If you want your order to sail smoothly through our ordering process, please make sure it's ready to go before you send it. Hopefully this post will give you some insight into why that's so important – why even minor changes to an order can cause a lot of work at our end. For example, suppose you request design or layout changes, or send us new versions of image files or album plans. First we have to call up your original order and work out exactly what you want done to it – not easy when we have hundreds of albums working their way through production at any one time. We may need to, for example: To View More >>

[caption id="attachment_1348" align="alignnone" width="500" caption="Photography by Michael + Anna Costa"][/caption] Although we'd love all our clients to print with us, and most now do, we can't expect that everyone will. It's a huge ask to send your images to the other side of the world for printing.  But sometimes, for reasons that have little to do with the printing itself, we need really tight control to deliver you a good result. Duos are a prime example. The design and craft processes that allow us to integrate digital and matted pages, create split mats etc are intensive and very demanding. To View More >>

A couple of weeks ago I posted about aggravating business policies and touch points, and asked readers to tell us about the things we do that's frustrating! We received three comments. One I've mentioned already, and the other two also raise important issues. Katherine (not her real name) emailed her account manager to say she doesn't like Photojunction. More important, she doesn't like feeling pressured by Queensberry into using it. She feels that if QBY were truly customer focused she wouldn't feel this pressure and could continue in the way that's suited her perfectly for the last seven years. To View More >>

I don't read the instructions unless I need to. Needing to is defined by 'it won't work unless you read the instructions.' One of the weaknesses in Photojunction is its simplicity and a sense that you can work it out just by using it. Some of us would have it no other way. But that means there is a tendency to apply the status quo approach to it. It is too easy to write off something because you had a bad experience with previous versions. Ultimately we can become neglectful of progress through our established habits. I had a conversation over dinner with another photographer last night. They said To View More >>

It's a fiddly job assembling an album, but our assembly team can save you the time and hassle. They assemble thousands and thousands each year - so they're pretty good at it! And the pay-off is another 2-3 hours saved per job that you can put to better use. Just think ... all of our systems are integrated - design, colour correction, printing, album construction, and assembly. Hit the Send Order button in Photojunction and apart from the small matter of paying, that's pretty much it until the album arrives back ready for your client. And of course if necessary we'll contact you to make sure everything To View More >>

Alan (not his real name) and his wife were long-standing clients of one of our competitors. They came to us because they didn't like the way they'd been treated. Unlike Katherine, who likes us (even if she's frustrated), we haven't earned anything from Alan and his wife except a chance to win their business. Alan's customers really like our Duos, which of course they couldn't get before, but he finds designing and ordering them difficult. Alan designs them on paper and his wife recreates them in Remix. Alan's designs are reasonably complex, his wife is a fan of her old software (which can't handle To View More >>

This post is now superseded by new Photojunction functionality. If you're uploading your Queensberry album orders using LabFTP, we've just released version 3, with added functionality for ordering prints from QBY online. We're very excited about the online print ordering function – but it's restricted for now to New Zealand clients, so let me talk first about how it impacts on albums. LabFTP 3 integrates more closely with PJ Remix. For example you're no longer asked to provide information that you've already entered in PJ. It also shares Remix's look and feel. Version 3 is no longer a beta, To View More >>

Three points! 1. Investigate and determine your clients needs, limitations, and dreams. 2. Establish design objectives. 3. Exceed your clients' expectations. We set the parameters of size, style, and content from discussions with our client prior to the wedding. Having a series of questions to answer on a sheet means you get the information you need. Album type, size, and budget are the first questions. Then how many albums and what these would do. We gauge their response to our sample albums and ask questions about what might be important. We define the style by giving them a key description and To View More >>

Three things I love... Metaphors ("Remix 'Collections' are like iTunes Playlists"). Stories (like Danny's PJ speed test). One-liners ("Colour management used to be just calling the lab to complain about your prints.") Words, that's all... But they make you think. They illuminate what you're saying and make it memorable. They use the familiar to explain the unfamiliar. They're gems of great price if you polish them till they shine, and really awkward if you don't. Cheers, Ian A few more from Bob Tulloch's seminar in Auckland last Wednesday: Our clients have two motivations, love and pride. We're To View More >>

As well as giving uploads their own tab on the Start Window we've introduced two "re-upload" options for Queensberry clients: 'Full' and 'Partial'. The Full Re-upload option, as the name suggests, uploads the entire order to Queensberry (the complete bundle - layouts, proxies, reports, everything). The Partial Re-upload option allows you to re-upload just part of the order. Here's an example. Say Queensberry spotted some sensor dust on a couple of your images in layouts one, two and three. Instead of re-uploading the whole bundle, you could make the adjustments, and re-send just those three To View More >>