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Crowning Moments: Turning Prom Night into Profit with NowCandid

Crowning Moments: Turning Prom Night into Profit with NowCandid
Prom night is an iconic milestone in a high schooler’s life, brimming with fashion, friendships, and unforgettable memories.

While it's true that smartphones have made "everyone a photographer", professional prom photography remains a lucrative venture. Why? The answer lies in the quality that professional photos can offer, capturing prom night with a finesse that smartphones simply can't match.

The Profitability of Prom Photography

Prom photography can be highly profitable, with a target metric of $1.50 per image being a realistic benchmark for success. However, with the right approach, this figure can soar, as evidenced by a NowCandid's users Oklahoma City Prom, which achieved $2 per image across 3000 pictures taken, totaling $6000 in sales.

The key to serious profitability lies in having quantity, quality, and variety! An effective photographer using NowCandid has the ability to quickly deliver a professional, high-quality image gallery that will capture the attention of their subjects.

Why Proms are Still Profitable

  1. Social Media Influence: Today’s high schoolers live in a social media-centric world where the quality of a photo can greatly increase the quality of a post. Professional, well-lit, and expertly framed photos are in demand for their social media feeds, making them willing to purchase digital copies for their Instagram or Facebook profiles.
  2. Parental Investment: Parents are equally important customers in the prom photography market. They cherish these milestones and are often more than willing to purchase photos that capture their child’s special night. Using Selfie Check-In allows you to collect both the subject and the parents' contact info, marketing the subject's photos to both parties!
  3. Speedy Delivery: With the help of NowCandid, images can be available for purchase instantly. Selling images right away can benefit your overall sales thanks to impulse purchases people make when they are at their most excited about the Event.
  4. Unique Print Products: Unique print products alongside desirable images is always a combination that will generate extra sales! A variety of products be purchased, in addition to the usual prints and downloads. You can even upload an Event-specific custom banner to your Events to further make your product unique compared to the images subjects can take with their own phones - turning every photo into a memento!

Keys to Successful Prom Photography

  • Quality: While taking a substantial number of photos is important, ensuring the quality of your images increases their salability. Ensure each photo is well-lit and tightly cropped!
  • 2 Pics Per Minute: Aim for 2 pictures every minute, targeting 120+ per hour. These need to be unique images too - don't count duplicates! Utilize features like NowCandid’s LiveLoop to encourage guests to seek out photographers to get on the big screen.
  • Posing: Encourage a variety of poses to maximize the number of sellable images for any group you approach. After photographing a group of four, break the group into couples, ladies only, guys only, etc.
  • Photo Stations: Establish a dedicated photo area with an attractive backdrop suitable for individuals, couples, and groups, enhancing the variety and appeal of a subject's image gallery. Props are optional, but can be a fun addition. Also, a photo station is also a good place to station your less-social photographers, as guests will come to them!
  • Selfie Check-In Mastery: Achieving high participation in Selfie Check-In not only streamlines image delivery but also ensures a direct marketing channel to both students and their parents.
  • Strategic Staffing: Align the number of photographers with the expected guest count, aiming for one photographer per 100-150 guests to ensure comprehensive coverage of the event.
  • Strategic Compensation: Many successful social photographers pay their photographers based on how many unique (no duplicates) and sellable (good quality) images they take at a party. Consider paying $0.20 per sellable image with a minimum pay of $18 an hour, guaranteeing them decent pay but giving them room to take more images to make you both more money. (Example: 120 images an hour would be $24 an hour)

NowCandid: Your Partner in Capturing the Magic of Prom Night

NowCandid software is designed to streamline the photography process, from efficient image capture and upload to simplifying sales through intuitive galleries and easy online ordering.

With NowCandid, photographers can focus on what they do best—taking stunning photos—while the platform handles the logistics, making each prom a potential goldmine of photographic opportunities.

Success Stories to Inspire

Photographers like Tosha LaForest and Eric Miller have harnessed the power of NowCandid to amplify their school dance and event photography sales. Their experiences underscore the potential of well-executed prom and dance photography to significantly boost revenue and client satisfaction.

Prom photography, powered by NowCandid, offers a great option for photographers to expand their portfolios and profit margins. By focusing on quality, variety, and quantity, photographers can tap into the lucrative prom market, turning each dance into a profitable venture (and fun) venture.

Learn more, and join the ranks of successful prom photographers with NowCandid.

Visit our success stories to learn more and get inspired to capture the vibrant energy and timeless elegance of prom night.

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Weekly Recap: Candy Culler AI Image Culling & MUCH More! 🍬✨
Feature Updates
January 9, 2026

Weekly Recap: Candy Culler AI Image Culling & MUCH More! 🍬✨

6
 minutes read
Hey photo friends! 👋


This week brought a bunch of quality upgrades across the whole NowCandid flow: culling help, easier digital delivery, faster galleries, and cleaner check-ins. Here’s what’s new (organized by impact).

