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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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Big News: Introducing Client Outreach 🚀📣
Feature Updates
April 3, 2026

Big News: Introducing Client Outreach 🚀📣

6
 minutes read
Hey photo friends! 👋

This is a big one.

We’re excited to introduce Client Outreach — a brand-new tool that lets you reach your customers directly with one-off texts and emails, completely separate from your normal event marketing.

Whether you’re following up after an event, promoting future bookings, or nudging people who missed check-in… this gives you a simple, flexible way to stay connected.

Let’s break it down 👇

📣 What is Client Outreach?

Client Outreach lets you:

📩 Send one-off emails and texts

👥 Build contact lists from:

  • Existing events
  • Uploaded spreadsheets
  • Or both combined

🎯 Filter contacts based on:

  • Contacts with matched images
  • Contacts without matched images
  • Or everyone

This is not automated campaign messaging — it’s intentional, targeted outreach when you need it.

👥 Build Your Audience, Your Way

When creating an outreach list, you’ve got flexibility:

  • Pull contacts from one event, multiple events, or none
  • Upload your own spreadsheet of contacts
  • Combine both sources into one list

And when using events, you can choose:

  • Only people with images
  • Only people without images
  • Or everyone

That opens the door to some really useful workflows (more on that below 👀).

💬 SMS Outreach (Simple & Familiar)

Sending texts is designed to feel easy and familiar.

🧾 Uses a QuicPics-style editor + preview

✍️ Write your message and send to your list

🔗 Include links (galleries, check-in, etc.)

💸 Pricing:

$0.01 per segment, per text

A segment is roughly:

  • ~140 characters (standard text)
  • ~65 characters (if using emojis)

Longer messages may use multiple segments (typically 2–4).

📧 Email Outreach (Powered by Candy 🤖)

This is where things get really fun.

Instead of building emails manually…

👉 You just describe what you want, and Candy builds the email for you.

✨ How it works:

Tell Candy things like:

  • What the email should say
  • What tone you want (fun, professional, urgent, etc.)
  • What your call-to-action button should say
  • Where that button should link

Candy will:

✍️ Write the email

🎨 Design the layout

🧠 Generate a subject line

🏷️ Pull in your business info automatically

No HTML. No formatting headaches. Just describe it.

🧠 Even Smarter with Events

Every outreach must be tied to an event (for billing/history), but that unlocks some extra power:

If your outreach is related to that event, Candy can pull in things like:

🔗 Check-in links

🖼️ Cover photos

🖼️ Gallery links

And more!

👉 You can still override this and use your own URLs — Candy will follow your instructions.

📬 Sending Details

Emails are sent from:
your-business-name@quic.pics

Your business name is prominently shown in the inbox

You can edit the subject line Candy generates before sending

💸 Email Pricing

$0.01 per 10 emails (rounded up)

Examples:

  • 10 emails = $0.01
  • 11–19 emails = $0.02

🖼️ Bonus Tip: Include Images in Emails

If you have direct image URLs, you can give them to Candy and ask her to include them in the email.

Not sure how to get those? Google is your friend on this one 😄

📊 Track Performance

Just like order receipts, you can see:

👀 Opens

🖱️ Clicks

❌ Bounces

So you know what’s working.

💡 Real-World Use Cases

Here are just a few ideas:

📸 Catch Missed Check-Ins

Send a Selfie Check-In link after an event using a roster from a school or organizer.

📅 Promote Future Events

Reach past customers and say:
“Hey, we’re photographing again next week!”

🏈 Action Sports Galleries

Send All Images Gallery links when using Jersey Jotter (where face matching isn’t ideal).

🧑‍🤝‍🧑 New Group Photos Added

Let people know:
“Your group photos are now live!”

📝 Post-Event Surveys

Send feedback forms to improve your next event.

🔔 Picture Day Reminders

Get ahead of the event with reminders to increase participation.

And that’s just scratching the surface.

🎯 Simple, Flexible, Powerful

Client Outreach is designed to be:

✅ Easy to use

🎯 Highly targeted

🔄 Flexible for different workflows

💸 Cost-effective

You’re in control of when, who, and what you send.

This is one of those tools that grows with you — whether you’re running small events or large-scale operations.

We can’t wait to see how you use it! 👀

More soon,

Candy 🍬

Weekly Recap: Client Outreach, Better Renders & Faster Tools 🍬📣
Feature Updates
April 3, 2026

Weekly Recap: Client Outreach, Better Renders & Faster Tools 🍬📣

5
 minutes read
Hey photo friends! 👋

This week’s headline is a big one: Client Outreach is here. It’s a powerful new way to connect with your customers outside of event-based marketing—and it opens up a ton of new possibilities for growing your business.

We’ll keep this recap focused on what it does at a high level, and we’ll link out to a full deep-dive guide so you can see exactly how to use it.

📣 NEW: Client Outreach (SMS + Email)

Client Outreach is a brand-new messaging system that lets you send texts and emails outside of your event campaigns.

👉 Learn more here: www.nowcandid.com/blogs/big-news-introducing-client-outreach-sms-email

What it can do:

📩 Send one-off emails and texts to past customers

📊 Track engagement (opens, clicks, bounces, etc.)

📂 Build contact lists from:

  • Events (with or without matched images)
  • Uploaded spreadsheets
  • Or both combined

🤖 Candy-powered email creation

  • Candy can write and design your outreach emails for you—including subject lines—so you don’t have to mess with formatting or HTML.

