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

The industrious PJ developers have certainly been busy. They’ve just posted another new beta that builds on the last release, v1.26. Put them together and we have a transformation.

Ever since we first released Remix we’ve been asked to simplify and streamline the workflow, and we believe we’ve done that here.

As you can see from the screen shot, album set-up has been transformed – reduced to a single screen that can gather up all the information an album vendor needs to make your album (click on the images to see them full-size).

This particular screen shot is to order a Queensberry, but the options that PJ displays will vary depending on what your supplier offers. (On that point, notice the new “Design, Print and Assemble” service option.)

At the top of the window you’ll see new navigation buttons. They will step you through the entire process, from setting up the album, through cover and album design, to exporting the layouts and sending your order. Just work logically from left to right. Photojunction will alert you if it discovers a problem (like an out-of-date print layout) or something you haven’t done yet (like design the cover). You can go back and make changes until you’re ready to send the order.

The high-res export screen is also transformed. It’s another single screen, to which we’ve added a file list and status reports (warnings). Look at the buttons below the list. You can now open and edit your page layouts in Photoshop without ever leaving Photojunction!

But wait, there’s more. Project set-up is also a single screen. Photojunction can now upload your orders via FTP (introduced in v1.26). The Collection Builder now let’s you start from where you left off. And there are more bug fixes of course, including some issues from 1.26. You can read the release notes here.

Please, enjoy!

Cheers, Ian

PS Nigel will be releasing two movies very shortly.

PPS A reminder of the main new features in 1.26 – adding text to album layouts; importing PSDs as templates and images; proof sheets; replicating and rotating templates; manual image sort.