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School’s Out, Earnings In: A Teacher's GradPics Now Success

School’s Out, Earnings In: A Teacher's GradPics Now Success
Time for another success story!

For years, graduation photography has played a crucial role in capturing the pivotal moments of grads. Not only are these professional photos treasured keepsakes, but they also present substantial income opportunities for photographers.

Consider the story of Eric, a high school photography teacher and small business owner. Eric ventured into a graduation event with NowCandid's platform, intending to photograph around 500 graduates. He had modest expectations, aiming to generate about $1,200 in sales. What unfolded next, however, far exceeded even his most optimistic projections.

In his very first event using NowCandid, the earnings soared past expectations!

Almost reaching an astounding $12,000 within only seven days after the event. Such a windfall was not only a personal victory for the teacher but also a testament to NowCandid's potential to transform event photography. So far (as of publishing this article), the event has reached well over $15,000. A far cry from his initially predicted $1,200.

 

Sharing his success in an email to his onboarding trainer, Darwin Drake, the photography teacher expressed his profound amazement and gratitude. "I am at $6,700 earned and counting. I am beyond speechless. I'm gobsmacked. I'm overjoyed. I am stunned." (And that reaction was before it hit $12,000 days later!)

 

A friends & family photo taken after the ceremony by Eric & his photographers.

But the triumph of this story goes beyond the impressive earnings.

As a teacher, Eric was able to bring his students onboard, teaching them practical skills while also providing them with paid experience. "I hired 4 of my current and former photography students for this event," he wrote, "and as a teacher and small business owner I am so profoundly thankful to be able to teach them and pay them."

 

Eric and some students in Berlin at a graffiti workshop just days after their successful graduation ceremony.

This story highlights the remarkable opportunities that NowCandid can bring to photographers and entrepreneurs.

Whether you're a professional photographer seeking to maximize your earnings, a teacher nurturing the next generation of photographers, or a business owner eager to expand your reach, NowCandid can provide the platform and tools you need to achieve your goals.

In event photography, moments become memories, and for a photographer: memories are opportunities!

Eric's experience shows, that with the right tools and workflow, it is more possible (and easier!) than ever before to monetize your photography in a big way.

Enjoy some more photos taken by Eric & his photographers below!

NowCandid Event Settings & Numbers Breakdown

Program: GradPics Now

Workflow: Selfie Check-In

Price Level: Price Level 8

Title Option: Simple Text Title

Staff: 4 Photographers (doing some Selfie Check-In work as well) and 1 Dedicated Selfie Check-In Attendant

Participants: 500+ Participants via Selfie Check-In

Total Images Taken: 1944

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Weekly Recap: Auto Editor (Beta), Pay Later Badges, and Faster Manage Images
Feature Updates
April 24, 2026

Weekly Recap: Auto Editor (Beta), Pay Later Badges, and Faster Manage Images

5
 minutes read

Hey photo friends! 👋
This week’s updates bring a mix of AI editing power, cleaner review tools, and a small boost to retail conversion clarity—plus a helpful Android Capture App fix.

Let’s jump in. 💫

🧠 Auto Editor (BETA)— AI Edit an Entire Event or Folder

We’re rolling out an Auto Editor (Beta) that can automatically AI-edit:

  • • All images in an event, or
  • • All images in a specific folder

Auto Editor is powered by Candy Image Studio (same nodes, same pricing), and edited images keep their existing matches—just like when you run Candy Image Studio on an event image.

Important notes:

  • • You are billed per image edit.
  • • This is a BETA feature—we recommend testing on yourself (or doing one-offs in Candy Image Studio) before relying on it for a real event.
  • • Auto Editor can run up to 60 days after the event start date, similar to other event workflows.

