School and team (T&I) photographers get their very own software solution

The straight scoop on DARKROOM Assembly Edition
by Kerry Raminiak

You may have noticed that DARKROOM Assembly Edition has gotten a few headlines in 2009. The main reason for this, I suppose, is that after a short promotion hiatus, the software solution created explicitly for these specialty photographers is re-launched with new features and functions.

That said, I do have to admit my bias for Assembly Edition but for reasons that are not so obvious. To research the background and usefulness of Assembly Edition, for the software’s very new web page (found here), I have spent a lot of time interviewing current users and dealers all the while reading blogs, online reviews and etcetera (pretty much anything I could find online). What I have found has been pretty enlightening.

Beyond the basics you can find describing what Assembly Edition is and does, I have decided to share some of the more interesting factoids I have discovered on my AE Odyssey:

• It’s the only direct-purchase (no lease) solution on the market. When talking to dealers and instructors about the software it has become increasingly clear that school photography solutions have become a racket. The only true competitors to Assembly Edition require a lease (where you pay more to use the equipment by project or every year) or special plug-ins for the myriad of school and team and individual (T&I) workflows. I do not know if that annoys you at all, but when I sign up for something only to find out I need to shell out more to get the job done, I get miffed.
  
• It replaces the need for six other pieces of software. In a quick review of the ExpressDigital Yahoo! forums, I found users that love that they don’t need to load anything else onto their primary computers to complete school projects. Without naming names (cough**ROES* PhotoShop* SchoolDays* Gallery* FileMaker* et.al**cough) Assembly Edition handles camera capture, scanner data, project management, proofing, envelops, photo editing, online selling and more right out of the box.
  
• The extras really do improve business. The ability to create ID cards, picture composites, and cool goodies is an obvious perk, right? Well, I found out that the greenscreen and free internet storefronts are big hits as well. Many current users love the fact that they can use greenscreen to do different backdrops for each class, for example, and then get secondary holiday and special event business using the same tool during the off season. Another example is the team photographer that sells special memory-mates, gifts and novelties online of the athlete as holiday gifts and graduation announcements. Basically from my research, AE fans only discover these goodies after their first school project with the software and then realize that all of a sudden they own re-orders and specialty offerings better than ever.

Of course there is more but I simply cannot spend precious blog time tooting a horn (well, too much that is). The point is, Assembly Edition is better than ever and honestly the best thing out there. Add free phone support for an entire year, training, and templates and … for lack of a better word… wow.

Click here to check out to see if there are any promotions and learn more.
If you are a current AE version click here to download and learn about the recent update.

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Attack of the Top Ten Lists

Photography News that's Fit to Blog (This Week)
by Kerry Raminiak

Taking notes throughout the week for this round-up has turned out quite the hodgepodge of goodies. (Remember if you’ve got good news let me know by commenting or by reaching out on Twitter or Facebook. I’m always interested.)

PMA Data Watch has evidence that there is no downturn in child photography
While my version of their headline is much shorter, their's is certainly catchier: Despite economic downturn, parents not penny pinching when it comes to their children. The report, published this morning, indicates that children are the primary drivers for camera and photography purchases. As a result, women with children are most likely to make these purchases. Furthermore, children are the main focus for personalized gift products like greeting cards, calendars, mugs and mousepads. We don’t mean to sound repetitive but all current research points in this direction (click here to read a recent recap we put together of similar studies published this year). Click here to read the PMA release with a lot more information.

Bing gets more press
The power of the blog format is that when we get a whim we write it out and hope others read and enjoy it. That said, we scooped the industry’s formal acceptance of Bing and how they are using photography to impress and delight (yep, our CEO blogged about it last month here). Now with that said, Photo District News has a nice interview with the people behind the phenomena. The behind the scenes reminds me that great photos simply stand out which I imagine makes their lives just a little bit easier when hunting and gathering their image choices.

