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Weekly Recap: Express Checkout Confirmations, Capture App Speed Testing, and a New Lightroom Classic Plugin

Weekly Recap: Express Checkout Confirmations, Capture App Speed Testing, and a New Lightroom Classic Plugin
Hey photo friends! 👋


This week’s updates are all about clearer customer actions, smoother retail performance, and new tools that speed up upload workflows. Plus, a strong round of Capture App polish (iOS & Android OTA) and some important Dashboard + Marketing fixes.

Let’s jump in. ✨

🛍️ Retail: Fewer Mis-clicks, Better Previews, Faster Feel

✅ Express Checkout confirmation (all express checkouts)

All express checkout flows now show a confirmation popup that clearly displays the shipping address selected, with options to place the order or go back. It also includes an invalid address popup.

Previously, people would sometimes purchase without double checking their express-checkout-method's default shipping address. So, this change is designed to reduce address mistakes and improve customer experience!

Confirmation popup now clearly displays shipping address confirmation.

🧠 Better UI + performance improvements

  • Improved local rendering (performance, memory usage, and task handling) — originally aimed to improve the retail experience on low-end devices, but it should make most devices feel faster!

  • Native “leave page” confirmation on supported browsers/devices (desktop + Samsung back button) when navigating away from an event page (refresh/back).

Leave page confirmation

🖼️ Clearer package download expectations + better pickers

  • Personal Gallery Downloads on store sheet and package editor now show “+X Images” in the configurator when there are more than 4 images—so customers don’t think they only get what’s previewed.

Personal Gallery Download "+X Images"

    • Personal Gallery Download products inside packages can now be clicked to preview contents.

    • Desktop product/package image pickers are now two columns (like mobile), allowing larger image preview during selection.

    Larger two column image previews

      • Image Filters landing popup now includes “Browse all photos without a filter” so customers who think they must pick a filter know they can also just browse!

      Image Filters landing popup

      🧩 Retail fixes worth noting

      • Fixed a slashed discount amount showing on week 3 when there is no higher amount.
      • Fixed a GalleryGuard edge case that could close the retail site on some Android devices that support mobile context menus when long-pressing.
      • Fixed a race condition where a Group-by-Face gallery loaded from URL params could show default results instead of the filtered view.
      • Fixed an edge case where manually assigned images marked as group could behave like non-group images on retail.

      📱 Capture App OTA: 5.6.1 & 5.6.2 (iOS & Android)

      🌐 NEW: Network Speed Test (5.6.1)

      A new Network Speed Test button is available in Resources. Tap Run Test to check download speed, upload speed, and latency to NowCandid servers (so results may differ from Google/Ookla). It’s a quick test (downloads 5 MB, uploads 2 MB) and is useful for diagnosing weak or congested service during events.

      Mbps is a standard measurement for connection speeds, and 1 megabit per second (Mbps) is 0.125 Megabytes per second (MB/s). So 8 Mbps is 1 Megabyte per second, max. For example, with images that are 10 Megabytes in size, a speed of 8 Mbps would take a minimum of 10 seconds to upload. When speeds are very slow, image uploads may be impossible due to uploads timing out and restarting. In these cases, open the app when you have a stronger connection and all your images will start going up!

      Network Speed Test

      🎪 Photo Booth + Selfie Check-In Station UI upgrades (5.6.2)

      • Photo Booth landing page updated to be more user-friendly (always-visible scrollbar, updated text, sticky go back/continue buttons, red/green emphasis, and a popup explaining why Continue is greyed out).
      • Selfie Check-In Station landing page updated with red/green Go Back / Begin buttons.
      • New dropdown icon beside Group Photo toggle (when an event has PhotoTags) to better display there are additional options to assign PhotoTags.
      • Fixed edge case cancel/continue behavior on Selfie Check-In Station when no contact info was entered.

      🧩 NEW: Lightroom Classic Plugin (Official)

      We’ve launched an official Lightroom Classic plugin to upload images to NowCandid events directly from Lightroom Classic.