Common use cases

  • • Light face retouching
  • • Fix subject lighting
  • • Reduce glare on glasses
  • • Remove alcohol
  • • Add green screens

Fun use cases

  • • Automatic glamour looks
  • • Anime style
  • • Chibi style
  • • Anything you can build with a custom text node

Where to find it

  • • On an Event page in the Dashboard sidebar, near JerseyJotter and Candy Culler
  • • The folder selector will show whether you’re running an Event Edit or a Folder Edit
  • • The Event List will show an Auto Editor attribute for events that used it (and includes an Auto Editor filter)
  • • EMP also shows the Auto Editor attribute on its event list page

🎨 Candy Image Editor + Manage Images Improvements

A few upgrades landed that make AI editing and review smoother:

  • • New node: Alcohol Remover is now available in Candy Image Editor.
  • • Replace uploaded images more easily (non-event images): you can drag a new image onto the one you already uploaded to replace it, instead of starting over.
  • • New “Preview Original” option on Manage Images lightbox for AI-edited images uploaded from Candy Image Studio
    • • You can also toggle this view using \.
  • • Manage Images search is faster (image searching performance improved).
New Alcohol Remover Node

Preview Original Image Option

📣 Client Outreach: URL No Longer Required for Texts

Client Outreach texts no longer require a URL, but the system will show a warning if you try to send one without a link.

One important reminder: the number Client Outreach texts send from is different than the number used for automated event marketing—so recipients may not have any message history for context when they receive it.

🏷️ PhotoTags Page: Clearer Counts

The Event PhotoTags page now shows Contacts and Participants as separate columns for better clarity.

🛍️ Retail: Pay Later Badges (more visible financing options)

Retail now shows Apple Pay Later and PayPal Pay Later badges on the store sheet for items $30 or more.

A few notes:

  • • Pay Later options have always been available—this change just makes them more obvious to customers.
  • • This UI may be temporary and could be removed at any time.

Reminders on existing Pay Later availability:

  • • Klarna & Affirm are available through Apple Pay for orders $35+
  • • Some credit cards offer Pay Later through Apple Pay (eligibility varies)
  • • Klarna, Affirm, and Zip are available through Google Pay for orders $35+
  • • PayPal Pay Later (Pay in 4) is available for $30+
  • • PayPal Pay Later (Pay Monthly) is available for $49+

🤖 Android Capture App 5.5: Duplicate Image Fix

The Capture App on Android (v5.5, Google Play) now fixes an issue where some cameras were sending duplicate images to the app.

That’s the week! 💫

Between the new Auto Editor (Beta), smoother “preview original” review flows, and clearer Pay Later messaging on retail, this update is all about saving time and helping customers convert with less friction.

Keep creating magic,
— The NowCandid Team 🍬

Weekly Recap: Profile Logos, Faster Packages, and a Revamped Event Management Portal
Feature Updates
April 17, 2026

Weekly Recap: Profile Logos, Faster Packages, and a Revamped Event Management Portal

5
 minutes read

Hey photo friends! 👋

This week’s updates are all about cleaner branding, smoother selling, and better visibility across your workflows—from a new profile/business logo system to big package configurator performance improvements, plus a long-awaited refresh of the Event Management Portal (EMP) ahead of grad season.

Let’s jump in. 💫

🖥️ Dashboard Updates

📣 Client Outreach: Texts now require a URL

Client Outreach SMS messages now require a URL to be included—helping ensure every text has a clear destination and call-to-action.

🧾 Reports: “Participants” terminology restored for accuracy

The Events Report, Compare Report, and Faces Report now use Participants instead of Contacts.
Reminder: a Contact is someone with info; a Participant is a contact with at least one image in their gallery. This avoids deflating stats with unmarketable contacts.

🧰 Candy Culler usability win

  • Added a Download Image button to the Image Details lightbox on the Candy Culler page.

🖼️ Better controls in Participant lightboxes

  • Added a visibility toggle to the Image Details lightbox on the Participant Details page.

🔍 New Event List filters

The Event List page now includes quick filters for:

  • Background Removal events
  • JerseyJotter events
  • Candy Culler events

🖼️ Offer background minimum lowered

You can now set your Offer background selection minimum to 5 (previously 20).

🚚 New flat-rate shipping option

Added $2.50 flat-rate shipping as an available shipping option.

📱 Mobile Dashboard

  • Fixed an issue where Friday weekly sales notifications were not sending.

