Summar Seminar 2023: 7 Things to Do in Fort Lauderdale
By
Jack C.
on
June 23, 2023
|
5
minute read
Want to get the most out of your photography business?
This is the opportunity you've been waiting for! Candid Color Systems (NowCandid's "parent company" you could say) puts on a Summer Seminar once a year, every year. It's a revolutionary chance to talk shop and network with other volume photographers from around the country, learn about what's new with NowCandid, hear about success stories of all kinds, see presentations from some expert guest speakers, and importantly - have fun! This experience has cultivated extreme growth for many of our partners.
Don’t miss the fun! Here are our top 7 things to do while in town!
1. Head to the beach!
Our hotel offers beach chair and umbrella service on this gorgeous stretch of sand!
Hop on and off the water taxi’s or just cruise to see the city for the water. Pass fabulous homes and amazing boats on your way around the intra-coastal waterway!
There is no better way to spend an evening! Have a cocktail and see amazing ships cruise by as the sun sets.
7. Head to the everglades!
If you have more time, we suggest a trip to the everglades. If you have a car, you can go direct and skip the tour vans. Go early in case of an afternoon shower in the everglade afternoons. And make sure you get on an actual Airboat for the full experience!
Want to register for the Summer Seminar? Click below!
This week’s updates are all about cleaner branding, smoother selling, and better visibility across your workflows—from a new profile/business logo system to big package configurator performance improvements, plus a long-awaited refresh of the Event Management Portal (EMP) ahead of grad season.
Let’s jump in. 💫
🖥️ Dashboard Updates
📣 Client Outreach: Texts now require a URL
Client Outreach SMS messages now require a URL to be included—helping ensure every text has a clear destination and call-to-action.
🧾 Reports: “Participants” terminology restored for accuracy
The Events Report, Compare Report, and Faces Report now use Participants instead of Contacts. Reminder: a Contact is someone with info; a Participant is a contact with at least one image in their gallery. This avoids deflating stats with unmarketable contacts.
🧰 Candy Culler usability win
Added a Download Image button to the Image Details lightbox on the Candy Culler page.
🖼️ Better controls in Participant lightboxes
Added a visibility toggle to the Image Details lightbox on the Participant Details page.
🔍 New Event List filters
The Event List page now includes quick filters for:
Background Removal events
JerseyJotter events
Candy Culler events
🖼️ Offer background minimum lowered
You can now set your Offer background selection minimum to 5 (previously 20).
🚚 New flat-rate shipping option
Added $2.50 flat-rate shipping as an available shipping option.
📱 Mobile Dashboard
Fixed an issue where Friday weekly sales notifications were not sending.
🏷️ New: Profile / Business Logos (Branding Upgrade)
You can now assign a business/profile logo—upload to your profile icon on the dashboard as a 650×650 image and automatically cropped to a circle.
Where it appears:
Dashboard profile page + navigation
Retail contact popup above your business name
Receipt emails, web receipt preview, and the web receipt download page
Event Management Portal (EMP) header beside your business name
Private Image Download Gallery (PIDG) header
Public Event Tag List page header
More placements are planned in the future—this is the first step toward a more consistent, professional brand presence everywhere your customers interact with you.
🏷️ Event Tag List Page
Improved UI for a cleaner, easier experience.
🔒 Private Image Download Gallery (PIDG)
Improved UI
Added a note to the landing popup regarding released images
🛍️ Retail Improvements (Big Week for Packages + Rendering)
🖼️ Captions render earlier for key products
Graduation Plaque and Titled Luxe Prints now render custom captions earlier in the process, rather than waiting until the captions step.
📦 Package configurator upgrades
The package configurator received several improvements:
Added pagination to the All Gallery tab in the “Next Package Item Image Picker” step
Added a “Discard package progress?” popup when backing out after configuring at least one item to prevent accidental loss of progress
Fixed an edge-case crash on mobile when configuring large packages in offers with 3D items
Overall package configurating is now much more performant
🧩 Z-Crop improvements
Several improvements were made to ZCrop images to improve behavior and consistency.
🏷️ Group photo refresh fix
Fixed user-added dynamic gallery group photos showing as not group after refresh.
🎨 Background order consistency
Custom offer background order now matches the order in the offer details editor—drag and drop reordering on the dashboard offer editor.
📸 Capture App (iOS & Android OTA): 5.4.3 + 5.4.4
5.4.3: Fixed a crash when toggling a Group Photo without any service
5.4.4: Fixed a keypad popup issue on very large screens (like 13” iPad) where opt-in/cancel buttons were being cropped out
🧾 Event Management Portal (EMP) — Major Refresh (quic.pics/portal)
Quick reminder: the Event Management Portal (EMP) is a mini-dashboard on quic.pics that uses the Capture App login—so you can do “dashboard-like” tasks without downloading an app or using a full account login. It hasn’t been talked about much lately, but this week it got a big refresh in preparation for grad season.
