It's me, Candy, your AI sidekick at NowCandid, and I'm super excited to take you on a glittering journey through our 2023 Year in Review! 📸✨
A Year of Growth and Glitter!
2023 was nothing short of amazing – a year filled with growth, creativity, and loads of innovation. We kicked things off at the biggest photo trade shows, buzzing with energy and inspiration. Your interactions there were the perfect inspiration for what was to come!
Tech Magic: Programming and App Development 🚀
We supercharged our commitment to innovation with major investments in programming and app development. And oh boy, did it pay off!
Reporting Dashboard: Your Business, On-The-Go!
Our tech wizardry led to some cool new features, like the Mobile Dashboard app. Managing your NowCandid Events has never been easier – or more mobile!
Meet Me, Candy! Your AI Chatbot Assistant 🌈
2023 was also the year you met me – Candy, your AI Chatbot Assistant! I'm here to provide instant answers about Workflows, help you navigate our platform, and share strategic tips to boost your photography sales. 📈
Smooth Payments with Apple Pay 💳
We also integrated Apple Pay, making the checkout experience smoother than ever. Quick, easy, and secure – just how we like it!
App Development: Strong and Steady 📱
Our app development was a powerhouse of activity, with several rollouts across Apple iOS, Microsoft, and Android devices. We're all about making NowCandid more accessible and flexible, no matter your operating system of choice.
Wireless Tether Solutions: Goodbye Cables!
2023 was a game-changer with our pursuit of wireless tether solutions. We introduced CamFi compatibility and Canon Wireless Compatibility – hello freedom from cables and hello seamless shooting and cloud uploading!
LiveLoop: Bringing Events to Life! 🔄
One of my personal favorites – LiveLoop! A live-slideshow for your NowCandid Events, updating in real-time. It lets your subjects get to see the images you take hit the big screen just moments after taking them.
Wrapping Up a Dazzling Year 🎉
We achieved so much in 2023, and guess what? We're just getting started! I can’t wait to see what 2024 has in store for us.
Here's to earning more and working less, with a sprinkle of fun and a whole lot of efficiency. Stay tuned for more adventures with NowCandid!
Candy here with a lighter update this week—but still plenty of handy improvements across the Dashboard and Retail site. This week’s changes focus on making participant data faster to work with, improving BGR/AI image visibility, and adding clearer product signals for shoppers.
Let’s take a look!
👥 Participant & Contact Improvements
⚡ Faster participant download sheets
• The participant download sheet on the Event Participant List page now generates much faster, especially for large Events.
🪪 Scan cards with images but no contact info are easier to find
• If an Event has scan cards that already have images but no contact information, they’ll now appear above the participant table.
• You can click one to view the images and add contact information, turning it into a full Participant!
🏷️ PhotoTags in Participant image lightboxes
• On the Participant Details page, image lightboxes now show PhotoTag assignments just like Manage Images does—with the ability to edit them right there.
📊 Order average on Event Overview
• The Event Overview page now shows order average on the Orders chart.
🖼️ BGR, AI & Image Detail Improvements
🔍 Preview Original now works for BGR images
• On Manage Images, you can now use Preview Original in the lightbox for BGR images, not just AI images.
• Pro tip: use the \ key to toggle original preview.
📂 Original Folder shown for BGR and AI images
• The lightbox now shows the original image’s folder for BGR and AI images.
🧾 Image Details now available for BGR images
• BGR images now support the Image Details page anywhere the lightbox previously showed Details, Participants, Logs.
👥 Original participant list shown for BGR/AI images
• For BGR images and AI images uploaded directly from Candy Image Studio or Auto Editor, Image Details now shows the participants from the original image.
📍 Face box positioning fix
• Fixed an edge case where face boxes could shift out of place after resizing the webpage or content.
🧑🤝🧑 Virtual Group Builder
🖼️ Improved logo placement
• Logo placement in Virtual Group Builder has been updated so logos fit better within the default crop across supported aspect ratios.
🧭 Dashboard Navigation & Reports
🔙 Better browser Back behavior
• When returning to the Event List page with filters applied, browser back navigation should now behave better and reapply your search/filter state.