My favorite article of the week has to be:
The Rule of Thirds Revisited
Although the article was posted a couple of weeks ago to the Canon Blogger, I keep coming back to it to compare my most recent shots to the mind’s eye symmetrical diagrams of past and future. I also enjoy the article because it isn’t an ordinary how-to but rather someone’s wise experiment to be shared via post and publicizing via social media outlets. Kudos Canon Blogger, you have made it to the favorites.

Last week was the week of “Top” Lists for the photography industry (wondering why). In order of awesomeness (with the last one being #1 or the best):

• Here are the Top 10 Final Photographs from, who else, TopTenz. I find this whole post very dreary, but I also felt I couldn’t leave it out.
  
  
• Here is PDNPulse’s Top 20 Songs About Photography… which I am a bit impressed in the cross genre considerations.
  
  
• And, the #1 Top list sent my way last week: Digital Photography School's, 10 Photography Quotes You Should Know. Although not as toe tapping as the previous contestant, this compilation is just… assuring.

Quick announcements from our news desk:

There is a PhotoReflect “Getting Started” webinar this Wednesday night at 7:00 pm Central time which shows you how to utilize free tools to start selling your photography online with custom storefronts and…

We will be randomly selecting a Facebook fan to win their choice of sports templates this week. There is nothing to do to enter other than being a “fan,” so join us.

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Greenscreen training, free webinars and good photos (oh my!)

Photography News that's Fit to Blog (This Week)
by Kerry Raminiak

Greetings from ExpressDigital. Thanks for taking a look. We enjoy producing these weekly news round ups and appreciate your interest.

So without further ado, here’s the scoop:

PDN has a nice article about the World Press Photo Winning entry.
The black-and-white image is of a police officer going through a home with his gun drawn. The impact comes from where the image was taken: An eviction situation as a result of a mortgage foreclosure. It is very powerful as it resembles a war scene and illustrates the skill of the photographer, Anthony Suau. Click here to see it and read the input from the award committee chair.

If you are looking for ligher fare...
GeekStir has claimed they have found Carmen Sandiego with photographic evidence.

While also scanning PDN news, there is a feature an article on aerial photography. Which reminds us that a friend of ExpressDigital has recently announced that they are offering aerial photography with the use of balloons. Photos In a Minute is utilizing balloons and DARKROOM Pro Edition’s wireless capturing function to take shots from the sky. This Lawrence, MA company has a website where you can click “Aerial Ballon” to see the balloon itself and how they are marketing their newest photo service. They also have a nice newsletter that warms our hearts when we get it as they also do a lot of local philanthropy and feature those photos.

Here is an interview with Richmond Professional Lab. As mentioned last week, our blog post recapped industry related statistics of this year-to-date. In the interview we ask Richmond Professional Labs to give us their thoughts, from a busy lab’s perspective, on these trends and to give us the scoop on what is real and what is simply strange these days.

USAToday has a feature article on cutbacks this wedding season.
The article features high-ticket weddings that are now a bit more budget-minded. Needless to say, everyone is cutting back on everything: Lee knows of wedding photographers who used to charge $20,000 but now are discounting their fees by nearly 50%, "just to get some jobs." The noted averages discussed for photography was $2,655 and is now $775. Gulp.

ExpressDigital has been asked by Our365 to partner in improving the newborn portrait experience. It’s official, the largest in-hospital newborn portrait photography provider is utilizing DARKROOM and PhotoReflect technologies to make it a better experience for moms while offering more products and online capabilities. Read about it in Cameratown.com. More news on this topic to come when it becomes available.

PhotoReflect announces new, free webinars, to get new and current users started with the FREE ONLINE PHOTOGRAPHY STOREFRONT solution.

• Wednesday, July 29 at 7pm Central
  


• Wednesday, August 5 at 3pm Central

And for Advanced Users (although all are welcome):

• Thursday, August 6 at 3pm Central

(Keep in mind that newsletter subscribers get first crack to sign up for all training sessions so if you’re not in the loop, you may want to. Here’s a link where you can learn more and sign up.)