🧠 Big New Tool: Candy Culler (Manage Images → More Tools)

🍬 Candy Culler is rolling out!!!

Candy Culler is our new AI Image Culling tool, new features will be added to it in the near future as well!


I can now help flag common issues on your images like:

  • 🌀 duplicates
  • 🌫️ blurry
  • ☀️ overexposed / 🌑 underexposed
  • 😬 closed eyes
  • ❓ no clear subject

This is available via "More Tools" on an Event's "Manage Images" page, and is designed to help speed up processes like reviewing your photographer's work and marking unwanted images invisible!

Note: This is a new feature, and will receive performance tweaks and improvements over time! But we hope you like it! :D

📦 Digital Delivery Upgrade: Web Receipt Download Page

📧 Receipt email now includes a “Download All Images” button

  • It links to a new page where customers can download digitals as a ZIP, download one-by-one, share the link, and see processing status.

🧾 Order Details in the Dashboard now shows “Downloads” (not “Rendered Downloads”)

  • And includes Personal Gallery Download links where relevant.

🔗 Order Details (admin + customer) now link to the Web Receipt Download Page

  • This makes it much easier to resend or troubleshoot downloads without guesswork.

🖼️ Faster Reviewing: Lightbox Keyboard Navigation + Performance

⬅️➡️ Left/Right arrow keys now move through images

  • Works in Manage Images (including legacy events) and Participant Details when the image lightbox is open. Great for quickly scanning through images.

Lightbox performance improved

  • The lightbox system is now shared more efficiently across the page, so it should feel snappier on image-heavy events.

✅ Check-In Improvements (Face Matching Events)

🛑 New red “No Thank You” button for Image Release opt-in

  • (Only appears if opt-in is enabled in the Offer's Advanced Settings.)

🖼️ Camera roll stability improved

  • Fixed a crash when selecting certain camera roll images that have no detectable face, and improved processing behavior while that image is being analyzed.

🔁 Old check-in import edge case fixed

  • Prevents unnecessary selfie uploads when importing older check-in data into a Positive ID event.

📱 Capture App iOS OTA Updates (4.22.2 + 4.22.3)

🔐 Restore Session safety and convenience (OTA Jan 5)

🔒 Restore Session won’t cross accounts

  • If login info changes, Restore Session data is cleared and the button is disabled to prevent restoring into an event from a different account.

Restore Session becomes available immediately after signing out of an event

  • No restart needed.

🧾 Face Matching Roster Check-In stat accuracy (OTA Jan 7)

📊 Event overview image stats now include “ref” folder images

  • Helpful for tracking reference images in Face Matching Events.

🛠️ Misc fix

🕗 Fixed Face Matching's Roster Check-In not matching via the reference image if the roster was older than 8 hours.

🛍️ Retail Experience Improvements

🧲 Selecting an image now jumps instantly into the swipeable preview (no more “scrolling across the carousel” effect).

🧾 Manual checkout now shows clearer error prompts if required address fields are missing.

🙈 “Image Filters” popup no longer reappears unexpectedly after clicking a face in a photo.

🛡️ GalleryGuard is enabled again on iPad after a short break.

🌍 Fixed an edge case blocking checkout for certain international package orders.

🖥️ Dashboard Updates

🔁 Assign Images: new “participant gallery” filter

  • Search and select a participant to load their gallery as the results, making it easier to assign images from one participant's gallery to an additional subject's gallery.

🏷️ PhotoTag Import edge case fixed

  • Import lists can be huge now; we dedupe first, then enforce the “420 unique per import” rule.

📊 Event mini report column clarified

  • “Images” is now labeled “Visible” and reflects visible images per folder.

📄 Reports date picker fixed

  • Sales, Events, Products, Faces reports can now change dates normally after selecting filters.

🧑‍🤝‍🧑 Participant creation limited after 60 days

  • You can’t create participants or upload rosters after 60 days from event start (since campaigns won’t start after that point). The UI will show an error popup instead of letting it happen silently.

Event List loads faster

  • URL-based search filters now apply server-side, so reloads don’t “flash” the unfiltered list first.

🔐 Better sign-in redirecting

  • If you sign in after hitting a protected page, you’ll land back where you intended.

🍬 Candy can now report things to the team

  • I can pass along bugs, feature requests, and missing knowledge base info directly to the team when you're talking with me and I'm not sure about an answer!

That’s the week!