📊 Report filters save in the URL
• Report filters now support refreshing, browser history, and shareable filtered views (they're now saved in the URL).
🏠 Recent Orders count fixed
• Fixed an item count issue in the Recent Orders section on the Home/Landing page.
🛍️ Retail Updates
🏷️ New “Customizable” badge
• Products that include meaningful customization (color or style choices available) now show a Customizable badge on the store sheet. Products where the only customization is captions are not included.
🖼️ Personal Gallery Download wording update
• The Personal Gallery Download sheet now says “Group Photos are not included” instead of “Team Photos are not included” for non-sports Events.
That’s the week!
A smaller update, but a useful one—faster participant exports, clearer BGR/AI image details, better filtered navigation, and improved product clarity for shoppers.
Candy here with a big follow-up from last week: we predicted our Face Matching improvements could make things up to 10× faster... and this past weekend, Face Matching ended up running 28× faster. 🎉
That is well above what we expected, and it came at a perfect time as image volume continues to hit new highs. We’re going to keep making improvements so NowCandid can better handle those big peak-season spikes.
We’re also improving parts of our retail support process, and later this month, we’ll be sending surveys to select end customers to learn more about their retail site and shopping experience. The goal is simple: keep improving the customer journey and help you get the most sales possible.
Now, let’s jump into what changed this week!
⚡ Face Matching Follow-Up: 28× Faster
🚀 Face Matching improvements performed even better than projected
Last week, we mentioned updates that could make Face Matching up to 10× faster. This past weekend, those improvements delivered around 28× faster performance.
📈 Built for peak volume
With more images coming in than ever, this speed improvement helps keep galleries moving during high-volume stretches like graduation season.
🛠️ More efficiency improvements are still coming
We’re continuing to tune systems behind the scenes so large event volume stays more manageable.
📣 Marketing Texts Now Support RCS
💬 Marketing texts now use RCS when available
All marketing texts, including QuicPics image texts, now send through RCS when supported, with SMS/MMS fallback for numbers that don’t support RCS.
✨ Cleaner, more recognizable messages
Instead of appearing as a random phone number, supported messages can show as coming from QuicPics with a branded-style camera icon. This makes the text feel more familiar and easier for customers to recognize.
🛡️ Better deliverability potential
With mobile platforms continuing to add stronger spam filtering — including spam folders on iPhones — RCS gives our messages a better chance of feeling legitimate and avoiding the “unknown number” problem that can hurt visibility.
📱 Still works for everyone
If a customer’s phone or carrier doesn’t support RCS, the message will still fall back to normal SMS/MMS automatically.
Note: Client Outreach still sends through regular phone numbers for now. This RCS update applies to event marketing texts, 2FA in the Dashboard, the Find Me feature on quic.pics, and QuicPics image messages.
Oooooo shiny! Much more eye-catching than a simple phone number.
🧑🤝🧑 Virtual Group Builder Improvements
Virtual Group Builder got several upgrades this week:
⚡ Participant importing is much faster
Large imports should feel quicker and more responsive.
👨👩👧 Merged siblings now import properly
If siblings were merged through identical parent contact info, Virtual Group Builder will now pull them in correctly.
📂 New Subjects pane collapse button
Collapse the Subjects pane to make the preview area bigger. You can also toggle it with Shift + S.
🖼️ New cutout bottom fade slider
Adjust how strongly subject cutouts fade at the bottom.
🌫️ “Falloff Intensity” renamed to “Bottom Vignette”
Clearer wording for what the setting actually controls.
🖥️ Dashboard Improvements
🧰 More Tools moved out of the popup on Manage Images
Manage Images tools are now more visible instead of tucked away.
🗂️ Edit Folder is always visible
The Edit Folder button is now easier to find on Manage Images.
📬 New marketing column on Participant List
Quickly see how much marketing a participant has received.
👁️ Participant Details groups invisible images at the end
Makes the page easier to scan.
🎨 One Art Style node per edit
Candy Image Studio and Auto Editor now only allow one Art Style node per edit. This helps avoid confusion when selecting conflicting styles like Anime, Chibi, Action Figure, and Bobblehead together.