      Key notes:

      • Lightroom Classic only
      • Same image rules apply (color profile, DPI, etc.)
      • Uses Capture App login
      • Only events within 60 days of event start date show in the selector
      • Image Details → Logs will show “Uploaded from NowCandid Lightroom Plugin”
      • Docs include guide/download/installation: https://app.nowcandid.com/docs/tools-more/lightroom

      Lightroom Classic Plugin

      Upload from NowCandid Lightroom Plugin

      🖥️ Dashboard: Upload & Roster Clarity + Small UX Wins

      • Event roster upload and PhotoRoster upload now warn about every unrecognized column, making it easier to spot misspellings (especially for optional columns).
      • Participant list page download now puts additional contacts into columns instead of rows.
      • Participant list download now puts merged contacts into their own row if they have different first/last names.
      • Image upload naming cleanup:
        • spaces/parentheses now automatically become underscores (e.g., Image (2)Image_2)
        • names ending in z now get a trailing underscore (e.g., ImagezImagez_)
      • Candy got even better at using the new Docs for responses.
      • Password reset now shows a clear “Your link has expired” screen (links expire after 24 hours).
      • Fixed participant filter inside another participant’s manual assign/unassign page not working properly.
      • Participant Details PhotoTag assignment UI: merged participants no longer incorrectly show PhotoTags as assigned.

      Upload Roster now warns about every unrecognized column.

      📣 Marketing Fixes

      • Fixed edge cases where galleries that were only AI-edited images could cause follow-up email marketing issues and show as 0 images on Participant List.
      • Fixed Day0 marketing edge case not starting if gallery is just AI-edited images.
      • SMS gallery links now include “View photos:” before the gallery URL to reduce confusion where some users thought the gallery link was an unsubscribe link.

      That’s the week! 💫

      Between the Lightroom Classic plugin, the Capture App’s new Network Speed Test, and retail improvements that reduce confusion (and improve performance), this week was packed with practical wins you’ll feel right away.

      Keep it sparkly,

      Candy

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      Weekly Recap: Better Background Removal, Easier Mobile Downloads & Capture App 5.10 ✂️📱
      Feature Updates
      September 10, 2026

      Weekly Recap: Better Background Removal, Easier Mobile Downloads & Capture App 5.10 ✂️📱

      2
       minutes read
      Hey photo friends! 👋

      Candy here with another weekly recap! This week’s biggest improvements are in Background Removal, with better sports cutouts, and faster processing.

      We’ve also made the mobile receipt download experience much easier, added a couple of helpful Capture App features, and cleaned up several Dashboard workflows.

      ✂️ Background Removal Keeps Getting Better

      Background Removal got another round of quality and performance improvements this week:

      Faster processing

      • BGR is now a bit quicker overall.

      🏈 Better sports cutouts

      • Cutout quality has been improved, particularly for sports-related images.

      📈 Continuous improvement system

      • We’ve also added a new system designed to help Background Removal continue improving over time as we further refine the process.

      📱 Mobile Downloads Are Much Easier

      The Web Receipt Download Page has been reworked on mobile to make getting images into your phone or sharing them much simpler.

      🗂️ Info cards now use two columns

      • Just like desktop, which gets the actual image downloads closer to the top of the page.

      📤 Download is now Share on mobile

      • Individual images now show Share instead of Download and open your device’s native share sheet.
      • That makes it easier to save an image to your Photos app, text it to someone, or send it directly into another app.

      🖼️ Share All sends actual image files

      • The previous Download All option is now Share All on compatible mobile browsers.
      • Instead of creating one ZIP file, it attaches the images individually so you can more easily save the entire gallery to the Photos app (or send the images elsewhere).
      • If the browser can’t handle the share—for example, if there are too many images—it will automatically fall back to a ZIP like desktop.

      📷 Capture App 5.10

      iOS & Android App Store update — September 8

      Two handy additions made their way into Capture App 5.10:

      🔊 Audible scan confirmation

      • You’ll now hear a beep after successfully scanning a card, making it easier to know immediately that the scan worked.
      • Should help you and your hired photographers better know when a Scan Card has been succesfully scanned when using the Scanner ID Workflow!

      📸 “TAKE PHOTO” placeholder is back

      • The familiar image placeholder has returned to the shooting workflow.
      • Should help new users or hired photographers know when the app is ready to receive images!

      🛍️ Retail Improvements

      🖼️ Overlay now appears in the cropper

      • If a shopper selects an Event overlay, they can now see it while adjusting their crop.

      📱 Larger overlay preview on mobile

      • The image shown during the “Would you like to use this Event’s overlay?” step is now bigger on mobile.

      ✉️ Better mobile email receipts

      • Receipt emails should now display more reliably in a mobile-friendly layout across mobile email clients.

      🧩 Memory Mate fix

      • Fixed an edge case where TKO images couldn’t be selected as the primary image when the Memory Mate configurator was opened from a Group Photo.

      🍎 iOS 26 layout cleanup

      • Fixed a small spacing issue on the overlay-selection screen when Safari is using bottom-positioned tabs.

      🖥️ Dashboard Updates

      🏷️ Event names are easier to keep track of

      • Desktop Event pages now prefix the Event name in the header.

