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Weekly Recap: Candy Culler Upgrades & Miscellaneous Tweaks 🍬✨

Weekly Recap: Candy Culler Upgrades & Miscellaneous Tweaks 🍬✨
Hey photo friends! 👋


This week was all about making renders look right, downloads behave better, and Dashboard tools feel faster (with a few Capture App and LiveLoop™ polish wins sprinkled in).

Here’s what’s new:

🛍️ Retail Site

🌀 2D render support for Premium Print & Premium Plaque

  • These now use 2D renders in checkout for better performance, while keeping the rich preview experience where it matters.

🆓 Free download product ordering improved (Quic-Events)

  • Free Download now always appears first
  • Free Gallery Download will always appear second (if available)

📝 Clearer Free Gallery Download description

  • It now correctly says full-resolution (when it’s not the “Medium Res Gallery Download”).

📦 Web Receipt Download Page

🖼️ Preview fit fixed

  • Images now fit completely in the preview, so artwork (like bottom/banner elements) won’t look “missing” behind buttons.

🔄 Smarter auto-refresh while processing

  • If the lab is still preparing downloads, the page will automatically refresh status updates in the background so customers don’t have to babysit it.

🖥️ Dashboard

📄 Participant download spreadsheet improvements

  • Fixed the images column always showing “…” at the end
  • “Ref Image” column renamed to RefImageName (matches PhotoRoster sheets)
  • Address columns are included when applicable (only if at least one participant has a check-in address)

🗂️ Cleaner downloaded filenames

  • Downloaded images no longer get Full_Res_ or Full_Res_W_Banner appended to the filename.

🧾 PhotoRoster Data Upload cleanup

  • Folder names are now removed from RefImageName automatically (e.g., 1/DSC_4143DSC_4143).

Faster reports

  • Many reports (including the overview report) should load quicker.

🍬 Candy Culler (Our New AI Culling Tool)

🍬 Candy Culler added to Command Palette

  • You can now launch it from CTRL+K / CMD+K while on an Event Details page.

📊 Candy Culler progress bar + auto-updating status

  • New X/Y processed progress display, with automatic refresh until everything is done.

🧠 Candy Culler quality fixes & polish

  • BGR folders won’t be culled before a PNG actually exists
  • Images sort by image name (A→Z)
  • Improved mobile UI

🌀 LiveLoop™

🖼️ Better full-frame and banner rendering (pixel-perfect)

🧵 Banner/full-frame art now uses full resolution (no longer medium)

🍏 Background blur re-enabled on Apple devices

📱 Capture App iOS 4.22.4 (OTA Jan 12)

More native-feeling navigation transitions

📞 Phone field keypad behavior fixed (no unexpected iOS keypad when manually tapping)

🧷 Gallery strip stays where you were

  • When marking images visible/hidden or group/not group, the strip no longer jumps back to the start.

🧼 Misc Fixes & Cleanup

🧩 Render Preview page fixes (quic.pics/render)

  • Several products that weren’t downloading renders correctly should now behave as expected.

🧲 Cutout Magnets + Statuettes now supported on the preview page

  • Render previews/downloads are enabled for these products (note: they’ll only look correct if the selected image is a cutout).

🖨️ Premium Print & Premium Plaque render downloads enabled

  • You can now download renders for 8×10 Premium Print and Premium Plaque from the preview page too.

🔤 Input cleanup for non-English-standard characters

  • Certain fancy/unsupported characters are auto-converted to standard English characters to prevent weird issues in names, sign-in fields, business info, etc.

That’s the week!

Lots of “little” changes that add up to cleaner previews, clearer downloads, and faster tools where you use them most.

Keep creating magic,

Candy 🍬

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How Bruce H. Used GradPics Now to Increase Sales

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Bruce Heflin utilized Now Candid’s Grad Pics Now, with Selfie Check-In at a recent graduation, so far racking up roughly $2600 in total sales in less than two weeks.