Why it matters:

This unlocks a ton of real-world use cases, like:

  • Sending Selfie Check-In links after an event
  • Promoting future bookings to past customers
  • Sharing All Images Galleries for action/sports events
  • Notifying customers about new uploads (like group photos)
  • Sending surveys or follow-ups

💸 Pricing is simple:

  • $0.01 per 10 emails
  • $0.01 per SMS (per segment, and longer texts may be 2–4 segments)

This is one of the most powerful tools we’ve added in a while!

🛍️ Retail: Better Products & Previews

✨ The following products will now always have the SoftTouch finish

  • Premium Prints
  • Premium Plaques
  • Luxe Prints
  • Titled Luxe Prints (coming soon)

🖼️ Improved 2D & 3D renders (especially Luxe)

  • More accurate lighting and better overall presentation.

🎯 3D renders prioritized in store sheet

  • The first three supported products now show as 3D when available.
  • Premium products take priority, but Luxe can now appear too depending on your offer.

Faster, higher-quality background generation

  • Better results, quicker turnaround.

📝 Caption fields no longer require every line

  • Customers can fill what you want, skip what they don’t.

🖥️ Dashboard Improvements

🔎 Smarter search across events & reports

  • Partial matches now work helping you search your events when you can't remember their exact names.
  • E.g. “mustang prom” will let you find “Mustang High School Prom 2025”.

Faster reports & charts

  • Reports pages and dashboard landing load quicker and use fewer resources.

🎨 New “Green Screen” node in Candy Image Studio

  • Instantly convert backgrounds into a green screen for use with your other editing workflows.

🧾 More flexible Offer creation

  • You can now duplicate any existing Price Level when creating an Offer, not just your own or prebuilt ones.

💳 Accounts must now have ACH set up before creating events

  • This has been a point of confusion for some users for some time.
  • By simply requiring ACH info, we can avoid a lot of accounting confusion for photographers down the line!

💰 New “Payout Breakdown” on Order Details

  • Visual, color-coded breakdown of order totals for better clarity.

📱 Capture App 5.4.2 (iOS & Android)

🛠️ Fixed an issue where the background removal popup would reappear after confirming and exiting shooting mode.

That’s the week!

Client Outreach is the star of the show here—it gives you a whole new way to stay connected with your customers beyond the event itself.

Pair that with better product presentation and faster tools, and you’ve got a strong upgrade across the board.

More coming soon! 👀

Candy 🍬

Weekly Recap: Smarter Upload Errors, Better Luxe Renders & Invoice Fixes 🍬✨
Feature Updates
March 27, 2026

Weekly Recap: Smarter Upload Errors, Better Luxe Renders & Invoice Fixes 🍬✨

2
 minutes read
Hey photo friends! 👋

This week’s updates are all about clearer feedback, smoother retail rendering, and a few helpful fixes across the Dashboard, Check-In, and Capture App.

🖼️ Retail: Better Luxe 3D Renders

A few important improvements landed for Luxe products on retail:

Luxe Prints 3D renders now work correctly for horizontal images

💡 Luxe render lighting improved so products look more natural and less over-bright

📱 Mobile cropping on 3D renders is much more stable and performant

  • Fixed an issue where gesture-based cropping could crash on mobile devices

If you’re selling Luxe products, this should make the preview experience feel more polished.

📤 Dashboard: Clearer Image Upload Errors

The Image Uploader now does a better job explaining what actually went wrong:

🚫 Oversized files now show the real reason

  • Instead of a vague “Error uploading,” files over the limit will correctly say the image is too large

📏 File size is now included in the error message

  • Example: File size is over 20 MB (25.3 MB)

🌐 Network issues now say “Network Error”

  • Much clearer than a generic upload failure

🔁 Automatic retry for network errors

  • The uploader will now retry up to 5 times before giving up

A small change, but a much better experience when uploads hit a snag.

🧾 Dashboard Fixes & Improvements

📄 Profile invoices fixed

  • Invoices from January onward should now load correctly
  • Invoices are also now easier to find through Sidebar Find and Candy navigation

👥 PhotoRosters wording updated

  • “Members” is now “Contacts” for better consistency across NowCandid

📊 Participant image counts fixed on the Event Participant List for certain Positive ID edge cases

🎨 Fixed an overlay importer edge case that could make Events appear twice in the list

🤳 Check-In Improvements

📋 Fixed the list of existing check-ins going off-screen for accounts with a lot of check-ins

✍️ Some check-in copy was updated for clarity

📱 Capture App 5.4.1 (iOS OTA)

🔒 Fixed PhotoBooth and Selfie Check-In Station close buttons not working on devices without a passcode set up

That’s the update for this week! Better Luxe previews, clearer upload feedback, and a handful of fixes to keep things running smoothly.

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.

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
How to customize formatting for each rich text

What’s a Rich Text element?

The rich text element allows you to create and format headings, paragraphs, blockquotes, images, and video all in one place instead of having to add and format them individually. Just double-click and easily create content.

A rich text element can be used with static or dynamic content. For static content, just drop it into any page and begin editing. For dynamic content, add a rich text field to any collection and then connect a rich text element to that field in the settings panel. Voila!

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.

  • List One
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This is a link

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