🏷️ New: Profile / Business Logos (Branding Upgrade)

You can now assign a business/profile logo—upload to your profile icon on the dashboard as a 650×650 image and automatically cropped to a circle.

Where it appears:

  • Dashboard profile page + navigation
  • Retail contact popup above your business name
  • Receipt emails, web receipt preview, and the web receipt download page
  • Event Management Portal (EMP) header beside your business name
  • Private Image Download Gallery (PIDG) header
  • Public Event Tag List page header

More placements are planned in the future—this is the first step toward a more consistent, professional brand presence everywhere your customers interact with you.

🏷️ Event Tag List Page

  • Improved UI for a cleaner, easier experience.

🔒 Private Image Download Gallery (PIDG)

  • Improved UI
  • Added a note to the landing popup regarding released images

🛍️ Retail Improvements (Big Week for Packages + Rendering)

🖼️ Captions render earlier for key products

Graduation Plaque and Titled Luxe Prints now render custom captions earlier in the process, rather than waiting until the captions step.

📦 Package configurator upgrades

The package configurator received several improvements:

  • Added pagination to the All Gallery tab in the “Next Package Item Image Picker” step
  • Added a “Discard package progress?” popup when backing out after configuring at least one item to prevent accidental loss of progress
  • Fixed an edge-case crash on mobile when configuring large packages in offers with 3D items
  • Overall package configurating is now much more performant

🧩 Z-Crop improvements

Several improvements were made to ZCrop images to improve behavior and consistency.

🏷️ Group photo refresh fix

Fixed user-added dynamic gallery group photos showing as not group after refresh.

🎨 Background order consistency

Custom offer background order now matches the order in the offer details editor—drag and drop reordering on the dashboard offer editor.

📸 Capture App (iOS & Android OTA): 5.4.3 + 5.4.4

  • 5.4.3: Fixed a crash when toggling a Group Photo without any service
  • 5.4.4: Fixed a keypad popup issue on very large screens (like 13” iPad) where opt-in/cancel buttons were being cropped out

🧾 Event Management Portal (EMP) — Major Refresh (quic.pics/portal)

Quick reminder: the Event Management Portal (EMP) is a mini-dashboard on quic.pics that uses the Capture App login—so you can do “dashboard-like” tasks without downloading an app or using a full account login. It hasn’t been talked about much lately, but this week it got a big refresh in preparation for grad season.

What’s new:

  • Improved security
  • Tons of UI changes and a new dark-only theme
  • Event list page now includes a search bar
  • Event list page updated to “Live on Capture App” (instead of “Active”)
  • Event list page shows attributes like the main Dashboard + adds an Event Number column
  • Header now shows business name and logo
  • Fixed a crash on the Marketing History page
  • Added text/email filter on Marketing History
  • Images now use lightboxes with arrow key navigation
  • Participant Details now shows Additional Contacts
  • Participant Details now shows Invisible images

That’s the week! 💫

Between profile/business logos, a smoother package configurator, better report accuracy, and the EMP glow-up for grad season, this update should help you move faster, look more professional, and reduce friction across the whole customer experience.

Keep creating magic,
— The NowCandid Team 🍬

Weekly Recap: Titled Luxe Prints, Zoom Cropping, and Candy Image Studio “From Scratch”
Feature Updates
April 10, 2026

Weekly Recap: Titled Luxe Prints, Zoom Cropping, and Candy Image Studio “From Scratch”

5
 minutes read
Hey photo friends! 👋

This week’s updates are a fun mix of new products, new visual workflows, and small-but-important fixes that make day-to-day work smoother—especially across Candy Image Studio, retail packages, and PhotoRoster/PhotoTag downloads.

Let’s jump in. ✨

📣 Dashboard: Client Outreach + Workflow Quality-of-Life

Client Outreach email history is easier to use and more reliable:

  • Added a “View” button in Client Outreach email history so you can open the sent email in a new tab (similar to how order receipts work).
  • Fixed an issue where email status didn’t always show for all emails in the status list.

