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Weekly Recap: Virtual Group Builder, Client Outreach Updates & Smarter Retail Support 🎉📸

Weekly Recap: Virtual Group Builder, Client Outreach Updates & Smarter Retail Support 🎉📸
Hey photo friends! 👋

This is a big week! The headline feature is one many sports and volume photographers are going to love: An all-new Virtual Group Builder is now available directly on the Dashboard.

We’ve also added new Candy Image Studio tools, improved Client Outreach behavior, refreshed image assignment tools, and made retail support easier for shoppers and photographers alike.

Let’s jump in!

🧑‍🤝‍🧑 Big New Feature: Virtual Group Builder

You can now build Virtual Groups directly on the Dashboard — with Mobile Dashboard support too!

Find it from an Event page by clicking Virtual Groups in the sidebar menu.

With Virtual Group Builder, you can:

👥 Import participants from the full Event, one at a time, or everyone with a specific PhotoTag

✂️ Use participant cutouts to build polished group images

🏷️ Build groups quickly when your Event has consistent cutouts and participants tagged with PhotoTags

🖼️ Create Virtual Groups in 4×6, 5×7, 8×10, or 11×14 formats

🎨 Choose from NowCandid default backgrounds, upload custom backgrounds, and add overlays

🧢 Add account logos to the corners

🔤 Toggle subject names on or off

📐 Preview crop lines and aspect ratio lines

🖱️ Zoom, pan, drag, reorder, resize, brighten, and position subjects

You can also adjust group-level settings like background, overlay, overall scale, vertical position, bottom shadow falloff, and individual cutout fade to help hide cropped legs.

When your Event is set up cleanly with cutouts and PhotoTags, you can create a full Virtual Group in just a few clicks. ✨

Docs page: https://app.nowcandid.com/docs/image-management/virtual-groups

Desktop Dashboard view of the new Virtual Group Builder

Mobile Dashboard view of the new Virtual Group Builder

🎓 Candy Image Studio: New Graduation Tools

Candy Image Studio got some very timely upgrades for graduation season:

🎓 New “Diploma Fix” node

  • Helps fix diploma orientation and glare. You’ll need to upload a reference diploma so Candy knows what the diploma should look like, including details like school name, emblem, fonts, and colors.

🎗️ New “Tassel Fix” node

  • Helps adjust graduation tassels that are covering a subject’s face — similar to Stray Hair Removal, but tailored specifically for grad tassels.

👓 Improved Reduce Glass Glare

  • This node is now more reliable and less likely to accidentally add glasses to subjects who aren’t wearing them.

📣 Client Outreach Improvements

Client Outreach got a few useful updates to help save money and keep lists cleaner:

🚫 Unsubscribed contacts excluded by default

  • Imported Client Outreach contacts now exclude unsubscribed contacts unless you choose to include them.

🔘 New “Include unsubscribed contacts” toggle

  • You can still include them if needed, but the default helps avoid spending on contacts who can’t receive your outreach.

👀 Show Hidden on Client Lists

  • The Client Outreach list page now has a Show Hidden option, similar to Offers and PhotoRoster organizations.

🧭 Client List sidebar shortcut

  • The Client Outreach sidebar item now takes you back to the Client List page more clearly.

🖼️ Image Management & Dashboard Upgrades

🧩 Image Release Gallery redesign

  • The Image Release Gallery now uses a masonry layout like retail, supports lightboxes with arrow key navigation, has CMD/CTRL+F search support, and saves filters in the URL.

🧑‍💻 Manual Assignment page refresh

  • The Participant Manual Assignment page has a cleaner, more intuitive UI.

Camera star ratings on Image Details

  • If your camera includes star ratings, they now appear on the Image Details page.

⬇️ Image Details convenience buttons

  • Image Details now includes quick actions to download or open in Candy Image Studio.

🏷️ PhotoTag ampersand fix

  • PhotoTag names with ampersands now save correctly.

🧍 Merged participant name fix

  • Manual Assignment now shows the selected participant’s name instead of the first merged participant’s name.

🔙 Event sidebar remembers filters

  • When going back to the Event List from an Event Overview page, your filters are remembered as long as you haven’t refreshed.

🔁 Pricing tier reset button

  • Participant marketing history now includes a button to reset a participant’s pricing tier start date, useful if support wants to re-offer first-week pricing.

🪪 Positive ID QR Code downloader options

  • You can now download blank cards only, registered participants only, or everyone, making scan card PDFs easier to manage for multi-workflow sports events.

