You have 3 options:

Click here to show your name as text

• Fill in the bubble next to this option then click the “Select” button
• Type a name to go across the top of your site in the box provided. Choose a size from the drop down, then click “Update”
• Done!

Click here if you already have a logo in JPEG or GIF format. Your logo should be 825 pixels wide. The height can vary but we recommend that your logo be no more than 73 pixels high.

• You will have to create a file in a graphics program that meets the size requirements listed.
• Fill in the bubble next to this option then click the “Select” button
• If you already have uploaded your image, choose it from the displayed web files, if not, scroll to the bottom of the page and click to upload a new one
• When the page refreshes, click on “Choose File” on the bottom. Find the image on your computer, then click “Upload”
• Done!

Advanced Users click here to enter your custom HTML code. The width must be 825 pixels. The height can vary but we recommend that your logo be approximately 73 pixels high.

• You will have to create HTML code to go across the top of your page
• Fill in the bubble next to this option then click the “Select” button
• Add your HTML into the box provided, then click “Update”
• Done!

If you would like to view your changes, just click on “View Site As Customer” on your left side menu.

If you just signed up, you can set-up and use your site, but we cannot pay you for your sales until we have received a W9 form from you, so please remember to get one to us!  You can get a W9 form HERE.
Just mail or fax the form to us.

You may view your administration site by visiting:
http://(Web Address).lifepics.com/admin/
Note:  Just replace “(Web Address)” with the site name you created and make sure you DO NOT type “www.”

Your customer site is:  http://(Web Address).lifepics.com
Note:  Just as above, replace “(Web Address)” with the site name you created.

If you are setting up your site for the first time, use our QUICK START GUIDE or just click on the word “Set-up” in the “Helpful Topics” box on the right side of this page for more detailed information about each step. You can easily do this just by clicking HERE.

To make this easier to explain, lets make a real world example.

On Ritzpix Pro, you can create your own custom image logo to go across the top of your web page. This logo must be 825 pixels in width, by 73 pixels in height. I am giving minimal instructions for Photoshop since that is what I use, but you are more than welcome to use any graphics software that will allow you to do the same things.

To start, Create a new document (File -> New), 825×73 and set the resolution to 72dpi. This is not a high resolution file, but we are not printing it, this is only to be placed online, so the file SHOULD be really small. In fact, the smaller, the better!

It is best to keep the back ground the same color as your web page so the logo doesn’t look like a cut and paste block on the top of the site. Add the graphics for your site name and any other logos or graphics you wish to add.

Here, we are going to add a “Home” button. Since the logo is on top of all the pages, the “Home” button will be as well. Many photographers have their own site and utilize Ritzpix Pro for selling, so YOUR home button may take your customers back to your other site, I will just have mine take me to the home page of my current site.

You can add other buttons or “Clickables” but we will only work with one for now.
Now we need to ‘Map’ the image. To do this, we need to find the pixel coordinates for every item we want clickable. In photoshop, Go to View->Rulers and make sure they are turned on. You also want the rulers to display pixels, not inches, so right click on the ruler and choose pixels, now we are ready to map!

You can map a rectangle or a circle. For a rectangle, you need to know the coordinates for the top left point and the bottom right point. (Marked with Green Dots)

To map the home button, you need 4 numbers. Always start with the top first and move down.
(Top Left Red, Top Left Blue, Bottom Right Red, Bottom Right Blue)
Based on the rulers, our numbers for the home button would be ‘10,15,115,60‘

Now that we have the image(s) mapped, we can begin working on HTML code!

Insert the image using an image tag, and include the dimentions as well as the map name (just in case you have more than one image map on the same page).

<img src=”/rpp/images/Imagemap1.jpg” width=”825″ height=”73″ usemap=”#map1″>

Now that we have the image posted, and we named the map, “map1″ we can tell the map what to do:

<map name=”map1″>
<area shape=”rect” coords=”10,15,115,60″ href=”http://imagesoflight.lifepics.com/”>
</map>

Now we posted an image with a clickable button! As you can see after the ‘href=’ I inserted the web address that the link will take you to. Make sure you end the map by closing the tag </map>.

Next time you post an online album, test out this selling technique by announcing the release of an album that is available online for the next four weeks only. Send your first email telling customers where they can find the event. Follow up 2 weeks later with a reminder and a promo code for a free 4×6 print. Then send one more email a week after that saying that the images will be removed from the site in a week.

Stick to your guns – if you say you are taking them down, take them down. The worst case scenario is that an enthusiastic buyer contacts you later and you post them again for a 3 day window so they can buy. If your customers ask “What’s the rush?” tell them that storage is a premium and you are juggling a lot of different events. You will be surprised at how effective this strategy can be.

