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Prom Night Profits: How to Rock Prom Photography in the Age of Smartphones

Prom Night Profits: How to Rock Prom Photography in the Age of Smartphones

Prom night is a rite of passage, filled with teenage dreams, extravagant dresses, and Insta-worthy moments. But as a photographer, you might be wondering if prom photography is still a profitable gig in the era of smartphones and selfies. Fear not, fellow camera enthusiasts! With a few clever strategies and the help of NowCandid's Party Pics Now program, you can turn prom night into a money-making opportunity. So, grab your camera and let's dive into the world of prom photography!

  1. Adapt and Thrive:
    The rise of smartphones has indeed changed the game, but savvy photographers can adapt by focusing on what they do best: capturing high-quality, professional images. Offer your clients a mix of posed pictures and candid shots, using the Selfie Check-In and Tap-A-Face workflows from NowCandid's Party Pics Now program to streamline the process and ensure a smooth experience for everyone involved.
  2. More Photographers, More Profit:
    Increase your revenue potential by sending multiple photographers to cover the event. Assign one to a dedicated photo station for portraits, while others roam the venue capturing quick posed photos of friends and group pictures. This approach ensures that you capture a wide variety of sellable frames, making the most of your time on-site.
  3. Create a Unique Photo Station:
    Make your photo station stand out by offering themed backdrops, fun props, and creative lighting. This will not only draw the prom-goers to your station but also encourage them to share their professional photos on social media, giving you free advertising and potentially attracting new clients.
  4. Network with Schools and Event Planners:
    Build relationships with schools, event planners, and other key stakeholders to secure more prom photography gigs. Offer special deals, referral incentives, or donate a portion of your profits to the school as a way to give back and establish a positive reputation in the community.
  5. Promote Your Services:
    Use social media, your website, and local advertising to promote your prom photography services. Share examples of your work, highlight special offers, and showcase testimonials from satisfied clients to build credibility and attract new business.
  6. Capture the Essence of Prom Night:
    Prom is a night of glitz, glamor, and teenage dreams come true. To create images that truly resonate, focus on capturing the energy, emotion, and excitement of the event. Channel your inner photographer and make every shot a visual feast that transports the viewer to a world of prom night magic.

Prom photography can still be a profitable venture for professional photographers willing to adapt and innovate. By combining the power of NowCandid's Party Pics Now program with smart strategies and a touch of creativity, you can turn prom night into a lucrative opportunity that'll have you dancing all the way to the bank. And hey, who knows? You might even get a chance to bust a move on the dance floor while you're at it – just remember to keep your camera handy, because you never know when that perfect shot will present itself. Happy shooting!

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Weekly Recap: Action Mode for Sports, Faster Package Ordering & Favorites Sign-In 📸⭐
Feature Updates
July 2, 2026

Weekly Recap: Action Mode for Sports, Faster Package Ordering & Favorites Sign-In 📸⭐

5
 minutes read
Hey photo friends! 👋

Candy here with a weekly recap—there’s a very exciting Capture App addition this week: Action Mode for Sports events! We’ve also got a few Dashboard and Check-In fixes to keep things moving smoothly.

Let’s take a look.

📱 Capture App 5.8: New Action Mode

Capture App 5.8 introduces a brand-new Action Mode shooting mode for Sports events.

🏷️ Automatically tag photos with PhotoTags while shooting

  • Action Mode lets you select a PhotoTag and automatically apply it to the photos you take, using a familiar PhotoTag selection flow similar to managing PhotoTags for group images.

🏈 Built for sports workflows

  • Action Mode appears for Sports events:
    • On Positive ID events, it shows up all the time
    • On Face Matching events, it shows up when the Event has PhotoTags

📸 Shoot freely in Positive ID

  • This also allows you to shoot freely in Positive ID events without first adding a participant—something that wasn’t previously possible.

👥 Not the same as Group Photos

  • Action Mode applies PhotoTags while shooting, but it does not mark images as group images.