More clarity when reviewing participant galleries:

  • The Participant Details page now shows invisible images, clearly marked in red with an “Invisible” label—so you can understand what’s hidden without guessing.

PhotoTag participant gallery downloads got safer:

  • Fixed PhotoTag participant gallery downloads overwriting images when multiple files shared the same frame.
  • Fixed the download count displayed on the download button being off.

🎨 Candy Image Studio: Create Without an Input + A New Node

Candy Image Studio has two notable upgrades this week:

🧠 No input image required (generate from scratch!)
Candy Image Studio no longer requires an input image to get started. You can generate from scratch using the “From Scratch” node (at the very bottom), or by starting from custom text or a custom image—great for things like creating portrait backgrounds or creative assets.

🆕 New “Bobblehead” node
A brand-new Bobblehead node is now available inside Candy Image Studio.

Disclaimer: This is not a new product. This is an image node in the Candy Image Studio.

🏈 Jersey Jotter + Event Settings Cleanup

Jersey Jotter settings were removed from the Create/Edit Event popup.
Since Jersey Jotter now has its own dedicated page, we pulled those settings out of the event popups to keep Create Event as minimal (and fast) as possible—and keep Edit Event aligned with Create.

New: “Auto Enhance” can be turned off in Create/Edit Event.
Important clarity here:

  • Auto Enhance isn’t new — it has always been enabled by default.
  • What’s new is the ability to turn it off from the Create/Edit Event popup.
  • It’s labeled “Auto Enhance” (not “Retail Enhancement”) because it affects more than retail, including things like LiveLoop, Dashboard previews, Shareable Download Gallery, and more.
  • Note: this setting only impacts images uploaded after you change it. (So anything already uploaded keeps whatever enhancement state it had at upload time.)

🛍️ Retail: Package Backgrounds + Fixes

A few retail improvements landed to reduce confusing edge cases:

  • When selecting a PNG (without a faux background render) during the “Next Package Item Image Picker” step, the chosen background will now default to the first background in the background picker list (instead of the purple default).
  • Fixed an issue where the background selector step didn’t always appear for non-faux BGR images.
  • Fixed a crash related to having Wall Clings in packages.
  • Updated the Free Download description to: “Free simple, full-resolution download of your image.” (Previously it implied lower resolution.)

🔍 NEW: Zoom Cropping “Z-Cropping” (Dashboard + Retail)

In Advanced Offer Settings, you can now enable Zoom Cropping, which automatically adds an additional image into the customer’s gallery that is zoom-cropped toward their face.

Details & rules:

  • ✅ Works on Face Matching Events
  • ✅ Works only on images with one face
  • ✅ All default graduation offers/price levels now have Zoom Cropping enabled
  • Behind the scenes, it applies a ~30% zoom toward the face, with an additional ~30% pull from the center of the image toward the face (clamped to avoid cropping beyond image bounds)

This is a great “quiet upgrade” for grads and portrait-style moments where customers love a tighter crop—without you needing to manually create it.

🖼️ New Products: Titled Luxe Prints (Dashboard + Retail)

Two new products just landed:

  • 5×7 Titled Luxe Print
  • 8×10 Titled Luxe Print

Want to see the 3D preview?
https://app.nowcandid.com/3d/titled-luxe-print

New: “Edit Titled Luxe Print” Page (per event)
There’s a new event-level page available in the Dashboard sidebar only if one of the new titled products is included in the event’s offer. From there, you can:

  • Set default captions
  • Select left/right logos
  • Preview the 3D render
  • (Easter egg: rotate the render and you can spot your business name on the backprinting.)

Notes:

  • Default captions and logos are optional
  • Retail shoppers can change captions when ordering
  • Logo requirements: upload/import a 650×650 transparent PNG
  • Retail supports both 2D + 3D renders, including your custom logos
  • Order Details pages now display the selected logos, similar to how we show captions and colors

That’s the week! 💫

Between Zoom Cropping, Titled Luxe Prints, and Candy Image Studio’s new From Scratch flow (plus a pile of cleanup across retail + downloads), this update adds a lot of power without adding extra complexity.

Keep creating magic,
— 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.

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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This is a link

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