🛠️ New Tool: Image Converter

There’s a new tool under Tools & More → Image Converter.

Use it to:

🔄 Convert images to WEBP, PNG, or JPEG

🎨 Convert images to sRGB

Handy for preparing files before uploading them to NowCandid Events.

📚 New Capture App Camera Docs

We added a dedicated docs page for confirmed camera models that work with the Capture App.

More cameras may work than what’s listed, but this page focuses on models we’ve confirmed.

Docs page: https://app.nowcandid.com/docs/capture-app/cameras

🛍️ Retail Improvements

📬 New Contact Us form on retail

  • The Contact Us popup now includes a form that sends support an email with helpful details automatically included, such as browser info, window size, retail link, Event details, and order number when available. This should make support faster and reduce back-and-forth.

🖼️ Overlay step now comes before cropping

  • This prepares retail for future improvements while keeping product customization clearer.

🗓️ Smarter Year captions

  • Certain products now default the Year caption to the Event start year or participant Day 0 year instead of the current year. Helpful for late-December events or older graduation galleries.

🌍 International order fix

  • Fixed an edge case where some international orders could send multiple receipts and incorrectly show that the order wasn’t submitted.

🤳 Selfie Check-In & Capture App Updates

📶 Clearer Selfie Check-In upload errors

  • If a selfie upload fails, subjects now see a more specific error reason — like upload speed being too slow — so they know what to try next.

📱 Capture App 5.6.3 OTA update

  • Contact Info Settings now says Tap-A-Face or Type & Take based on the Event program
  • The 1000×1000 reference image requirement has been removed for Selfie Check-In Station and Roster Check-In, especially helpful for Android devices with lower-resolution cameras

That’s the week!

Virtual Group Builder is the big one, especially for sports and volume workflows — but between Client Outreach, Candy Image Studio, Image Converter, and retail support improvements, there’s a lot here to make your next Event easier to manage.

Keep creating magic,

Candy 🍬

Related articles

Weekly Recap: NowCandid Docs Are Here (60+ Pages), Capture App 5.6, and Smarter Retail + Dashboard Tools
Feature Updates
May 1, 2026

Weekly Recap: NowCandid Docs Are Here (60+ Pages), Capture App 5.6, and Smarter Retail + Dashboard Tools

8
 minutes read
Hey photo friends! 👋


This week’s updates are packed with improvements that make your day-to-day workflow smoother—especially if you like clear answers, fewer edge cases, and cleaner experiences across Capture, Retail, and the Dashboard.

The headline this week: NowCandid Docs are officially live inside the Dashboard—and they’re already huge. Let’s jump in. 💫

📚 NEW: NowCandid Docs (Built Into the Dashboard)

We’ve launched official, up-to-date NowCandid documentation directly inside the Dashboard. Just click “Docs” in the sidebar to open it.

Here’s what makes it special:

  • One dedicated place for everything: programs, workflows, Capture App, JerseyJotter, Candy Culler, and more
  • Over 60 pages of documentation already (with screenshots and even some videos)
  • Regular updates, with a timestamp on each page showing when it was last updated
  • Smart Docs search (use the search button at the top of the Docs sidebar)
  • Mobile supported: works fully inside the Mobile Dashboard app
  • Clickable images: click any image to preview it bigger
  • Table of contents + feedback: on larger screens, you’ll see a right-side table of contentsand a “Give Feedback” button to report missing info, typos, or confusing sections
  • Private by default: you can share a docs link, but the viewer must be logged in to access it

Preview of New NowCandid Docs
NowCandid Docs Image Timeline page preview
NowCandid Docs Jersey Jotter page preview

🍬 Candy got smarter (because Docs exist)

Candy now pulls from the new Docs when answering questions—so she can:

  • Share direct links to guides
  • Pull relevant screenshots and videos
  • Give more accurate, up-to-date help

Also, the Candy Navigation Assistant now uses docs search as the fallback destination if it can’t find a page you’re looking for—often with your question prefilled!

📱 Capture App 5.6 (iOS & Android) — Not OTA

Capture App v5.6 is now available for iOS and Android (this is not an OTA update).

What changed:

  • Fix: Android “Update Available” popup now correctly links to Google Play, not the Apple App Store
  • Feature: The app now rejects images under 1,000 pixels with an error popup (similar to the color profile error). The Dashboard already enforced this, but this prevents rare edge cases—like a camera outputting low-res images during capture.