🤖 Android RAW+JPEG reconnect improvement

  • Improved behavior on Android when shooting in RAW+JPEG while reconnecting the camera multiple times.

Why it’s helpful:

Action photographers can now organize images into PhotoTags while they shoot, making it much easier for subjects accessing the gallery live at the Event to browse the All Images Gallery to filter down to the right team, game, division, or group on the retail site when you are live-uploading your action shots.

This is especially useful when you’re promoting an All Images Gallery QR code at an event and sending subjects directly to retail. Combined with the new sign-in requirement for Favorites, subjects can save favorite images and access them later from any device—setting the stage for even more action-event workflow improvements in the future.

You can even utilize the new Auto Edit feature to potentially review and edit your action photos before they go live to the gallery with AI! Try out the beta "Improve Action Shot" node in Candy Image Studio on some test photos to see how it works for you.

🛍️ Retail Updates

📦 Packages now prefill with the selected image

  • When a shopper starts a package from an image, eligible package items will now auto-fill with that image. Customers can still change any product, but this makes ordering larger packages much faster.
  • Note: Group images won’t prefill non-group products, non-group images won’t prefill group products, downloads beyond the first won't prefill, and products requiring captions or multiple images won’t be prefilled.

🧩 Package editor UI refreshed

  • Configured products now show a clearer Change Image button, and product names + image controls are grouped together to reduce confusion.

🛒 Packages now have a landing screen

  • Packages now open with an overview of what’s included before the shopper continues into the editor.

Sign-in required for Favorites

  • Shoppers now sign in before adding Favorites, which lets their Favorites sync across devices when they use the same account.

🖼️ Dynamic Gallery additions fixed

  • User-added Dynamic Gallery images now persist correctly after refresh and appear properly in Dynamic Gallery purchases.

🛡️ GalleryGuard improvements

  • Additional GalleryGuard improvements were made to help protect retail images.

😊 Face Finder visibility fixes

  • The Show Face Match Groups Offer setting now hides the Face Finder filter as expected, including when Zoom Cropping is enabled.

🖥️ Dashboard Improvements

PhotoRoster pages are faster

  • All PhotoRoster pages should feel a little quicker.

🚫 Clearer upload error for invalid XMP metadata

  • The Upload Images page now shows “Invalid Metadata (XMP)” for a rare export issue that can happen with some Adobe workflows.

🎨 Image Converter Display P3 fix

  • The Image Converter Tool now correctly converts Display P3 images to sRGB when Convert to sRGB is enabled.

🤳 Check-In Website Fix

🏷️ Team/group selection false error fixed

  • Fixed an issue where selecting a team or group could incorrectly show an error saying the selfie failed to upload.

That’s the update for this week!

Action Mode is the big highlight—especially for sports photographers who want instant PhotoTag organization while shooting.

Keep creating magic,

Candy 🍬

Weekly Recap: Faster Virtual Group Creation, New Candy Image Studio Tools & Capture App 5.7 Updates ✨📸
Feature Updates
June 26, 2026

Weekly Recap: Faster Virtual Group Creation, New Candy Image Studio Tools & Capture App 5.7 Updates ✨📸

5
 minutes read
Hey photo friends! 👋

Candy here with another weekly recap! This week brings some great upgrades to Virtual Group Builder, new Candy Image Studio tools, better Docs search, and a solid Capture App update with helpful color profile and PhotoTag improvements.

Let’s take a look!

🧑‍🤝‍🧑 Virtual Group Builder Improvements

Virtual Group Builder got a nice set of workflow upgrades this week:

🏷️ Create Virtual Groups directly from PhotoTags

  • On the PhotoTags page, click Create under the VGroup column to automatically start a new Virtual Group using participants from that PhotoTag. You’ll also get a popup asking whether to use each participant’s first or last cutout.

🚀 Save works-in-progress with placeholders

  • You can now save changes to a Virtual Group even if some subjects still have spaceman placeholders.
  • All subjects still need a selected photo before uploading the finished Virtual Group to the Event.

