Error free cover design

In PJ Remix we've introduced a much more flexible architecture for cover design. Dust jackets, hybrid, photo covers, motifs, gathering text, embossing, engraving, you name it. If your vendor isn't taking advantage of this feature, why not ask them to contact us. You'll improve your own PJ experience too.

Trend to "hybrid books"

There's growing interest in PJ Remix's ability to handle books that incorporate both flush-mount and matted pages. Photojunction is the only vendor-independent software that can handle them, and Remix does a much better job of it than Retro. Hybrids are a great reason to upgrade.

Lead Sources

I recently spoke at seminar in Christchurch for the NZIPP. The other speaker, Bruce Gabites talked about measuring where your leads come from.

TomK mentioned the same, very relevant, issue (hey, wanna write for this blog ;-) – thank you for your input).

In times of economic instability it highlights the importance of knowing where your leads / bookings come from. You'll be able to react to and encourage the successful channels.

A starting point. Word of mouth, Magazine, Bridal Fair, Web, Venue Referrals...

A slightly, temporarily mercenarily-minded,
Danny

Differentiate or ...

Interesting comments on Danny's "Downsize me" post, especially TomK's point about housing crisis pain trickling down to other spending. FWIW, I've been hearing stories like this off and on for 30+ years, and they are always true. For some people. The marketing challenge is to make "some" people mean "other" people.

If you've been a price taker chances are high you'll suffer in a downturn. If you've consistently marketed yourself as a differentiated price setter, now's the time to be grateful for your foresight ;-)


Differentiate Or Die (great book).

Cheers, Ian

Any template will do

We've posted a bit about PJ templates here, but apparently not everyone realises they don't need to be vendor-specific. Anything you can grab off our template download page will do. Just drag the template corner to fit your page, and ungroup to edit.

HTH, Ian

Of course you can also author and share your own templates. We understand some photographers are working on collections (try googling Photojunction templates occasionally).

There's gambling and there's...

Why is it when I chat to photographers about their flash memory, they say things like...

"Oh, that card's a bit dodgy," or

"I don't really trust that one"

BUY NEW ONES! Compact Flash, SD, or whatever you use has never been cheaper than it is now. Even if it wasn't, imagine the cost of losing a wedding.

A slightly concerned and conservative,
Danny

Tip tip

We're building up a lot of juicy PJ tips here, with plenty more to come. To turbo-charge your PJ experience, click on the "Tip" tag (eg on the right of this page). You'll get a list of "handy hints" with all the other blog posts filtered out.

HTH, Ian

PS - apologies for our last post, made meaningless by the missing image. Here it is.

Define “Templates”

Templates are pre-designed page layouts. They may help save you time, make up for a perceived lack of design skill, or give you inspiration.

Templates are not to be confused with Album Resources, which contain all the data necessary to design an album for a specific vendor. You can do without templates but not without album resources.

The two get confused occasionally so I thought I might clear it up ;-).

HTH - Danny

"Projects, Clients, Events..."

As you know there are important differences between PJ Remix and the old software, Retro. We posted on this last year, but we have a lot more users now, so here's an updated introduction to one of Remix's basic concepts (for more info check out the web link below).

In Retro each job was in a separate PJF file and (as our support team can tell you) some of those files got very lost, or people ended up with multiple versions etc. Remix, on the other hand, keeps all of your work in a single database which the software can keep track of.

Remix uses certain words in a very specific way to describe that data. We work on Projects, which consist of four linked components: Clients, Events, Products and Exports:

We shoot an Event (eg a wedding) for our Clients (eg the bride and groom), who buy Products (eg albums).

Why do we use words like Event and Product instead of “wedding” and “album”? Because they’re more generic. Not all Events are weddings, and not all Products are albums.

Before you can create a new Product (let’s say an album) you need to take a few seconds to link it to both a Client and an Event. That way you'll be able to find it in the PJ database. You can view the database using the Project Browser (accessible from the Start window or the File menu). To illustrate, the following screen shot shows my copy of Remix after the FOCUS show in Birmingham UK recently – click on it to see it full size.