By: Lifepics

To add your own link to your email, blog, personal website, and more, please follow these steps:

1. Log into your admin site and go to “View Photos.”
2. Click on “Event Settings” (found beside or underneath each of your photo albums, depending on your album view).
3. Once at “Event Settings,” you will see a few different event options, including options for links to share with your customers.
   

   Let’s go into a little more detail of what each link does:

• “HTML code w/ Image” – After you add this link to your HTML site, your customers will see an image that they can click on that sends them to the chosen event. The image displayed is the first image of the album.

• “HTML code for Text Link” – You can create a clickable word (text) link on your HTML site. Your viewers will see the event title that is clickable; once they click on the text link, they are sent right to the event.

• “Link for Emails” – This creates a clickable link right in your email to customers. Once they click the link, they are sent to that particular event. This option is great for sending out “check out what is new” and “your album is ready to view” emails.

By: Lifepics

One of the biggest requests I get at Ritzipx Pro is:

“Can I add my own watermark/logo to all my photos?”

Well, through our system, as you know, your images are right-click protected and watermarked, this is only protection on the site itself. The unwatermarked images are still sent to the store. Many of our Pros have requested a way to add their own logo or watermark to their images as an added protection when the image is sent to the lab for printing. Unfortunately this has to be done prior to uploading to the site for selling. If you have done this with Adobe Photoshop, as I have, you all know that batch processing can be a pain.

I have found a great FREE software suite that you should all try to help make your life a little easier.

FastStone.org

FastStone has FREE softwares that all revolve around image editing. FastStone Image Viewer, FastStone Capture, FastStone MaxView, and FastStone Photo Resizer. I love the image viewer! It’s a great way to navigate your photos as well as quickly view the image metadata and apply various edits without actually reorganizing your current file structure.

FastStone Photo Resizer

FastStone Photo Resizer is a great software for batch processing folders of images. You can resize a whole folder of images to low resolution emailable images, or you can up the dpi on a set of images with a few clicks of the mouse. You can also apply your own Logos, Watermarks, and Borders.

Just choose the source folder of you images and choose a destination to save them to. Check the “Use Advanced Options” box and then click on the “Advanced Options” button to adjust your batch settings.

The Advanced options of the software allow you to apply various changes to an entire album/folder (batch). You can Batch Resize, Rotate, Crop, Adjust Canvas Size, Color Depth, DPI, add Text, Watermarks and Borders. You can also rename all your photos to assist you with sequential ordering.

Using the borders function you have the ability to apply a wide variety of different borders.

Below is a sample of what the above settings will give you:

As you can see, there are a wide variety of borders you can apply to your images. Borders are a great add on to your images to provide a customized look to make your prints stand out from anyone elses.

Through the softwares advanced features, you can also apply text, or a logo to all your photos as a way to brand your prints. You can add simple text with your Lifepics web address across the bottom of all your photos, or you can add your own graphic to the corner of each of your images.

Ritz Camera, Ritzpix.com, Ritzpix Pro, & Lifepics are not affiliated with FastStone. FastStone is a free software that is easy and offers many options to you providing a helpful tool for your image editing.

We are also thrilled to announce the pending release of a new upload tool that will simplify your upload process significantly. LabCenter for Pros will be available to download from your admin site, providing another way to upload images to your site. This tool will allow multiple folders to be uploaded at one time with the ability to preset your price list, see real time download reporting, set an album as Public or Private, set your Event Code, and much more.

By: Lifepics

We spoke with a photographer recently that photographed kids playing Little League baseball. He donated back a small percentage of his sales to the league, and at the end of the year, he was able to happily hand over a check for $1,000.00. That is real money for these types of organizations, and they in turn embraced the photographer as a sponsor and helped him to advertise whenever possible. This goodwill gesture also put him in a great light with community members; instead of being seen as the guy who was profiting from the kids, he was seen as a sponsor of youth sports, and extra work rolled in quickly and easily in the form of family portraits, senior photos, and additional events. Think about it and get involved with your events’ sponsoring organizations.

By: Lifepics

By: Lifepics

For example, an event titled “Johnson Wedding” may contain sub albums titled “Pre-Ceremony,” “Ceremony,” “Posed Groups,” “Reception,” and so on. This accomplishes two things: first, it helps your customer select the exact shots they want to look at, and second, it keeps the load time to a minimum each time a new album displays as thumbnails. Loading 1200 images as thumbnails is going to take a lot longer than loading 250 images in a sub album.

One last piece of advice: create your albums in advance and then point your uploads to the appropriate sub albums. That way you do not need to shuffle images once they are loaded.

When you upload your images, make sure to point them into your pre-made sub albums. Once the uploads are finished, you are ready to roll.

By: Lifepics

*Note: If you liked this, check out our .pdf guide for “Image Management”