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Holiday Gear Up

Holiday Gear Up
Are you ready for the Holiday Season?

Maybe not since we have roughly 10 weeks to go. For most photographers, the winter months can bring a noticeable slowdown, but this also presents the perfect opportunity to seize seasonal event opportunities like Santa Portraits and holiday parties.

These festive events are in high demand, and with the right tools, you can make the most out of them!

We want to share a success story from a Santa Portrait Event that took place in the last few years, along with how NowCandid’s Workflows can help you maximize your success this holiday season.

Santa Portrait Station Success

Rachel S., a photography business owner from South Florida, a few years ago landed a Santa Portrait event at a Zoo and turned it into a HUGE win. With Candid's Scanner ID Workflow, Rachel was able to use the same techniques of a typical sports or school picture day and apply them to the Holiday Zoo Lights Santa Event.

To manage the event, Rachel used the Scanner ID Workflow, and generated blank QR cards to pass out to people while they waited in line.

The QR codes were scanned by the guests who then paired their contact info with their QR code! Once they got to the front of the line, Rachel's photographers would scan the next guest's QR with their tethered device, and then take their photos!

The device tethered to the camera would then upload the photos right after they were taken!

With the contact info and pictures both in the system, gallery links were then automatically texted directly to the subjects, right away.

Overall, this event garnered over $42,000 in it's first year!!! Not bad for a couple weeks of work!

NowCandid Workflows: Make Your Holiday Events a Breeze

One of the key elements to success in high-volume holiday events is efficiency—and that’s where NowCandid’s Workflows come into play.

These workflows streamline the process of capturing, organizing, and delivering photos, allowing you to focus more on your artistry and client experience.

Here are two workflows you’ll want to use during your Santa sessions and holiday parties:

  1. Scanner ID: The Workflow Rachel used! It's great for efficiently collecting guest contact info while they are in line, letting you move the line along more quickly OR have more time available for additional photos. Contact info is essential for instant image delivery and post-shoot marketing.
  2. Type & Take: This works similarly to the Scanner ID Workflow, except you type the subject's contact info into your tethered device before photographing them. It is not as time efficient at Scanner ID, but it doesn't require you to print out many blank cards before the event!

Seasonal Retail Theme to Add to the Experience

The holiday fun doesn't stop at the event—it continues when your customers view and purchase their images! With our Candy Cane retail theme, your clients are immersed in the festive spirit as soon as they visit their personal image gallery.

Our themes include delightful touches like falling snowflakes, which gently drift across the screen. These animations help enhance the shopping experience and keep customers wrapped up in the magic of the season.

Theme: Candy Cane - Watermarking: Default

Use Overlay Art to Add a Special Touch

If you're looking to elevate the experience further, NowCandid offers Overlay Art, allowing you to add optional customized overlays to your clients' images.

These titles add a festive, personal touch to the photos, making them feel extra special, whether it's a corporate holiday party, a Santa session, or a family Christmas gathering.

Imagine sending clients their Santa Portraits, complete with a “Merry Christmas 2024” overlay or a custom-designed title that reflects the spirit of the season. It’s little touches like these that make clients feel valued and excited about your services—leading to more referrals and repeat business.

Why You Shouldn't Sleep on Holiday Opportunities

The holiday season offers some of the most lucrative photography opportunities of the year, especially when it comes to events like Santa Portrait sessions, corporate holiday parties or large family and friends gatherings.

With many photographers considering this time a "slow season," there's an opportunity to stand out from the crowd by offering fun, engaging photo experiences that families, organizations, and individuals will love.

Adding these events to your services can also build lasting relationships with your clients—because who doesn’t want to make holiday memories they’ll treasure forever?

Don't Miss Out: Prep for the Holidays Now

The key to success is preparation. Start planning your Santa sessions, promote your holiday event photography, and make sure you're using NowCandid’s powerful tools to handle your Events with ease.

And remember: festive cheer isn’t just for clients. By embracing the holiday season and seizing these photography opportunities, you can fill your calendar and finish the year strong.

Cheers, and may there be many holiday events in your future!

Candy 🍬

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Weekly Recap: Tap-A-Face from the Dashboard & Smarter Roster Contacts 👤✨
Feature Updates
August 8, 2025

Weekly Recap: Tap-A-Face from the Dashboard & Smarter Roster Contacts 👤✨

3
 minutes read
Hey there, photo friends!

