What is The Image Connection?

The Image Connection is a site for professional photographers to post their portrait images online. Whether you shoot seniors or underclass, in a studio or on location… the Image Connection is right for you. Once you’ve captured the images… just post online and we print and drop ship right to your customer

How does this grow my business?

The whole purpose of the Image Connection is to help you increase your portrait sales. Post online and let your customers shop anytime, 24/7.

In the case of underclass photography you are limited to the number of products you can offer the day of the shoot. With online posting you can offer a whole myriad of products ranging from canvas wraps to magnets.

Or maybe you’re looking for an easier workflow. Posting online allows you to shoot more and let us take care of the printing, credit card processing and shipping.

Posting online will give your customers the ease of ordering any time of day or night from the comfort of their home.

We know you have a lot to think about during the busy season and with our continued effort to make your life easier in mind we set up the ability for you to offer preorders to your customers. On our Image Connection site you will see that there is a drop-down called "Preorders". Within this area you will be able to create preorder pages for all of your schools that have a school database. Think of it as an online money envelope! This service can be used by itself to replace your money envelopes (saving you on the cost of printing them) or in conjunction with them.

When your customers make their purchases on our preorder site the orders go directly to our databases. This means that the data entry is much faster as well as cheaper since you will probably not need to hire seasonal help to keep up with it. Most importantly the data entry will be more accurate which we all know saves you time, money and possibly frustration!

When your customer places that order they will use their credit card, meaning the funds go directly to you via Stripe just like any other Image Connection order. There will be no more bounced checks or checks that have been written for the wrong amount. Now you get paid before the shoot even happens. This also may help with any concerns a parent might have about entrusting their young child with their checks or their personal information if they wished to use a credit card. Now there will be no need for anything to be brought in by the child, taking away any possibility the child may have misplaced it before they even reached you. The best part of all is you can expect bigger orders in your future, after all who hasn't gotten lost while shopping online and spent more then they planned?

Last but certainly not least, by using preorder forms you will be collecting your customers emails with every purchase. That gives you the opportunity to continue marketing to them long after they've finished their original purchase with you!

So… How much does it cost?

We use Stripe to process all credit card transactions. They charge a 2.9% credit card fee plus a small transaction fee. Century charges a 2.25% commission fee off the total order. That's it! There's never any monthly or yearly charges plus you aren't getting charged per preorder job you create. That's right, create one job or one hundred, the cost to you is the same… $0.00!!!

In the competitive market of school/sports photography you need to be unique from the rest of your competition. Green Screen is an answer. Shooting with green screen allows you to offer your customers several background choices … something that scores very high in consumer surveys. No more lugging different backgrounds or projecting different gels. Shoot the job with one green screen background and let your customers choose. Green screen technology has advanced tremendously in the past few years and we're happy to be able to offer our underclass and sport customers this exciting new service.

Ordering is completely compatible with DataMatch, making it easy and trouble free. Minimum order of 25 images.

Pricing is to mask out the image and drop in the selected background.

Head & Shoulder Portrait	$0.60
¾ to Full Length Portrait	1.25
Grad/Prom Images	1.25
Green Uniforms, green props, metallic or reflexive props throughout the majority of a photo shoot	1.25
Additional Charges may be incurred for improper lighting or problems (creases, spots, etc.) with the green screen background

Helpful Hints

• Remember $0.60 per image including those not ordering… you don't want the green screen image going into the yearbook.
• Keep your options simple by offering between 5-9 backgrounds.
• You can mix background choices from several different background categories.
• Available on individual vertical shots only - no group shots or horizontals.
• Run lots of tests before shooting an actual job.
• The key is not to overexpose the backdrop; one or two stops darker than the light on your subject.
• No wrinkles, seams, dirt, creases and shadows on your background.
• Subject should be 4 ft. from green screen and 6 ft. from camera
• Always shoot in sRGB color profile.
• Do NOT use auto white balance (custom point or flash white balance only).