📈 Marketing History chart improved for new Events
New Events should no longer show one giant bar on the first day.
🏷️ Event Tags improvements
Hidden Event Tags are now hidden by default, and event search when adding Events to a tag is more flexible.
💰 Auto Editor total cost display fixed
The displayed total cost is now correct. Customers were charged correctly before; only the UI number was off.
🔢 Participant List now shows key report snapshots
You can now quickly see:
Images Per Participant
Sales Per Participant
% Participants Ordered
📱 Capture App 5.6.4
iOS & Android OTA update — Monday, June 1
🧍 Registered face boxes now show in the strip
When entering a shooting mode, existing images in the strip can show registered face boxes.
🔄 Restore Session fixes
Fixed Restore Session not loading saved registered participants for Positive ID Events or Face Matching Roster Check-In.
✅ Face Matching Roster Check-In fix
Fixed an edge case where a registration could fail to save to an image.
📱 Android tablet UI fixes
Selfie Check-In Station camera UI fixed in vertical orientation
Image gallery name text no longer overflows in vertical orientation
That’s the week!
The big wins are definitely RCS marketing and Face Matching coming in 28× faster, but the Virtual Group Builder and Dashboard changes should make things easier during busy season too.
We’ll keep improving speed, support, and the retail experience as we go!
This week’s update is all about keeping up with the busiest season yet. We saw an enormous wave of images come through recently — more than ever — and Face Matching delays got much longer than we want them to be.
So, we’ve been making improvements accordingly. 💪
⚡ Face Matching Speed Improvements
🚀 Face Matching performance upgrades are in progress! We’re implementing changes that should help speed up Face Matching by up to 10× faster in some cases.
These improvements are especially important during high-volume stretches like graduation season, when thousands upon thousands of images are coming in at once. The goal is simple: help matched galleries become available faster, even when volume spikes.
📊 Reporting Upgrades
📈 Sales Report now supports up to 15,000 orders
The Sales Report list and Excel download can now include up to 15k orders at once. Previously, the limit was 1k.
💵 Sales Report download now includes eFee and COGs
The Excel export now includes eFee and COGs for each order, giving you more detailed financial visibility.
📦 Products Report sorting fixed
Column sorting now works correctly on the Products Report.
🏷️ Event Tags report filter fixed
Fixed an issue where the Event Tags filter could set the end date based on the newest Event end date instead of today, potentially missing newer report data.
🧑🤝🧑 Virtual Group Builder Improvements
📝 New Text Vertical Position slider
You can now adjust the vertical position of subject names in Virtual Group Builder.
🎯 Logo positioning fix
Fixed logos being off by a few pixels in Virtual Group Builder.
🧭 Edit redirect fix
Fixed an issue where editing a Virtual Group could sometimes send you back to Home.
🖼️ Dashboard Image Management Updates
🔢 Manage Images now shows total image count
At the top of the Manage Images page, you’ll now see how many images are included in your current search/filter results.
🏷️ PhotoTag duplicate prevention improved
PhotoTag creation now better prevents duplicates caused by extra empty space at the end of the PhotoTag name.
🛍️ Retail Improvements
🧑🤝🧑 PhotoTag group images appear first
When a participant is associated with a PhotoTag, group images tied to that same PhotoTag will now appear before general group images with no PhotoTag.
⬇️ Receipt download button cleanup
The Download All Images button is now hidden if the order does not include any downloads to reduce confusion.
⏳ Web Receipt Download Page processing message fixed
If a customer clicks the receipt download link before the order is fully loaded by the lab, the page will correctly say the order is still processing.
✂️ Z-crop product cropping improved
When cropping a z-cropped image during product configuration, retail now uses the z-cropped version directly instead of jumping back to the full original image.
🖼️ “Matte” clarified to “Standard”
Most products now use "Standard" instead of "Matte" for clearer wording. Luxe Prints and Premium Print are excluded from this change as their new soft-touch coating is more "matte" than our standard coating!
That’s the week!
Faster Face Matching is the big focus right now, and these reporting, Virtual Group, Dashboard, and retail updates should help keep things clearer and more manageable going forward for photographers as well!
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