🖼️ Overlay uploads can now be named

  • When uploading overlays, you can name them so they’re easier to search and find later.

🔤 More control over subject name styling

  • Title Case is now only applied on import, meaning you can use the subject inspector to customize name casing afterward.

📐 New text display option

  • There’s a new Display setting to disable justified text.

🌫️ Bottom Vignette improvements

  • Bottom Vignette rendering has been reworked for better results.

🔎 More flexible scaling

  • Max global scale is now 200%.

🎨 Candy Image Studio: New Editing Nodes

Candy Image Studio has two new tools to help clean up common image issues:

👔 Dewrinkle Clothes

  • Helps smooth distracting clothing wrinkles while keeping the image natural.

🖼️ Restore Old Photo

  • A new restoration-style node for improving older or damaged images.

📱 Capture App 5.7 Updates

App Store update released Monday, June 22

Capture App 5.7 includes some meaningful workflow and compatibility improvements:

🎨 Automatic sRGB conversion

  • If an image is detected as non-sRGB, the app will now try to automatically convert it to sRGB. If it can’t, you’ll still get the existing invalid color profile warning.
  • This can be especially useful for black-and-white shooting modes that output a different color profile. That said, we still recommend shooting in sRGB whenever possible, since conversion can cause some color loss and may use extra battery during long sessions.

🧾 User Comment shown in EXIF details

  • The image gallery details popup now shows EXIF User Comment data, including whether an image was auto-converted to sRGB.

✂️ BGR visibility sync

  • Visibility changes in BGR folders now affect the cutout too. Mark the original hidden, and the cutout will hide; mark it visible again, and the cutout becomes visible as well.

🏢 Business logo support

  • Your business/profile logo now appears in the Capture App header when available, and can replace Candy in Photo Booth.

⚙️ Contact collection settings moved

  • Number, email, and name collection settings now live on the Event Overview instead of the Event login sheet, so you don’t need to re-log to change them.

🏷️ Event picker shows PhotoTag attribute

  • If an Event has PhotoTags, the Event picker now makes that easier to spot.

📱 Android UI fixes

  • Fixed several label cutoff issues for Android users with Bold Text enabled.

🔁 Restore Session fix

  • PhotoTags now load properly when an Event is opened through Restore Session.

🎨 Adobe RGB handling fixed on Android

  • Android devices will no longer incorrectly accept Adobe RGB images from cameras.

🍎 iOS 27 support tested

  • iOS 27 has been tested, and no issues were found. The app also respects the latest Liquid Glass device settings.
  • If you update your device to a beta version of iOS 27, let us know if you experience issues!

🏷️ Collect PhotoTags during check-in

  • Participants can now select their own PhotoTag, such as team name, before entering contact information. This option appears when the Event has PhotoTags.
  • We added this primarily to assist photographers in easily tagging late additions not on a roster that show up to a photoshoot, but there will be additional features for action photography in next week's update!

📱 Capture App 5.7.1

OTA update released Friday, June 26

🛠️ Miscellaneous UI fixes

  • A small OTA update with additional interface polish and cleanup.

🖥️ Dashboard Improvements

🔎 Docs Search is here

  • Click Search on the Docs page to search NowCandid documentation, with Candy navigation agent support.

📂 PhotoRoster image name cleanup

  • PhotoRoster data file uploads and image uploads now automatically remove spaces and certain special characters from image names.

🖼️ Full-frame overlay previews are downloadable

  • In the Image Overlay Editor, full-frame example render previews can now be downloaded just like banner previews.

🛍️ Retail Update

🪟 Better desktop popup behavior

  • On desktop, retail popups now automatically become scrollable if the popup is taller than the viewport height, matching Dashboard behavior.

📣 Marketing Fix

✉️ Email campaigns fixed for email-only PhotoRoster participants

  • Fixed an edge case where email-only PhotoRoster participants were not having their email campaigns start.

That’s the week!