🛍️ Retail Improvements (Better behavior, clearer checkout)

A few retail updates landed that improve clarity and fix edge cases:

  • BGR + PhotoTags fix: Background removed images in PhotoTag events will now show correctly even if the originals are marked invisible
  • Pay Later badges removed from the store sheet (the “Pay Later Options Available in Checkout” messaging still appears in package configurators for packages $30+)
  • Z-cropped images now show faceboxes (and the faceboxes are adjusted to the z-crop, too)
  • Checkout completion screen now shows your Business Logo (if you’ve added one)
  • Updated “Your order is complete” copy to note:
    • retouching may delay orders
    • physical products typically arrive in 7–14 business days

🖥️ Dashboard Updates (Clarity, savings, and better reporting)

  • Positive ID edge case fixed: Manually assigned images now show up correctly in an additional contact’s gallery
  • Client Outreach SMS savings: Non-standard encoded apostrophes now auto-convert to standard apostrophes to reduce segment costs
  • Auto Editor access fix: Resolved an issue preventing some users from accessing Auto Editor
  • New Candy Image Studio node: Traditional Black & White (distinct from the Black and White Film Print node)
  • Reports pages upgraded: Added titles and descriptions for better clarity
  • Participant List: Unmarketable Participants filter
    • You can now filter to show only unmarketable participants—or hide them
    • The download sheet now includes an “Unmarketable” column (Yes/blank)
    • “Unmarketable” can include opt-outs/unsubscribes, invalid contact info, etc.

🍬 Candy UI improvements

Candy received a bunch of UX upgrades, including:

  • Click images to preview larger
  • New table rendering
  • Scroll fades
  • Type without having to click/focus the input first

📱 Mobile Dashboard Improvements (No app update needed)

  • Fixed sidebar scrolling triggering “pull to refresh”
  • You can now slide/pull from the side to open the sidebar—no need to scroll to the top and tap the sidebar button

That’s the week! 💫

This release is all about reducing friction—with official docs inside the Dashboard, a tighter Capture App, better retail behavior for BGR and z-crops, and Dashboard refinements that improve accuracy, clarity, and even lower messaging costs.

Keep creating magic,

— The NowCandid Team 🍬

Keep More of What You Earn with NowCandid™
NowCandid 101
April 28, 2026

Keep More of What You Earn with NowCandid™

5
 minutes read

A lot of platforms are happy to look affordable at first—and expensive later.
We prefer the opposite.

NowCandid™ is built to support photographers long-term, which means our pricing is designed to be easy to understand, easy to plan around, and easier to live with as your volume grows. When you’re running real events—schools, sports, graduations, leagues—the last thing you need is a platform that nickel-and-dimes you for the core tools required to deliver and sell images.

The Simple Part: Two Fees, No Subscriptions

With NowCandid, your costs are straightforward:

  • 5% e-commerce fee
  • 3% payment processing fee

That’s it.

There’s no subscription fee and no onboarding fee, so you’re not paying monthly just to keep your account active—or paying extra just to get started.

The Important Part: No Surprise Add-Ons

Many platforms charge extra for the features that actually make your events run smoothly. NowCandid includes the tools high-volume photographers rely on without tacking on separate line items.

Here’s what you don’t pay extra for:

  • No fees on sales tax collected
  • No extra charge for background removal
  • No extra charge for automatic exposure correction
  • No extra charge for image storage
  • No extra charge for automated SMS + email marketing tools
  • No extra charge for white-labeling
  • No extra charge for Face Matching™
  • At least 20 years of image hosting included

That’s the difference between a platform that adds tools later and a platform that includes the tools up front.

Why This Matters for Real Photographers

When the platform includes the tools you actually need, two good things happen:

1) You keep more margin on every order

If your costs don’t balloon as you scale, more of every sale stays with you—without you having to raise prices just to cover software overhead.

2) Your workflow gets simpler

You don’t have to stitch together multiple services (and multiple bills) to accomplish basic event goals like:

  • identifying subjects
  • delivering galleries quickly
  • protecting images
  • marketing via text/email
  • selling through a modern checkout

Those pieces are part of the core system—because they’re not “extras” in real event photography.

The Takeaway

NowCandid is built to support photographers—not squeeze them. Our pricing model is intentionally structured so that the platform remains sustainable for your business as you grow, and so that more of what you earn stays with you.

If you want a platform that’s designed for high-volume reality—and doesn’t charge extra for the essentials—NowCandid is built for you.

Pricing Disclaimer

Pricing, fees, and included features listed in this article are accurate as of the original publication date and may change over time. For the most current pricing and terms, please contact our team.

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 🍬

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.

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

This is a link

This is bold text