I have one of my Clients selected ("Focus Demo"), which is associated with a single event (Henry and Grace), which in turn has dozens of demo albums linked to it. There could be slide show "products" too, but as it happens there aren't any.

Your Products in turn have Exports or "Outputs". For example, the Outputs from an album design are the orders and image files that you export and either:

• Save to your hard disk, or
• Send to your album vendor and lab for manufacture.

After they have been created, these will appear in the right-hand "Outputs" column of the Project Browser.

Click here for an overview of Remix, including all the main windows and wizards, as well as the Project Browser.

HTH, Ian

Technicolor Mats

Hi All

If you're using an album company that offers different mat colors in the same album...

We don't have the functionality yet, so in the mean time, right click on the layout and 'add note', then specify what color you'd like on that particular layout.

It's just a short term work around, but it will work for now.

Cheers
Danny

Projects are go

As of 1.09 you can Import and Export Projects to your heart's content.

A few steps, straight from the horse's mouth (or a Developer's: sorry that wasn't a joke towards you Akshay!)

1. Right click on Client in the Project Browser and select Export Project. This will bring up a window...



It might be a good idea to Duplicate the Client before exporting, because the original Client will be deleted from the Browser after export.

Selecting Export opens another window. If necessary choose where you want to save the exported project by Browsing, and whether you want to include the original high-res files.



3. Click Export.This will create a .project folder in the location you selected, along with a project.pjr file, the proxies and the originals if you chose to include them.

4. Copy this folder to the Destination Computer (DC).

5. On the DC, run PJ Remix and select File > Import Project > Choose File. Once you're done the project will be up and running on the destination computer.



HTH
Danny (on behalf of Akshay)

Up to date and good to go

Noticed the little green check mark in the corner of your page layouts after exporting? And the lock symbols on the apertures?

PJ Remix displays the check mark and locks the apertures as a gentle reminder that editing the layout will make your exports out-of-date. You can unlock and edit if you wish, but then you'll need to re-export. The green check mark will change to a red alert until you re-export.

What's the point? We're making sure that your prints will fit the album. Expensive if you get it wrong.

One catch. You can edit the file freely in Photoshop afterwards - but don't change the file size, dpi, or position on the layout or you'll create a mismatch.

HTH, Ian

Album design keyboard shortcuts

Demonstrating today reminded me of something I've been intending to mention for a while...



If you've been thinking that the keyboard shortcuts for the edit menu (Copy, Paste, Duplicate, Undo etc) are a little flakey, bear in mind that for them to work the Album Layout window must be active. In other words, if you've got the cursor over the Events window or the tools, the Edit Menu shortcuts will not be active. Shift the cursor over the album design and you'll be fine.

HTH, Ian

Bug Finder

Hi Everyone

Long time, I know... but we have a good excuse! Today we've released v1.06.

There are many tweaks and fixes in this (like all releases) but one that needs special mention is our new 'bug finder'.

In future, if Remix runs into trouble and crashes, it will know where in the 'code' the problem occurred. This should help in a big way with those tough-to-replicate problems some people have been experiencing.

BUT after a crash you need to send us a Bug Report from INSIDE PJ Remix. The report will now include the 'bug finder' information. Reporting crashes on the forum won't help solve the problem. You should also report immediately - before starting work again. Just reboot Remix and file a Bug Report.

Maybe we should've done this sooner...

Enjoy, Danny

What a View...

• Have you wished to see the whole album design in one re-sizable window?
• Have you wished to create an instant slide show of your album design?
• Have you wished you could reorder the album layouts?
• Have you wished for an easier way to navigate through your layouts?

Wish no more - just check out the Preview window. Open an album, and click the Preview palette in the Tools window.



Preview can be separated from the Tools window by simply dragging it out or clicking on the arrow next to the Preview tab. Once separated it can be resized from the corner. If you close the Preview window it returns to a palette in the Tools window.

You can navigate to any layout in the Album Layout window by double clicking on it in Preview.

Right-click on Preview and you get the option to create an instant slide show for the album.