Also, there is a “doing greenscreen with DARKROOM Pro edition” class/session at Desktop Darkroom’s annual symposium in Jacksonville, July 28 and 29, 2009.

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What Teens Really Think

by Graham McFarland

A research note was released yesterday by Morgan Stanley and what makes it worthy of mentioning is two things; 1) its topic and 2) its author. The report was written by Matthew Robson, a teenage intern working for the investment bank. His findings and observations help us all see the forest through the trees as technology consumes our every waking moment.

I found this information to be refreshing and a simple explanation of how technology is viewed and used by teens today. Knowing this can tell us all how to better communicate and market to this influential group of consumers (especially in the photography industry). The teens of today are the proud parents of tommorow.

Oh and by the way, I ran this by my own 15 year old daughter and she said he was "right on the money."

Here is the world according to Mr. Robson:

• Teenagers don't use Twitter. Most have signed up to the service, but then just leave it as they realize that they are not going to update it (mostly because texting Twitter uses up credit, and they would rather text friends with that credit). They realize that no one is viewing their profile, so their tweets are pointless.

• No teenager reads a newspaper regularly since most cannot be bothered to read pages of text while they could watch the news summarized on the internet or TV. The only newspapers that teens read are the cheaper tabloids and freebies.

• Teenagers are put off by intrusive advertising so they prefer listening to advert-free music on websites such as Last.fm to traditional radio. Teens see adverts on websites (pop-ups, banner ads, etc.) as extremely annoying and pointless.

• Most teenagers support viral marketing, such as YouTube, as often it creates humorous and interesting content.

• Teenagers are very reluctant to pay for music and most had never bought a CD, with a large majority downloading songs illegally from filesharing sites.

• Teenagers spend their money and time for the experience instead pirating or seeking cheap loopholes (in relation to movies, concerts and video game consoles). Downloading films off the internet is not popular as the films are usually bad quality and have to be watched on a small computer screen and there is a risk of viruses.

• Game consoles like Wii, which are now able to connect to the internet and offer free voice chat between user, have emerged as a more popular choice for chatting with friends than the phone. Also gaming now attracts as many girls as boys and it is accepted as a coed activity.

Good stuff when you think about the considerable sums of money that goes into advertising (and tweeting) to gain the attention of this very powerful group of people that bring in the "new" and usher out the "old" with the whimsy of youth.

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Year-to-date photo-industry research findings

by Kerry Raminiak

You have to pardon the laziness of this most recent blog post as it is a recap of all of the statistics of the professional photography industry to date this year –- consider it your clip show.

But please keep in mind, this is great stuff and we have a pretty good, albeit very selfish, reason: We needed a single place to harbor the links and analysis to these topics for our July newsletter (we ask Richmond Professional Labs to evaluate the validity of some of these claims). That means you’re in luck if you are in need of good tips and advice because the July issue of our newsletter comes out tomorrow. Click here to sign up if you haven’t done so already!

In no particular order…

Digital photo frame ownership doubles between 2007 and 2008
According to PMA Marketing Research, 22 percent of U.S. households owned a digital photo frame in 2008, doubling from the previous year citing that previous year products had very specific impediments such as cost, connectivity and lack of features. The influence of social media outlets and the resultant prevalence of digital photo sharing is seen as a driver. A study by In-Stat indicates that desires are echoed in requests for integrated wireless connectivity and that digital photo frames are predicted to reach 50 million and that 8-inch frames will come in below $36 by 2013. To purchase or learn more about the In-Stat digital photo frame study, click here.

Photo merch represents highest growth potential for photos... Moms and Young Adults key target audiences
The InfoTrends PMT group published a report with the assurance that the photo merchandise market “currently offers the highest growth potential of any segment within the consumer digital imaging market.” Other highlights are that “young adults” and “moms” are the most lucrative segments of the market explaining that while 21% of the total population surveyed reported purchasing photo merchandise within the past year, 40% of females with children younger than 12 and 30% people aged 18 to 24 said they bought photo products. If you want to read more, find their press release here.

