The Junction

Archive for November, 2009

Support Desk – Where do I find templates?

November 30th, 2009 in Photojunction Store by Nigel

Where do I find templates? In the Photojunction Store.

You’ll find the link to it on the Photojunction home screen (bottom right corner in case you missed it).

You can search for templates by size (14×10), orientation (Horizontal) and style (simple), or by the template designer if you know who they are.

Here’s a bit more info about the Photojunction Store. And if you’re interested in selling your own templates, here’s a blog post worth reading.

HTH

PJ Support Team

PS Check out Danny’s 437 tips to boosting your template sales!

It’s Thanksgiving!

November 27th, 2009 in Chatter by Danny

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Hey it’s Thanksgiving!

I was brought up in the States (Kiwi Dad, American Mom) … and we don’t celebrate Thanksgiving in New Zealand.

I miss it and I wish we did.

It’s a great time to stop and “give thanks”, so here goes from Team PJ…

Thank you for using our software, and for your friendship, your commitment, your bug reports, your patience and your feature requests.

And a special thanks from Support, who say the phones are real quiet today!

Cheers, Danny

v1.33b – Start Window

November 25th, 2009 in Album Design / Tips by Nigel

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The Photojunction Start Window’s new tabbed menu design gives you direct, easy to understand access to your work. From left to right…

Until now the Start Window displayed events and products, which confused some people. Now the ‘Recent’ tab only displays recent products (ie albums, slideshows, proof sheets).

If you still want to access your clients or events click on Browse tab, which looks and acts as the browse window always has…

Finally, with its very own tab the Upload window is much more obvious.

Near the bottom of the screen you’ll see we’ve also added a live feed from our blog, The Junction, – clicking any of the headlines flashing in and out will take you directly to that blog post.

We’d love to hear what you think of the new Start Window design so do let us know.

Cheers, Danny

PS As you can see, my database is brand new, nothing in it, as a new user would see it.

# 437 of 437 Store Tips: Just do it!

November 24th, 2009 in Photojunction Store by Danny

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Do you know how many people are too busy to design albums? Or are under-confident about album design? Or can’t figure out the PJ alignment tools (surely not)?

And do you know how many people have downloaded Photojunction since we made it free? I didn’t think so.

But that adds up to a big market … and you already have the templates. All you need to do is add them to the Store.

Just do it.

Cheers, Danny (motivational expert).

There you go … #437 … just a few gaps to fill in. Got more?

And your point is??

November 23rd, 2009 in Soap Box by Danny

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I’ve just been dealing with a frustrated user. The abridged version…

He designed an album in PJ then exported PSDs.

He then flattened the PSDs and imported them into ALBUM_CO_X’s software for ALBUM_CO_X to make.

That is frustrating for me on all sorts of levels – mostly because I tried (and failed) to convince ALBUM_CO_X not to waste time and money developing their own album planning tool… but that’s a different story.

The album came back with a border around every page, about a quarter inch in from the edge. Somewhere between this client and ALBUM_CO_X’s software the print files that ALBUM_CO_X received had extra white space inserted outside the trim line that Photojunction adds to each layout.

This client, a nice bloke, called ALBUM_CO_X and said, “What the heck?” and the company replied with, “It’s Photojunction’s fault”.

Truth is it’s probably the client’s fault (I did tell him that – and explained why) but the most interesting thing I heard was the album company’s reply to our (their) client’s question: “Didn’t you think to question a border around the edge of the page?”

ALBUM_CO_X replied, “No, do you know how many albums we do?”

Cheers, Danny

#394 of 437 Store Tips: Suck it and see

November 20th, 2009 in Photojunction Store by Danny

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You can change your product listings any time, so feel free to experiment.

Prices too high? Lower them.

Reckon you can charge more? Raise them.

Want to jazz up your blurb? Do it.

Want more templates per collection? Or to include more thumbnails? Or add thumbnail images…?

Well you might need to delete the old product and add a new one.

But it’s quick and easy and worth the effort to get it right.

Next tip.

Cheers, Danny (the pragmatist).

v1.33b

November 19th, 2009 in News by Nigel

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It’s time to hand over the keys to November’s brand new beta – Photojunction v 1.33b.

It’s another biggy, so instead of trying to cram everything into one post, we’ll blog about these specific features over the next week or so…

Start Window – direct access to more functions
Smart Centering – The ‘Align to center’ button now thinks a bit harder about your intentions
Auto Flow – A simple automatic album creation feature using Template and Image Collections
Instant Slideshow – View a slideshow of an album design with the click of a button.
Smart Slideshow Preferences – Set your own defaults for Slideshow and Proof Sheets (including those for Instant Slideshows)
Re-upload – For Queensberry clients a new option allows you to re-upload your orders either in full or in part.

More to come. Don’t be a stranger.

Cheers, Danny

“Free”

November 19th, 2009 in News by Ian

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And dare I say it, ‘Free’ is pretty popular…

Danny’s throwaway line got a few negative reactions … despite Wired’s Chris Anderson saying “free” is the default price on the internet. And PJ is free, right? (We explained why here.)

The counter argument is that sure, we all like free stuff … but templates save you time by utilising the fruits of other people’s. And that justifies the cost.

I totally agree, but still people persist in giving stuff away online. Open source software … free reports about how to take your business online … the list is endless.

Sometimes free comes without strings attached, and is pure generosity. More often it has an agenda: to get attention, to build an audience, to show people what you can do. Nothing wrong with that. Even physical items can be really cheap if they’re the means to sell an on-going item, like razor blades, printer cartridges or talk time.

But there is no such pay-off when it comes to templates. Team PJ has simply ported their old templates to the store, and they’ve always been free. There are some top notch designers offering templates in the PJ Store, and of course they’re worth paying for. The question Danny is asking is, “How much?”

Cheers, Ian