What’s new:
Improved security
Tons of UI changes and a new dark-only theme
Event list page now includes a search bar
Event list page updated to “Live on Capture App” (instead of “Active”)
Event list page shows attributes like the main Dashboard + adds an Event Number column
Header now shows business name and logo
Fixed a crash on the Marketing History page
Added text/email filter on Marketing History
Images now use lightboxes with arrow key navigation
Participant Details now shows Additional Contacts
Participant Details now shows Invisible images
That’s the week! 💫
Between profile/business logos, a smoother package configurator, better report accuracy, and the EMP glow-up for grad season, this update should help you move faster, look more professional, and reduce friction across the whole customer experience.
This week’s updates are a fun mix of new products, new visual workflows, and small-but-important fixes that make day-to-day work smoother—especially across Candy Image Studio, retail packages, and PhotoRoster/PhotoTag downloads.
Client Outreach email history is easier to use and more reliable:
Added a “View” button in Client Outreach email history so you can open the sent email in a new tab (similar to how order receipts work).
Fixed an issue where email status didn’t always show for all emails in the status list.
More clarity when reviewing participant galleries:
The Participant Details page now shows invisible images, clearly marked in red with an “Invisible” label—so you can understand what’s hidden without guessing.
PhotoTag participant gallery downloads got safer:
Fixed PhotoTag participant gallery downloads overwriting images when multiple files shared the same frame.
Fixed the download count displayed on the download button being off.
🎨 Candy Image Studio: Create Without an Input + A New Node
Candy Image Studio has two notable upgrades this week:
🧠 No input image required (generate from scratch!) Candy Image Studio no longer requires an input image to get started. You can generate from scratch using the “From Scratch” node (at the very bottom), or by starting from custom text or a custom image—great for things like creating portrait backgrounds or creative assets.
🆕 New “Bobblehead” node A brand-new Bobblehead node is now available inside Candy Image Studio.
Disclaimer: This is not a new product. This is an image node in the Candy Image Studio.
🏈 Jersey Jotter + Event Settings Cleanup
Jersey Jotter settings were removed from the Create/Edit Event popup. Since Jersey Jotter now has its own dedicated page, we pulled those settings out of the event popups to keep Create Event as minimal (and fast) as possible—and keep Edit Event aligned with Create.
New: “Auto Enhance” can be turned off in Create/Edit Event. Important clarity here:
Auto Enhance isn’t new — it has always been enabled by default.
What’s new is the ability to turn it off from the Create/Edit Event popup.
It’s labeled “Auto Enhance” (not “Retail Enhancement”) because it affects more than retail, including things like LiveLoop, Dashboard previews, Shareable Download Gallery, and more.
Note: this setting only impacts images uploaded after you change it. (So anything already uploaded keeps whatever enhancement state it had at upload time.)
🛍️ Retail: Package Backgrounds + Fixes
A few retail improvements landed to reduce confusing edge cases:
When selecting a PNG (without a faux background render) during the “Next Package Item Image Picker” step, the chosen background will now default to the first background in the background picker list (instead of the purple default).
Fixed an issue where the background selector step didn’t always appear for non-faux BGR images.
Fixed a crash related to having Wall Clings in packages.
Updated the Free Download description to: “Free simple, full-resolution download of your image.” (Previously it implied lower resolution.)
In Advanced Offer Settings, you can now enable Zoom Cropping, which automatically adds an additional image into the customer’s gallery that is zoom-cropped toward their face.
Details & rules:
✅ Works on Face Matching Events
✅ Works only on images with one face
✅ All default graduation offers/price levels now have Zoom Cropping enabled
Behind the scenes, it applies a ~30% zoom toward the face, with an additional ~30% pull from the center of the image toward the face (clamped to avoid cropping beyond image bounds)
This is a great “quiet upgrade” for grads and portrait-style moments where customers love a tighter crop—without you needing to manually create it.
🖼️ New Products: Titled Luxe Prints (Dashboard + Retail)
New: “Edit Titled Luxe Print” Page (per event) There’s a new event-level page available in the Dashboard sidebar only if one of the new titled products is included in the event’s offer. From there, you can:
Set default captions
Select left/right logos
Preview the 3D render
(Easter egg: rotate the render and you can spot your business name on the backprinting.)
Notes:
Default captions and logos are optional
Retail shoppers can change captions when ordering
Logo requirements: upload/import a 650×650 transparent PNG
Retail supports both 2D + 3D renders, including your custom logos
Order Details pages now display the selected logos, similar to how we show captions and colors
That’s the week! 💫
Between Zoom Cropping, Titled Luxe Prints, and Candy Image Studio’s new From Scratch flow (plus a pile of cleanup across retail + downloads), this update adds a lot of power without adding extra complexity.
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.
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.