by Haley Lorraine

I’ve said it before and I will say it again I LOVE designing albums! You can review my ten step album workflow here. InDesign is my favorite album design tool, hands down!

Today I want to touch on one of the best time saving features of InDesign for designing albums – InDesign Libraries.

Libraries allow you to store objects for future use. I have a library filled with each and every album page layout I commonly use. This makes designing(…)

by Melissa Koehler
Watermarking, it’s something that we should be doing to every single image that we share online. That means facebook, blog and any other public sites. The topic of watermarking gets brought up a lot and I want to spend some time talking about the importance of watermarking your images all the time.

Let’s talk a bit about the placement of your watermark. Everyone tends to watermark their images differently, some in the corners, some at the very bottom and(…)

by Alicia Gould

Photographers often ask each other “how many images do you show in your galleries?” The answer for me is always, it depends!  Each family I photograph is unique; they have different dynamics, different decorating styles and different reasons for wanting to book a session.  If you don’t take the time to find out some of that before the session, you could be wasting a lot of your time processing images that don’t mesh with their style.
Before the Photo(…)

by Courtney Slazinik
It seems like every time I turn around, another social media outlet is changing the way they are showing our information to the people who “like/follow” us.  Since you don’t want to rely on these outlets to get the word out about your business, it is important to have your own way of reaching clients.  The answer is a newsletter.

3 Reasons to have a newsletter:

Stay fresh on your customer’s mind. 

You want them to think about you when(…)

by Melissa Koehler
Running your business with no debt allows you to have a larger profit margin, bring in more for your family and ultimately have the peace of mind that you deserve for all the hard work you put into your business.  Credit cards have become normalcy in our society, but they don’t have to be in your business (and personal life).

There is quite a bit that could be said about being debt free in your business. I’m going to(…)

by Lena Antaramian
Pricing is a topic of many threads on many different photography forums – it seems that every day new questions about it pop up, invariably followed with a plea for help.  I get it: we capture priceless memories and moments – so how do you put a price on something priceless?  At the end of the day, you can be an amazing photographer who captures beautiful images, but if you don’t set up your pricing in a way(…)

by Bre Thurston
Have you ever thought about the importance of proper culling? As photographers, we are often most concerned with obtaining correct focus, color, light, composition, good creativity, etc. Once we get back to our computers, we concentrate on a lot of things, but one of the most important things to consider is how well you are selecting which images to show to clients and which images to put on your blog or website. Personally, I have about a 1/4(…)

by Melissa Koehler

We’ve all been there before. The session was awesome, the family loves their photos, but they just won’t place their order. It’s something that I consistently see on the boards. I’m not going to talk about in person ordering because that’s a totally different, more in depth topic. I’m just going to talk about online galleries and how we can get our clients to order from them within the time frame provided.
Set expectations with your ordering process.
Making sure that you and your(…)

by Jennifer Dell

I see the issue of value and photography come up quite often with photographer friends and on the CM photography forum. A photographer gets an email in response to their pricing either before or after a session and the client is asking for a discount or to barter for services already rendered. Sometimes the prospective client demands to know why their pricing is set at a certain price point which often leaves us feeling deflated and undervalued. I(…)

Finding that perfect balance between what your clients expect and what you are able to deliver can be difficult and stressful.  It’s definitely a skill that takes some time to master.  On the CMblog today is CMpro Beira Brown to discuss a few tips on managing client expectations.  Not only is Beira an amazing photographer but she has a brilliant business mind and has an excellent rapport with her clients!
managing client expectations
by Beira Brown

“You exceeded our expectations!” Those are four(…)