Drag a layout to a new position in the Preview to change the order of the layouts in your album.

Preview updates live (ie immediately after you make a change in the Layout window). You could work on one monitor and maximize Preview on another monitor so your clients can admire what you're doing (that's really cool).

If you have other ways of using Preview we'd love to hear them. Visit The Junction and leave us a comment.

Enjoy – Cheers, Chetan

Lights, Camera, ACTIONS!

My first post... and what better to talk about than my favourite Remix feature, Photoshop Actions! Unknown to Retro, and a revelation in Remix, it brings joy to my face and makes me say, "Wow - that's cool!".

Tried it yet? If not then here's what to do.

1. Open an album and select an aperture (image) on the layout that you wish to apply the action to.

2. Click the 'Photoshop Actions' button in the Image Palette of the Tools window.



PJ Remix talks to Photoshop and shows all your actions, just as they're set up in Photoshop.

3. Select the action you want, and then tell Remix whether you want to edit the original image or a duplicate. In a flash the action will be applied and Remix will display it on your layout.



So, no more jumping to Photoshop to apply Actions* and then having to re-import the image to PJ - just three quick steps inside PJ Remix.

Gosh... I love this feature!

Cheers for now, Akshay

PS *If you want to apply an action to PART of an image you'll need to use Open In Editor instead - nearly as fast...

Sorting is so easy

Our Collection Builder (CB) reduces image sorting to a few quick and easy steps.

1. "Source Images" - First, make sure the images you can see in the Event Window are the ones you want to build the Collection FROM!

2. Choose a Collection to build. EITHER click the More button and select Collection Builder (you'll be asked to choose an existing Collection) OR add a new Collection (eg Bride and Groom Album).



3. Photojunction changes to full screen mode, and you (or your clients) can start building your collection by clicking Skip, Yes, or No, or by using the one-button shortcuts (S, Y, N). The CB whittles them down until there are none left.



When you're done, you'll find all your "Yeses" in the new Collection. The source images remain unchanged. Easy eh?

Until next time, Danny

Treasure Hunting

Ever thought, "I'd like to see my templates and images at the same time"? Well we did too, so here's a wee gem that might have slipped under your radar.

- Open the event window
- Right click 'Template Collections'
- Click 'Open Templates In New Window'



That's all for now,
Danny

No names, but…

PJ Remix is about two things. First, delivering a great user experience is life or death. We’re Ubergeeks. We want – no we need – to be cool. So our mothers and girlfriends will respect us, and so you do too.

Second, we want to help you do business in the real world, without hassles. How boring is that? And how hard a point to get across! Sometimes we think it has all the sales appeal of day-old fish.

So when we came upon this story recently we jumped on it because it's so CLEAR.

Once upon a time a photographer designed some matted albums in InDesign because they didn’t like Photojunction. (PJ Retro, actually - phew!). Then the layouts were converted to PDF, the order was written manually and everything was sent to the vendor.

And my point? This vendor, and this vendor’s lab, can’t handle PDFs. To process the order they would need to redesign the album (in Photojunction!) so they could cut the mats. InDesign doesn’t know albums. PDFs can’t cut mats. Plus, as we said, this lab can’t print PDFs (some can, most can’t). That's the kind of fundamental misalignment that Photojunction won’t allow.

Non-compliance (and "client education") are among the biggest problems facing all vendors. Publishers and printers of ALL sorts constantly receive stuff they can’t send to production because the work doesn’t comply with their specs. Photojunction looks to solve that problem as far as albums are concerned.

We know we’re v1.0, but that's what PJ Remix is about.

Cheers, Ian

View New Posts

When you log on to the forum, why not make it a habit to click "View New Posts"? If you see a question you can answer, type a quick response. There comes a magic moment in the best software when users start to dialogue amongst themselves - build a community. Trust us, that won't lessen our commitment, but it will speed up the response, and build real depth in the application itself. Not only that, reading other people's posts will increase your level of understanding for sure.

PS The forum search feature is working much better now. Why not give it a try?