A New Generation Photo Site

What does THAT mean?! This site is not your old, boring, stagnant photo album site. Our newly re-done Photo Finale Web site has a clean design and a simple interface. We have introduced some new terminology to describe some of the new features of the site: Collection, Skimming, My Page...details on all those below! The site also uses Silverlight, a new application that we have used in parts of the site to maximize usability and create a smoothly-operating interface.

My Page

When your customer becomes a member of your site, his entry point becomes a customizable “My Page.” My Page is a public and bookmark-able web page. Two of your promotional jpgs show up on this page, so you can market products and services directly to your customers. Users can personalize their page by assigning an image or avatar and by adding information, background and descriptions. Social Picturing services and activity feed are coming soon.

Collections

All the user’s image sets, or “Collections” are indexed on his My Page. You can drag and organize them in the Collections Browser display My Page. Collections can be private, public, or semi-private (for designated members viewing only) and contain photos, and in the future will be able to contain projects as well. Collections can be viewed in Photo Browser, where the user can look at and manipulate the images, or move images between Collections. To magnify or edit a photo, the user clicks an Edit button and can then apply cropping, enhancement or other fun edits provided by Picnik.
• Coming soon, Smart Collections will be a set of photos contained in a specific collection based on a tag he has assigned to those photos.
• Coming soon, Auto Collections will be preset photo groups, like: Recently Added, Recently Ordered, Recent Activity and Emailed Images.

Skimming

Rolling over a Collection’s icon in the user’s My Page shows a quick display that flips through the photos that are in the Collection. When you forget what photos you put in “My Awesomest Pics,” you will love the skim!

Picnik

Integration with the 3rd party "photo editing made fun" site gives users a unique reason to stay and play on your site, and a way to crop, twist, colorize and format photos into creations for prints and posters! "Picnik makes your photos fabulous with easy to use yet powerful editing tools. Tweak to your heart’s content, then get creative with oodles of effects, fonts, shapes, and frames. It's fast, easy, and fun."

My Feeds

Users can create an RSS Feed to a single collections or even to her entire set of collections. Essentially, this is a special type of link that when pasted into an RSS reader (like in Outlook or Google) it works like a subscription to that collection, so that any time photos are added to it, the new photos show up right in the reader! When this gets really exciting is when you sync the WiFi digital picture frame you got grandma up to a collection that you update with photos of her grandson. Any time you add new photos to the collection, the new photos show up on the frame...grandma doesn't need to do anything! If you sell digital frames in your store, this is a great way to attract new customers to your Photo Finale site, and to expand your ordering base too.

Pocket Pics iPhone App

Using the same feed you create in My Feeds, you can now sync your collections right to your iPhone using the Pocket Pics application, available in the Apple iTunes Store for free. Because Pocket Pics works with your Photo Finale site, we encourage you to advertise it as your own! You can now say that you have an iPhone app!

Upload from the Kiosk

Do you have a customer who just cannot seem to upload photos to the website from home, or who always comes in with a full card, too busy to do much more than +1 4x6...this is the feature for this crowd: upload from the kiosk to Photo Finale. As part of the ordering process on the kiosk (v7.0+), users can now choose to have their pictures uploaded for them right into their online account, by checking off the Web Upload box. By setting up in-store customers with an online account, and an easy, in-store way to get the photos online, you are not only providing an invaluable service, you are giving them the tools they need to share pictures and to order more later!

Straightforward Ordering

• Elegant kiosk-like image view. Makes it easy to view and order many images at the same time. Select multiple images, then add a size for those selected photos. A little graphical tag appears at the bottom of the photo when you have ordered a print…just like on the kiosk.
• Standard and complete print product list sorts…this means you can present a list of popular print sizes that fits your production stream.
• Quick Order. Ability to set 2 different quick order products. Default to popular 4x6 and full frame 4x5.33 sizes.
• Order Options. Offer customers the ability to tailor to their entire order’s print preferences and add-on products…including print surface, sloppy borders, CDs and Index Prints.
• Order Preview. Because the aspect ratio of the image often differs from that of the paper, some cropping can occur. To give the consumer an accurate idea of what the final result will be, they are presented with the Preview screen that lets them see and adjust any cropping that may be necessary give the image dimensions and photo size selected.

Create

Clicking the Create button brings users into the creative side of the site. This is where users can find cards, gifts, books, posters, scrapbook pages and more.

Add Photos

The upload tool uses Microsoft Silverlight, which means it is easy to install and easy to use. It uses multi-threaded transfer, which means that instead of uploading 1 image at a time, 3 are uploaded at a time, so it’s much faster. The new “fast upload” option sub samples photos to optimize speed and quality. Users can change the setting to upload the full resolution image – and you can choose which speed is defaulted.

Easy Navigation & Photo Viewing

New header/footer design makes it easier to move around the website. Home, Add Photos, Order Prints, Shop, My Page, Language, and Shopping Cart are always available so it is always easy to buy. The new Thumbnail Resizer lets you shrink the images to view your whole Collection all at once easy…or enlarge to get a better view. The Thumbnail Resizer remains a function on the page when the Ordering Panel is pulled out…making it easy to order your photos at the view size you prefer!

Silverlight

“Microsoft® Silverlight™ is a cross-browser, cross-platform, and cross-device plug-in for delivering the next generation of media experiences and rich interactive applications for the Web.” (microsoft.com/silverlight)

Benefits of Silverlight
• Reduce technical challenges for users...it’s easy to install.
• Works and looks the same across browsers.
• Differentiate yourself from your competitors...it’s new and exciting.
• Delight your customers...makes for a smoothly-moving interface with intuitive controls.