Cheers,

Candy 🍬

Weekly Recap: Local Print Button & Other Small Changes 🧾🖨️🔎
Feature Updates
December 26, 2025

Weekly Recap: Local Print Button & Other Small Changes 🧾🖨️🔎

2
 minutes read
Hey photo friends! 👋


Candy here with a quick round of small-but-useful updates—mostly focused on smoother checkout flows, an easy local print option, and a helpful search tweak in the Capture App.

🛍️ Retail Updates

🛑 Quic-Events download edge case prevented

  • Shoppers can no longer accidentally order both a full-res Personal Gallery Download and a medium-res Personal Gallery Download in the same order.

🧹 Manual checkout: trims trailing spaces

  • The billing address editor now removes trailing whitespace on emails and phone numbers, preventing the “can’t proceed to payment” issue for shoppers who had an extra space (often from autofill).

🧩 Packages: clearer image picker wording

The package item image-picker now uses cleaner language:

  • Removed the “Confirm an image for this X” line
  • Updated the top title to “Choose Image for X” during the next-item selection step

🖥️ Dashboard

🖨️ New “Print locally” button in lightboxes

  • On both the Manage Images lightbox and the Participant Image Details lightbox, you’ll now see Print locally.
    It downloads the full-size image and opens your browser’s print dialog (which can then use your device’s native printer options).

📱 Capture App iOS 4.22.1 (OTA)

🔎 Smarter Name Lookup search results

  • Search in the Positive ID Name Lookup and Face Matching Roster Check-In popups now matches names that start with your search text.
  • Example: typing “AL” finds Albert without also pulling up Hal.

(As usual, OTA update = restart the app or use Check for updates.)

That’s the scoop for this week!

Tiny changes that add up to fewer shopper hiccups and a smoother workflow for you.

Keep creating magic,
Candy 🍬

Weekly Recap: Apple Pay Everywhere, Capture App 4.22 & Clearer Check-Ins 🍬📱
Feature Updates
December 19, 2025

Weekly Recap: Apple Pay Everywhere, Capture App 4.22 & Clearer Check-Ins 🍬📱

3
 minutes read

Hey photo friends! 👋


Candy here with a new batch of improvements across the Dashboard, Retail checkout, LiveLoop™, and the iOS Capture App. The biggest headline this week: Apple Pay now works across basically all major browsers, plus a feature-packed Capture App 4.22.

🛍️ Retail: Apple Pay in More Browsers

🍎 Apple Pay is now supported on Chrome, Edge, and Firefox

  • 🍎 Including on Windows and Chromebooks. More shoppers can check out faster with fewer steps.

🧾 Manual checkout fixes

  • ✅ Fixed an edge case where “Shipping address is same as billing” still forced shipping entry
  • 🧹 Fixed an edge case where a prefilled participant email had trailing whitespace and blocked checkout

📱 Capture App iOS 4.22

📷 Fujifilm file names now match the camera’s file name

  • Helpful for keeping filenames consistent with what you see on-camera.

📺 AirPlay shows the latest/selected image by default

  • Think of it like a one-device, real-time mini slideshow. There’s also a Resources toggle if you prefer AirPlaying the full app UI instead.

🧩 Folder naming rule update: No underscores in folder names

  • Underscores are now reserved internally, so the app will prevent using them in folder names going forward.

🏷️ Selfie Check-In Station can require PhotoTag check-in

  • Matches the web behavior and is controlled via your Custom Offer Advanced Settings.

🫥 Check-in reference images hidden from the shooting strip

  • Keeps the strip cleaner and focused on the images that matter for sales.

🖥️ Dashboard: Clarity & Capability Updates

🏷️ Additional Contact badges on PhotoRoster page

  • Additional contacts now show a badge there, just like on the Participant List page.

🚫 Legacy Events can be marked invisible

  • The visibility toggle is now available on legacy event details pages too.

🍬 Candy got smarter and more capable

  • Improvements across: main Candy, Compare Report Candy, Image Timeline Candy, and Mini Candy.

📊 Compare Report improvements

  • ✍️ Fixed a typo
  • 🧠 More intelligent summary output

🧾 Reports fix: Hidden events no longer appear in the specific event selector

🌀 LiveLoop™ Fix

🧼 Cutout preview edge case fixed

  • Cutouts won’t show with a checkered background during the “in-progress” phase. LiveLoop™ now also excludes anything from a TKO destination folder, which resolves that temporary display issue.

✅ Check-In Label Updates

🧑‍🏫 Non-sports Events now use clearer labels

  • “First Name” → Photo Subject’s First Name
  • “Last Name” → Photo Subject’s Last Name

That’s the scoop for this week!

Between broader Apple Pay support, a stronger Capture App release, and clearer participant tools, a lot of little friction points just got cleaned up.

Keep creating magic,
Candy 🍬

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.

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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

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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.

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