Photobooks and scrapbooks get confused in the consumer eye despite high prevelance in purchases
According to the most recent PMA Data Watch report, the classification and description of photo books is perplexing to the non-photographer as it is often lumped with scrapbooking and creating your own album pages with digital ownership of images (and printing to local, inexpensive home printers) versus how pros want the term “photo books” to equate a very specific photography product offered to the masses. As marketing experts put their minds together to mitigate this confusion, those that sell photo books are seeing an increase in demand (4%) but that demand is far less than anticipated in comparison to last year. Is the solution simply about getting the word out? (You can buy the 2009 PMA Photo Book Report here)

Women with children the most powerful photography purchasers in Western European study
In the latest InfoTrends report, they surveyed Western European “females between the ages of 25 and 44 with children under the age of 12” whom represent a very large market segment in the $900 million photo merchandise market. The research indicates that this particular demographic takes, prints, and shares more photos than the general population while also being a little more elusive to market to as they represent a very specific socio-graphic (i.e. marketing to moms, in particular, is a very niche-based science). In addition, this segment is more likely than total photo merchandise buyers to purchase from online sources, citing convenience as a powerful deciding factor. (You can purchase the very thorough InfoTrend report for a pretty hefty price tag here. For a better summary, you can also review PMA International’s report synopsis here.)

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Photos cure loneliness & gearing up for school season

Photography News that's Fit to Blog (This Week)
by Kerry Raminiak

News outlets are quiet, as expected, this official first-week of July. Digging deep we found out more about these headlines.

Kodak study finds photography is a solution to loneliness
It may be a bit of a stretch but a new study from Kodak that commissioned Judy Weiser (notable expert of the value and usability of PhotoTherapy techniques) indicates that photography has been found to help people build stronger relationships and that such are in dire need as a void has been created by the proliferation of less meaningful relationships multiplied by social media outlets. I encourage you to read the summary here. Your opinions are welcome as I am staying out of this one.

Digital photo frame ownership doubles between 2007 and 2008
According to PMA Marketing Research, 22 percent of U.S. households owned a digital photo frame in 2008, doubling from the previous year citing that previous year products had very specific impediments such as cost, connectivity and lack of features. The influence of social media outlets and the resultant prevalence of digital photo sharing is seen as a driver. A study by In-Stat indicates that desires are echoed in requests for integrated wireless connectivity and that digital photo frames are predicted to reach 50 million and that 8-inch frames will come in below $36 by 2013. To purchase or learn more about the In-Stat digital photo frame study, click here.

Nikon and Fujitsu establish a joint company
Nikon’s subsidiary Nikon Systems Inc. and Fujitsu Broad Solution & Consulting Inc. have established a join company to “accelerate the speed and quality of firmware development,” particularly software built into devices that control hardware. This is an important decision for both companies as all previous digital cameras built by either company utilized proprietary and locally developed firmware. Source PMAI.org.

How to get into school photography
We are putting together a new Assembly edition promotion to get school and sport team and individual photographers lined up for the season (stay tuned). In the meantime there are three avenues for furthering your education on the school photography business model:

• (Free) PSPA panel on PMA TV discusses ways to reach the school decision maker and how to get into yearbook (when you click the link you have to find the topic called “School Administrator/Decision Maker Panel” in the lower box)
  
  
• (Free with purchase of DARKROOM Assembly Edition) Desktop Darkroom hosts a free, individual, online and phone training session for anyone that purchases DARKROOM Assembly edition (the only all-in-one, no-lease-required school and sport T&I software on the market).
  
  
• (Not free; $449) Marathon Press hosts the School Photography Bootcamp with Chris Wunder during a 5-day workshop this month in Dallas, Texas.

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