This week’s updates are small but mighty—because behind the scenes we’re cooking up some bigger projects that we can’t wait to share with you soon.

For now, here’s what’s fresh in your NowCandid™ Dashboard:

👆 Tap-A-Face… from the Web Dashboard!

You’ve always loved Tap-A-Face in the field—now you can do it right from your Dashboard.

From any image’s Image Details Page, head to the Participants tab and click the new Add via Tap-A-Face button. From there:

  1. Click a spot on the image where a face is
  2. Enter the contact info for the person

This will instantly create a new Participant in your Event, kick off Face Matching™, and start marketing their gallery right away. 📸💌

Manage Images -> Details, Logs, and More-> Participants -> Add via Tap-A-Face

📇 Roster Contacts, Upgraded

Contacts you add through Rosters are now much easier to work with! They’ll behave just like your regular Contacts & Participants—meaning:

  • They’re fully editable
  • They can be assigned multiple images without the previous first-image requirement

No more clunky workarounds—just smoother, faster contact management. 🙌

This change will also improve adding Contacts via the "Create Participant" button, as well as Contacts who add themselves to the Event via a Positive ID Event's Simple Check-In.

These kinds of Contacts will just show a silhouette for now, which we may adjust down the line!

That’s it for this week!

Stay tuned—because some very cool things are coming your way soon. 👀✨

Keep being amazing,

Candy 🍬

Weekly Recap: PhotoCoach Support, Acrylic Puzzles & More! 🧠🧩
Feature Updates
August 1, 2025

Weekly Recap: PhotoCoach Support, Acrylic Puzzles & More! 🧠🧩

4
 minutes read
Hey there, photo friends!

Candy here with some sweet new updates from your NowCandid™ Dashboard.

We've got a powerful new coaching tool, a fun new product to sell, and a bunch of workflow-boosting fixes to round it out.

Let’s dive in! ✨

🆕 New Feature: PhotoCoach

Introducing PhotoCoach—your new secret weapon for improving the quality of your photographers’ photos over time! 🧠📷

With PhotoCoach, you can:

  • • Review images from your Events and flag them with issues like "Acceptable," “Duplicate,” “Exposure Issue,” “Cropping Issue” and more (and make your own categories too!)
  • • Track photographer photo quality over time
  • • Send automatic feedback reports to your photographers with a breakdown of image counts & issue counts

It’s perfect for helping your team take more sellable images—leading to happier clients and stronger sales!

Find it now under Tools & More on your Dashboard and start coaching like a pro. 💪

Note: PhotoCoach is not new for CORE™ users (CORE™ is our sister-software at Candid Color Systems™), but it's new to NowCandid™! And it's had some feature improvements recently so it is now web-based! Woo!

It takes a little getting used to, but once you are, it's super easy and super fun!

🧩 NEW: 8×10 Acrylic-Backed Puzzle

Puzzle fans, rejoice! 🎉 You can now sell a 56-piece acrylic-backed 8×10 puzzle, complete with cute live-rendered previews on the retail site.

Why customers will love it:

  • Unique gift or keepsake
  • Durable acrylic & display-worthy

Even the little detahced pieces in the top right live-render, yay! - Theme: Liquorice

🔗 URL Filtering Just Got Smarter

Now when shoppers apply filters on the retail site, those filters update the URL automatically—making filtered views shareable with friends & family!

Not much more to say about this one, just a cool touch! :)

🛠️ Misc Tweaks & Fixes

A roundup of small but mighty changes:

  • 📥 Dynamic Personal Gallery Downloads can now be purchased by shoppers via Favorites!
    • A great addition for action sports—gives customers a “buy all” option that scales with the number of images selected, even when shopping from an All Gallery.
  • 🧑‍🤝‍🧑 Group-by-Face filter popup now shows only unique faces
    • Applies to new Events only—re-run Group-by-Face on past Events if needed!
  • 🗂 BGR Folders are editable again via the “Edit Folder” option
  • 🖼 Retail site now scrolls past the cover photo if a filter is selected from the initial popup
    • A smoother experience when arriving to an All Images gallery
  • 🧍‍♀️ Selfie Check-In button transforms post-Face Matching
    • It now becomes a second Retail Site button after expiration
  • 🧾 Invoice History tool now displays all past invoices, not just recent ones

That’s everything for this week! 💫

Whether you're giving photo feedback, selling puzzles, or just tidying up your workflow—we’ve got your back.

