit the tannery in Europe last month and we were very impressed. So much individual attention to every hide, from the initial inspection and grading (by four very serious men) through to the final finishing processes and packaging. Not to mention their environmental commitment,  and even the way they engaged personally with us.

We visited our paper suppliers too. Same story. Great people, great product, high standards.

One of the things we love is the terrific people we get to do business with.

Cheers, Ian

PS That’s Contemporary Blueberry Leather in an album by Cooper Photography featured on our consumer blog today.

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If you specify Full Colour Service printing, we colour correct your images. The old fashioned way, one at a time.

We don’t run software shortcuts or bulk edit your images. Every single image (or layer) gets personal attention from our specialist colour correctors.

It’s their job to get your images looking their best and ready for printing and album assembly. Our colour correction policy is to achieve consistency across the images in your album and to optimise natural skin-tones … and if we spot any problems, to let you know.

Once we’re done your images go straight to the lab for printing. No delays, no dramas.

This can save you real time.

Let’s say you average around 80 images per albums. Even if you only spend 3 minutes colour correcting and art-working each of those images, you’re looking at half a day saved.

Full Colour Service costs more than Print-Ready of course – but you’re getting a lot more too. Plus you have an extra pair of expert eyes looking over your work … which can (and often does) head off expensive problems before they happen.

Cheers, Nigel

PS We don’t correct layouts but layers – the best service available.

Click here for more about our colour correction policy.

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Johannes has been talking about the power and effectiveness of simplicity here on the blog lately. It’s an excellent message and one I want to expand on a little by explaining how Queensberry can help you simplify your business.

You’ve got a complicated job. You’re a photographer, a marketer,  a salesperson, a designer, a manager, an entrepreneur… And you’re offering a complicated service, and complex products.

It’s not surprising then, that achieving simplicity would involve an investment in time and money. Take purchasing a new camera for example. That involves an investment in both time (to research and learn) and money (to buy), but it’s worthwhile doing because the benefits far outweigh the costs.

We think that simplifying your business is an investment worth pursuing… and we’d love to help you do that. It’s always been our goal to help you focus more on shooting images and making money by offering you a solution to help simplify your workflow…

- Our team can design your Queensberry albums for you.

- Our full service pro lab can colour correct and retouch your images, as well as print them.

- And one of the benefits of printing with us is that we can fully assemble your albums for you too.

So what’s the investment?

1) These services do cost, although not much – How important is simplifying your business and how much is your time worth?

2) Initially, a little time. We’ll want to get to know exactly what you do, and don’t like, so we can produce work that’s consistent with your style. Initially that’ll involve a few conversations with us while we get things perfect – but we’re quick learners

Queensberry offers you an opportunity to not only focus on increasing your income, but also to improve your quality of life. Think of Queensberry as your business partner – an extra pair of hands helping to simplify your business so you can spend more time doing the things you really want to.

Queensberry’s one, simple solution.

Cheers, Nigel

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As our colour correction policy outlines, when you order Full Colour Service we colour-correct your images so as to optimise natural skin-tones and achieve consistency across all the images in the album.

However, if you run Photoshop actions or add special effects/tones to your images and the desired effect differs from these guidelines, we’d ask that you leave a quick note on your order to let us know, so we don’t undo the work you’ve done on them.

It’s easy to leave notes in Photojunction:

- Add notes to specific apertures by right-clicking on an image and selecting the ‘Add/Edit Aperture notes’ option.

- Leave notes about specific layouts by right-clicking on a layout and selecting the ‘Add/Edit Layout notes’ option.

OR

- Add notes about your entire order at the Send Order stage by including a note in the Special Instructions field.

If you use the same effects or actions on every order, you can also use the Regular Preferences field  in the Photojunction Preferences (under Supplier options) which will automatically place the same note on every order.

We don’t need too much information, so only add notes when appropriate. Short, simple notes are best!

Thanks in advance

Cheers, Nigel

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Team PJ made some some pretty significant changes in the lead-up to the release of the latest final version, v1.31. Changes focused on simplifying and streamlining your workflow.

Coinciding with that we asked them to create a new “service” – Design, Print and Assemble – to make the process of placing a design order and uploading all the files as simple as possible.

Really, it’s very simple. Have a look at the video Ian and I recorded demonstrating it, and tell me if I’m wrong. If you’re not up to date with Photojunction you might need to read this post first.

Be sure to click ‘full screen’ – bottom right hand corner – after the movie starts. It was originally recorded using an earlier beta, but the functionality is the same.

As always, we’d love to hear what you think. Leave a comment and tell us…

Cheers, Nigel

PS Click here for more about the QBY Design Team’s “design styles”.

[UPDATED 28 OCTOBER 2009]

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