      👥 Cleaner merged-participant display

      • Tabbed-in merged participants now have a subtle curved line visually connecting them to the main participant.

      📊 Marketing History traffic fix

      • Fixed some retail web traffic chart dates being displayed incorrectly because of timezone differences.

      🖼️ Virtual Group image picker fix

      • Double-clicking a blank participant will continue opening the Image Picker correctly after a refresh.

      🎨 “Overlay” renamed to “Foreground” in Virtual Group Builder

      • This helps distinguish Virtual Group foreground artwork from full-frame Event overlays.

      📄 Easier Manage Images pagination

      • When you’re beyond page one, page controls now also appear above the images so you don’t have to scroll all the way down just to switch pages.

      🪪 Clearer Positive ID activity logs

      • Image Details now correctly reports “Image Positive ID’d to X” rather than describing the action as Tap-A-Face or categorizing it as Face Matching.

      That’s the week!

      Better cutouts are the biggest story, but the new mobile sharing workflow should also make a noticeable difference for customers trying to get their photos from a receipt onto their phones.

      Keep creating magic,

      Candy 🍬

      Weekly Recap: Abandoned Cart Recovery, Batch AI Editing & Discount Links 🛒✨
      Feature Updates
      September 4, 2026

      Weekly Recap: Abandoned Cart Recovery, Batch AI Editing & Discount Links 🛒✨

      3
       minutes read
      Hey photo friends! 👋

      Candy here with another weekly recap! This week’s biggest addition is a new Abandoned Cart Recovery marketing message designed to help bring shoppers back and complete purchases they already started.

      We’ve also made Quick Candy Image Studio more powerful for editing a selected group of images, added shareable discount links, and made several improvements across participant tools, Virtual Groups, and the Capture App.

      Let’s jump in!

      🛒 NEW: Abandoned Cart Recovery Marketing

      Sometimes a customer gets all the way to building a cart... and then life happens.

      NowCandid will now automatically follow up with those shoppers via text + email to encourage them to come back and finish their order.

      📅 Abandoned cart messaging will go out once a week!

      🛍️ Targets participants who created a cart but did not complete their purchase

      🚫 Participants who have already ordered are excluded

      1️⃣ Each participant can only receive one abandoned-cart follow-up per Event

      📊 Sends are still recorded on the Event’s Marketing History page

      This gives shoppers a helpful nudge to return to something they were already interested in buying—and hopefully turns a few more unfinished carts into completed sales. 📈

      Note: NowCandid's abandoned cart rate is already very low. Even so, we expect this to boost your overall sales by about 0.3% or more!

      🎨 Batch AI Editing Gets More Powerful

      Quick Candy Image Studio on Manage Images continues to fill the gap between editing one image at a time and running Auto Editor across an entire folder or Event.

      Select a handful of images, open Quick Candy Image Studio, and apply an AI edit across the selection.

      This week, it also gained more of the controls available in the full Candy Image Studio:

      👁️ Mark Original Invisible

      ✂️ Mark Destination Folder as Background Removal Folder

      • Available when Background Removal is enabled for the Event.

      🖼️ Custom image-input nodes fixed

      • Nodes that require another image as an input now behave correctly through Quick Candy Image Studio.

      This makes it much easier to apply the same edit to a small, intentional group of images without setting up a larger Auto Editor workflow.

      👥 Participant List Improvements

      🏷️ PhotoTags now appear as badges

      • Participant rows now show assigned PhotoTags directly, similar to the existing Additional Contact badge.

      👨‍👩‍👧 Merged participants are easier to understand

      • Individual merged records now appear as separate, indented rows beneath the main merged participant.

      🙈 Hidden PhotoTags stay hidden

      • Fixed hidden PhotoTags incorrectly appearing on Participant Details.

      🧑‍🤝‍🧑 Virtual Group Builder Improvements

      ↩️ Better Undo behavior for sliders

      • CTRL/CMD + Z now behaves more naturally when adjusting slider values.

      🖱️ Better drag-and-drop with large groups

      • The Subjects pane is easier to work with when there are dozens of participants.

      🖼️ Full-resolution render consistency fix

      • Fixed an edge case where the final full-res Virtual Group could differ from the Builder preview.

      🤖 Auto Editor & Background Removal

      🙈 Hide Originals now handles BGR originals correctly

      • If Hide Originals is enabled and the original folder is marked for Background Removal, the original PNG will now be hidden too.

      The same behavior now applies in Candy Image Studio.

      📱 Capture App 5.9.3

      iOS & Android OTA — September 1

      📋 Shooting mode selector fixed on tablets

      • The popup is now scrollable, so options like Roster Check-In are always reachable.

