Simply put, to provide the highest quality of service:
1) Customers expect to download the hi-resolution file as soon as they buy it.
2) Allows us to send orders to the lab within hours, even while you're busy or away.
3) Enables zooming the thumbnails to full resolution (customers love this!)
4) If you lose the files, we still have them, even after two years!

In any case, If you're doing multiple events each week, daily uploading of orders gets really time-consuming. And broadband is cheap; most photographers simply upload during the night while not using their computer.

Our upload tool resizes your pictures automatically. You can choose the target size, but we recommend 3 megapixels for the best quality with the lowest transmission time and space usage. At 3MP files will be around 500KB. Uploading at over 4MP will make minimal or no visible difference in output quality, unless customer orders large posters.

You choose how long to leave each event online (most members choose between 1 and 3 months), although customers can continue to view and order even after events go offline (see below for details).

Here's a rough guide to how much space you would need depending on the type of events you do. It assumes that you leave your events online for 2 months, and upload at the recommended size (3MP - about 500KB files). Many factors, including your camera type and complexity of each image, affect the actual file size. Your files may be slightly more or less than 500KB.

You choose how long each event stays online (between 1 month and 1 year). On the specified date it automatically goes offline and the master files are moved to offline storage.

However the thumbnails remain online for 2 more years, and therefore customers can continue to view and order from the event. Customer is charged $4.00 for orders that contain offline pictures ($4 per order, NOT per picture) since our technicians must manually retrieve the master files from offline storage.

This effectively shifts the burden of paying for long-term storage to customers who wait a long time to order. If you keep your events online for 2 months this feature allows you to keep disk usage to about 1/5.

Commission of 10-15% is assessed on your earnings (after taking out shipping and product wholesale cost), according to the scale below. Beware of other services that calculate commission off the entire order amount, including wholesale product cost. In such a scenario a 15% published commission could end up being as high as 25% off your earnings.

Period Revenue (US$) Commission Percentage

            0    –   99.99             15%
            100  –  299.99         14%
            300  –  999.99         13%
            1000 – 1999.99      12%
            2000 – 4999.99      11%
            5000 and above     10%
                                                        

Note that calculation is based on account revenue, so in a group/studio account many photographers could be pooling their effort to achieve a more favorable commission level.

Signup is just $20 ($50 for a group account). Our operation is mostly based on commissions. There are no monthly or annual membership fees, no upload, event, or bandwith fees.

If the free 5GB of disk space (about 10,000 pictures) is not enough you may choose one of the storage plans below. You can change this plan up or down as often as you want. If your average period disk usage does go over your selected storage plan quota you are charged $3/1GB/month. This calculation is detailed in our Terms and Conditions.

            Total space - Monthly cost
            5GB -    Free
            10GB -  $9/month
            20GB -  $17/month
            50GB -  $29/month
                                                        

Prints are produced at a local partner lab in the Hollywood area which servers the needs of many advertising, editorial and artistic photographers. They have meticulously calibrated Noritsu machines and use professional Kodak Endura paper. Gifts, novely items and posters are produced by other partners that have been selected for their quality and exceptional turnaround.

With standard cable or DSL service upload time for an average 500KB picture is about 25 seconds, so a full event with 200 pictures will take about one and a half hours. Keep in mind that because of the nature of broadband the length of an upload is of little importance: You can leave your computer uploading a large event all day and night without incurring any additional connection charges, and without tying up your phone line or your computer.

You can leave the upload running in one browser window while you continue to browse the web in another, and otherwise use your computer as usual. If for some reason you must restart your computer you can do so, and then resume the stopped upload with the click of a button.

Alternatively you can upload from a corporate network or, if you have a laptop, a WiFi spot (i.e. at Starbucks, Borders, etc.) which usually have upload speeds 3 to 5 times faster than cable or DSL broadband.