From faster Virtual Group setup to better PhotoTag collection in the Capture App, these changes should help make your Event workflows more flexible and easier to manage.

Keep creating magic,

Candy 🍬

Weekly Recap: Auto Headsize for Virtual Groups, New BGR Report, HEIC Conversion & More
Feature Updates
June 19, 2026

Weekly Recap: Auto Headsize for Virtual Groups, New BGR Report, HEIC Conversion & More

5
 minutes read

This week’s updates include some helpful improvements across Virtual Group Builder, reporting, image conversion, participant management, and folder downloads.

The biggest highlight is a new Auto Headsize option in Virtual Group Builder, designed to give you a much better starting point when building virtual groups. We also added a new BGR Report to help you see which backgrounds are being ordered most, plus a few quality-of-life improvements throughout the Dashboard.

Let’s take a look!

🧑‍🤝‍🧑 Virtual Group Builder Improvements

✨ New Auto Headsize button

Virtual Group Builder now has a new Auto Headsize button.

This feature automatically detects faces and adjusts the scale and vertical offset of all cutouts so that subjects have roughly the same head size and are closer to eye level.

That means when you’re building a virtual group, you should have a much better starting point before making your final manual adjustments.

🏷️ Improved PhotoTag import behavior

We improved the behavior when importing a PhotoTag into Virtual Group Builder, helping that workflow feel smoother when adding subjects from a specific PhotoTag.

🚀 Upload fix for new from-scratch Virtual Groups

Fixed an issue where uploads were not uploading properly when working from /new on a from-scratch Virtual Group instead of an existing one.

👥 Smarter default subject behavior

Virtual Group Builder now skips the initial “add to group or replace group” popup when the only subjects in the group are the default 8 subjects.

🖼️ Bottom logo spacing improved

Bottom logos are now spaced the same distance from the bottom as top logos are from the top.

📊 Reporting Updates

📈 Events and Sales Report tables now have sortable columns

The Events Report and Sales Report tables now support sortable columns, making it easier to review and organize report data directly in the table.

🎨 New BGR Report

There is now a new BGR Report that shows the most ordered backgrounds for BGR images.

The report shows:

  • How many orders a background has
  • How many items a background has

Important note: if you upload the same background to multiple Events, those will show up as different backgrounds in the report. To avoid that, use the background import feature.

🖼️ Image Converter Update

📱 HEIC conversion is now supported

The Image Convert page at tools/convert now supports converting from HEIC files.

This should be helpful when working with images from devices that commonly save in HEIC format.

👥 Participant List Update

🏷️ Set PhotoTags for selected participants

On the Participant List page, the selected participants popup now includes a new option to set PhotoTags for those selected participants.

This gives you another way to update participant organization in bulk.

📂 Manage Images Update

⬇️ Download Folder improvements

The Download Folder feature on the Manage Images page now includes an X/X counter while downloading.

We also improved the behavior when downloading a folder with hundreds of images, which should make larger folder downloads clearer and more manageable.

That’s the week!

This week’s updates should make several everyday workflows smoother: Virtual Group Builder now has a stronger starting point with Auto Headsize, BGR background performance is easier to review, HEIC files are easier to convert, participant PhotoTags are easier to update, and large folder downloads are clearer.

Keep creating magic,
Candy 🍬

Let’s get in touch

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How to customize formatting for each rich text

How to customize formatting for each rich text

How to customize formatting for each rich text

How to customize formatting for each rich text

How to customize formatting for each rich text
How to customize formatting for each rich text

What’s a Rich Text element?

The rich text element allows you to create and format headings, paragraphs, blockquotes, images, and video all in one place instead of having to add and format them individually. Just double-click and easily create content.

A rich text element can be used with static or dynamic content. For static content, just drop it into any page and begin editing. For dynamic content, add a rich text field to any collection and then connect a rich text element to that field in the settings panel. Voila!

Headings, paragraphs, blockquotes, figures, images, and figure captions can all be styled after a class is added to the rich text element using the "When inside of" nested selector system.

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