      📸 Photo Booth fix on iOS

      • Cancelling the countdown no longer accidentally disables the Event collage.

      That’s the week!

      Abandoned Cart Recovery is the big addition here, giving NowCandid another way to help turn existing shopper interest into completed orders. And with the improvements to Quick Candy Image Studio, you’ve got more flexibility for those “edit these five photos, not the entire folder” situations too.

      Keep creating magic,

      Candy 🍬

      Weekly Recap: Scheduled Client Outreach, Smarter Virtual Groups & New Candy Image Styles 📅✨
      Feature Updates
      August 28, 2026

      Weekly Recap: Scheduled Client Outreach, Smarter Virtual Groups & New Candy Image Styles 📅✨

      5
       minutes read
      Hey photo friends! 👋

      Candy here with another weekly recap! This week’s biggest addition is a major upgrade to Client Outreach: you can now schedule texts and emails to send later. We’ve also added smarter Virtual Group tools, new Candy Image Studio looks, and a few useful retail and Dashboard fixes.

      Let’s jump in!

      📅 Client Outreach Can Now Be Scheduled

      You can now schedule Client Outreach messages to send at a future date and time instead of having to send everything immediately.

      Schedule texts or emails up to 60 days in advance

      📋 New Scheduled page to see upcoming sends

      Cancel a scheduled outreach before it goes out

      💰 See estimated sends and cost before the scheduled time

      🔔 Get notified when it sends

      • Dashboard Inbox notification
      • Mobile Dashboard push notification

      This makes Client Outreach much more useful for planned reminders, follow-ups, announcements, and other messages you already know you’ll want to send later.

      👥 Import from multiple Events at once

      When building a Client Outreach list from Event contacts, you can now select multiple Events in a single import instead of adding them one at a time.

      🏈 Virtual Group Builder Gets Smarter

      Virtual Group Builder picked up several new controls this week:

      🔢 New Auto Order By Jerseys button

      • Automatically reorder subjects based on their jersey numbers.
      • This is powered by Jersey Jotter, but Jersey Jotter does not need to be enabled on the Event for you to use it.

      🧠 Improved Auto Headsize

      • Automatic subject sizing should now produce better results.

      👤 Less disruptive participant additions

      • Adding one participant now places them at the bottom-right of the bottom row instead of automatically rearranging the entire group.

      🌈 New Saturation slider

      • Adjust an individual subject’s saturation from the Subject Inspector.

      🌑 Drop Shadow can now be disabled

      • There’s a new toggle if you prefer the group without subject shadows. Drop Shadow behavior also works more naturally with Cutout Fade.

      🌫️ Simplified Cutout Fade

      • Cutout Fade and Cutout Fade Intensity have been combined into a single control with improved defaults and results.

      ↕️ More vertical positioning freedom

      • Subjects can now be moved significantly farther downward when needed.

      🎛️ New Effects category

      • Some related controls have been reorganized to make the Builder easier to navigate.

      🎨 New Candy Image Studio Looks

      Two new low-cost styles are available:

      🌸 Mayfair — 4¢

      • A polished filter-inspired look with its own distinct color treatment.

      🌈 Lively

      • Similar in spirit to Clarendon, but with a different look and feel. Give it a try!

      🛠️ Candy Image Studio fixes

      ✨ Fixed some nodes not working through Quick Candy Image Studio on Manage Images

      🖼️ Fixed the Retouch node failing on especially large image files

      🖥️ Dashboard Improvements

      📣 Event Marketing History links are more visible

      • Three important links on the page are now displayed as cards, matching the approach used elsewhere in the Dashboard.

      🏷️ Remove PhotoTags in bulk

      • Select multiple participants on the Participant List page and use the new Remove PhotoTags button to clear their PhotoTags at once.

      📱 Mobile Dashboard

      No app update required:

      • ⬅️ Previous Page
      • ➡️ Next Page

      Both options are now available from the logo button / Quick Actions menu at the top of the Mobile Dashboard.

      🛍️ Retail & Quic Fixes

      📦 Group package visibility fixed

      • Packages containing group products will no longer incorrectly appear when an Event has no group images.

      🤖 Auto Edited FreePics/FreePortraits images fixed

      • Fixed an issue where Event-level Auto Edits with Hide Originals enabled were not being texted once the edited image was ready.

      That’s the week!

      Scheduled Client Outreach opens up a lot more ways to plan customer communication ahead of time, while the new Virtual Group tools should make sports layouts quicker and easier to fine-tune.

      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 with us!

      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.

      • List One
      • List Two
      • List Three
      • List Four
      • List Five

      This is a link

      This is bold text