More soon!
Candy 🍬

Weekly Recap: Filters for Faces, Jerseys, and PhotoTags ✨
Feature Updates
July 25, 2025

Weekly Recap: Filters for Faces, Jerseys, and PhotoTags ✨

5
 minutes read
Candy here with your scoop on all the sweet new updates from this week! 🍬

Let’s get right into it...

📸 Big News: PhotoTags Now Work as a Filter!

PhotoTags just got a major glow-up! 🌟

Instead of being a separate tab, they’re now integrated directly into the Filters section on the All Images Gallery. That means they now play nicely alongside JerseyJotter™ and Group-by-Face!

Whether you're shopping for cheerleaders, bands, dancers, or any other tagged group—this change makes it smoother than ever to find just the photos you care about.

Did you know? NowCandid is headquartered in Oklahoma City! Thunder Up!

🧠 Big News: Group-by-Face is Now a Filter Too!

Group-by-Face fans rejoice! 🎭

Group-by-Face has been transformed into a Filter, too! Instead of whisking you away to a new page, selecting a face now just filters the All Images Gallery to show photos featuring that face. You can even browse faces via the Face filter menu.

And yes—it works with PhotoTags and JerseyJotter™, so you can filter for a specific face, a jersey number, AND a PhotoTag Group all at once. Woo!

Yup, it even got his blurry face over Cason Wallace's shoulder!

🧾 Big News: Invoice History in Profile Settings

Ever had an invoice go missing in your email inbox? We've got you covered!

You can now view and download past invoices directly from your Profile Settings page on the Web Dashboard. Whether you're keeping things tidy for tax season, tracking your account activity, or just trying to find that one receipt from a few months ago — this new Invoice History section gives you quick access to every invoice tied to your account.

No more digging through old emails. Just head to Settings → Profile → Invoice History and boom — organized, downloadable, and ready whenever you need it.

Another small quality-of-life boost to keep things running smoother behind the scenes. 🎟️✅

Accessible via Profile on the Web Dashboard.

⚙️ Other Notable Changes

🔍 “Looking for More?” Button + All Images Filter Popups

We’ve added a new “Looking for More?” button at the bottom of personal image galleries — perfect for subjects who didn’t find quite everything they were hoping for. If your Event has the All Images Gallery turned on, this button will guide shoppers over to that gallery for a broader look.

And with all the recent upgrades like PhotoTags™, Group-by-Face, JerseyJotter™, and improved gallery tools, we’re confident that the All Images view is more helpful and shoppable than ever before!

🎛️ Bonus: When filters are enabled for your Event, the All Images Tab and All Gallery URL will now open a popup that clearly explains what filtering options are available for that particular event — making discovery even easier for your customers.

Clicking any option will open up that Filter's popup as well!

🤳 “Is This the Face?” Popup

When someone takes or uploads a selfie for Selfie Check-In, we now ask them:

“Is this the face for which you want to find matching images?”

This simple question will reduce the number of parents who accidentally upload selfies of themselves instead of their child!

We'll keep trying to get parents to not upload their own selfies :)

📱 QR Code Download for All Images Gallery

New button alert! You can now easily download the All Images Gallery QR Code to share at events—perfect for action sports and other workflows that rely on promoting the All Images Gallery.

Accessible via "Retail Site" from an Event's Management page.

📦 Order Details Page Improvements

Want to know when an order was mailed out? You got it.

The Order Details page now shows the "mailed" timestamp when applicable, helping both photographers and customers stay informed.

Accessible via "Orders" from an Event's Management page.

🧰 Misc Fixes & Improvements

🧮 The JerseyJotter™' image counts when selecting Filters will now be affected by PhotoTag & Group-by-Face Filters as well

🫥 "Unassigned Images" count now excludes hidden/test images

💖 Favorites tab now works when picking images for multi-image products

🔒 GalleryGuard™ is all set for iOS26 — screenshot blocking stays strong

📴 Texting “NOPE” now unsubscribes users from all marketing campaigns

✨ New icon for AI-generated backgrounds — it’s clearer for those unfamiliar with the standard generative AI symbol

Did you know? We provide subjects with free AI background generation!

That’s it for this week!


As always, thanks for tagging along on all the improvements we’re rolling out to make your NowCandid experience smoother, smarter, and more fun 🎉

Cheers,
—Candy 💕

Let’s get in touch

If you’re a photographer looking to add NowCandid services to your wheelhouse – set up a call by clicking the button below.

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How to customize formatting for each rich text

How to customize formatting for each rich text

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