Heflin had covered this Nursing College’s graduation in previous years, generating roughly $200 in sales each year. The sales had been so dismal the administrator would provide gas money to keep Bruce coming back. This year was a different story, Heflin has managed to increase his sales by roughly 1200% with the help of Grad Pics Now’s Selfie Check-In Workflow & automated marketing campaigns.

Here's How He Did It:

1. Used Selfie Check-In to collect correct & current contact data

2. Sent automated marketing messages during the event

3. Bruce had about $200 in sales by the time he reached home an hour or so after the event (he didn't have to go back to the office!)

4. He used a mix of GPN Price Levels 1 & 3

5. He had a total profit margin of roughly 75% across the College’s ceremonies after accounting for the 85% margin for digital downloads.

6. We’re excited to see people discovering the effectiveness of Now Candid’s systems in action when executed properly with quality photography!

We recently caught up with Bruce to get a better idea of how he started incorporating Now Candid's tools into his existing photography business. Watch the video below to hear from Bruce.

Drive Sales Using Party Pics Now
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Drive Sales Using Party Pics Now

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“We had a very successful Father/Daughter dance. The assistant principal was shocked at how organized and fast the pictures were this year. She also said that she didn't think dads would buy photos online. I told her that with my system, they will (this was our first year covering this event). Last year, dads had to pay with a paper order form, and many of them left the dance without taking photos because the line was so long. This year, we used Now Candid’s Party Pics Now, with Tap-A-Face. And when dads entered a phone number, we asked them to put mom's cell phone number in.” - Eric Miller

(screenshot of the event report taken before $2,100 was reached)
  • In one week, this event has done over $2,100 in sales and has ~$13.65 in sales per father’s face tapped.
  • Father/Daughter pairs were shot with a sparkling golden backdrop for most photos.
  • Price Level 11 (the most expensive PPN price level) was used for this event. Accounting for the 85% margin digital downloads and Price Level 11's 80% margin on physical products: Miller’s total profit margin was 82% of all sales and shipping.
  • No additional fees, charges, or unexpected costs makes for easy and instant accounting, and funds were deposited to his account within the week

Overall, this event was a homerun for MillerFoto and a great example of how effective Now Candid’s systems can be when you shoot quality photography and book quality events.

Thanks for sharing, Eric!

NowCandid's Microsoft App: Out Now!
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March 9, 2022

NowCandid's Microsoft App: Out Now!

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New features you'll find in the app:

  • Supports several new Nikon and Canon models that the previous NOW Candid app did not
  • Customizable App Passcode - ensures you are uploading directly to events in your account & is protected from other user's image uploads
  • New modern design for ease of use
  • More event information now available right from the tablet when logged in
  • Choose between dark or light mode (dark mode looks pretty slick! Try it out!)
  • Added button in settings that instantly pulls up the image hot folder
  • Easier installation and less issues with Window Defender
  • Smarter log out protocols (warnings if all images have not been uploaded)
  • "Upload from SD card" to manually add all images from an SD card to an event.
  • Useful if a camera was not connected to a tablet when images were shot, this provides another way to manually upload
  • OR if you had a second photographer on site without a tablet, they could upload their images through a tablet/laptop before leaving the event

How to uninstall the previous version of the app:

If you have previous versions of the Party Pics® Now app or Now Candid app installed on your device, you will want to uninstall them. Make sure all data and images from any previous events have been transferred prior to uninstalling.

1. Navigate to "Add or remove programs"

2. Search for NowCandid to uninstall

    a. This can be done for "Party Pics Now" or SNAP as well

How to install the new version of the NowCandid app:

You can install the new app by going directly to the Microsoft App Store using this direct link: www.microsoft.com/store/apps. Alternatively,  you can find a link to the store on NowCandid.com/download (must be logged into account to access this page).

How to find your App Passcode to log in on the new tablet:

1. Log in to your account on NowCandid.com

2. Click on App Settings

3. Find or change your App Passcode

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

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

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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.

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