Collages.net will be conducting routine maintenance on its servers between the hours of 2:00 AM and 7:00 AM EST on August 20, 2010. All efforts will be made to minimize downtime, but it is possible that outages will occur during these hours. We strongly encourage all users to avoid uploading events and ordering products during the evening of August 19, 2010 unless you are confident that the upload will complete before 2:00 AM on the 20th. However, once the maintenance has completed, you may proceed with uploading events and placing orders as normal. Please direct any questions concerning the maintenance to Collages.net’s Product and Workflow Consultants at customerservice@collages.net.

We’re extremely excited about the release of our new album, book, and custom album design ordering system. This system will allow you to purchase from all three product lines in one easy-to-use online order form. Talk about streamlining studio workflows!

• Order albums, books, and design all at once
• Enjoy a simple ordering interface that includes images to show product options
• Use Collages.net’s design bank to quickly order duplicate products

We have combined the release of our ordering system with the release of new product options for our album, book, and design lines. Below you can find the quick details of these updates.

Albums:

New covers! Our album line is growing with the introduction of matte photographic, glam, and balance albums. Mimicking our brilliant albums full photographic cover, the soft, matte cover reflects a modern, romantic look. Our glam covers include both faux croc and distressed leather options. These options are perfect for the client with high expectations and style. Combining the perfect balance of quality and price, our balance albums offer a quality, basic leather album with limited options.

New photographic page types! Collages.net’s standard, semi-lustre photographic page is being joined by two additional page options: metallic and matte. Our metallic page gives a high-gloss, high-impact look to your album spreads, causing colors to pop. The opposite page type, our matte page, softens colors and gives an overall romantic, dreamy look to your images.

Coffee Table Books:
New covers! Collages.net’s Coffee Table Book line has grown. Not only can professional photographers  order this product online, but you also have more options than ever. Our hard cover books come with two cover options - matte and high gloss with an optional high gloss dust jacket. Our soft cover book comes standard with our high gloss cover.

New press printed page types! After the cover is selected, you have the option of five different press printed page types; standard, matte, linen, lay-flat standard, and lay-flat standard with UV.

Design:
New design bank! In addition to online ordering for Collages.net custom album design, Collages.net now offers a design bank for both designs that Collages.net completes and designs that you send to Collages.net for printing. Collages.net will keep designs you complete on file for 60 days after the original order is placed. For the orders that Collages.net’s Design Team creates, we will keep them on file for 365 days after the original order is placed. At any time during the 60 or 365 day period, you may order an album or coffee table book using an existing design from the design bank in the ordering system.

Collages.net will be conducting routine maintenance on its servers between the hours of 2:00 AM and 7:00 AM EST on June 18, 2010. All efforts will be made to minimize downtime, but it is possible that outages will occur during these hours. We strongly encourage all users to avoid uploading events and ordering products during the evening of June 17, 2010 unless you are confident that the upload will complete before 2:00 AM on the 18th. However, once the maintenance has completed, you may proceed with uploading events and placing orders as normal. Please direct any questions concerning the maintenance to Collages.net’s Product and Workflow Consultants at customerservice@collages.net.

What a party! Collages.net’s eleventh birthday was celebrated with much ado. You have probably already heard about our amazing birthday contest with over $6,000 of presents that we are giving away to professional photographers, but we didn’t stop there. Look at the amazing cake we had! It was delicious.

The two special men in hats are Norm Racine, Collages.net’s COO, and Kevin Casey, Collages.net’s President and CEO.

After taking a gazillion pictures, we watched a nostalgic video showing Collages.net over the past eleven years. Click the image below to watch our video.

Then we ate cake!

Everyone at Collages.net wishes to express thanks to you, our professional photographers, who have given feedback, given us shout outs on blogs, social networks, and forums, and have loved Collages.net over the years. We hope our hard work has benefited your studio. We look forward to the amazing products and services coming out over the upcoming years.

Images by Kate Madell Photography 

Collages.net turns eleven this year, and we couldn’t be more excited to share it with you. Rather than keeping all the presents to ourselves, we have decided to share them with all of you, our professional photographers. If it wasn’t for the feedback, referrals, and love that you give us each day, we would not be the successful company we are today.

In honor of our birthday, we have over $6,000 worth of birthday presents that we are giving away via our birthday video contest. Here is what you need to do in order to be a contender:

1. Create a 60-90 second video telling us why you love Collages.net and what your favorite product is. Do you love our online posting, albums, books, cards, gallery wraps, the way your customer reacts when seeing the products, social networking links, the total white label solution, our automated full service solution, or our excellent service? Pick one topic per video to submit. Be passionate, be enthusiastic, be funny, but be real and clearly state why you have chosen Collages.net as your studio’s vendor. There’s no need to say happy birthday in the video itself as the winning video could potentially be used in future Collages.net marketing.

2. Submit the video by e-mailing marketing@collages.net by May 19th. Each studio that submits a video will receive $25 of product credit. Although multiple submissions increase your odds of winning the grand prize of $500 of product credit, only one $25 coupon code will be given to each studio that enters the contest.

3. Watch out for the finalists’ announcement on Facebook. Collages.net will post all finalists on Collages.net’s fan page by May 21st. It’s your job to have your friends vote for your video by leaving comments on our fan page. The videos with the most comments by May 28th will receive the grand prize. Eleven winners will each receive $500 of Collages.net product credit. The runners up will receive $75 of product credit.

Good luck! Any questions can be directed to marketing@collages.net.

This Friday is the last day for you to reap the benefits of spreading the word about Collages.net’s new lower online posting prices. We are incredibly thankful to each and every professional photographer who has taken the time to tweet, Facebook, and write on forums about our exciting announcement. The winners will be announced on Facebook next week. Stay tuned to find out who will win the $500 print credit to use at our collagesColor professional photo lab.

Continue to help us spread the word!

- Twitter: Follow Collages.net on Twitter and then tweet this message to let your followers know how excited you are:

@collagesnet just reduced their prices for online posting. I love extra money in my pocket! http://ow.ly/1zh5n

- Facebook: Join our Facebook fan page and then type this as a message update on your account. Typing it out instead of copying and pasting this message is important!

@Collages.net just reduced their prices for online posting. I love extra money in my pocket! http://ow.ly/1zh5n

The entire team at Collages.net is thrilled to announce that we have dramatically lowered the price of our online posting pricing plans!

We haven’t been this excited in a long time, and for good reason - this is big news! Collages.net is now offering the most competitive prices for online posting that we’ve ever offered, and we can’t wait for you to reap the benefits. As always, we are grateful to our customers for making this possible. Collages.net’s online posting service and professional products have been embraced by thousands of photographers across the United States, and these customers make this price reduction possible.

This new pricing structure makes Collages.net affordable for each and every professional photographer. Whether you are just starting out or shooting hundreds of weddings and portrait sessions a year, there is a plan for you. This is a great time to tell your photographer colleagues about Collages.net’s online posting services and products. Remember, for each professional colleague you refer to Collages.net, you can earn $50 of product credit. They receive $25 of product credit when they sign up as well.

Help us spread the word!

- Twitter: Follow Collages.net on Twitter and then tweet this message to let your followers know how excited you are:

@collagesnet just reduced their prices for online posting. I love extra money in my pocket! http://ow.ly/1zh5n

- Facebook: Join our Facebook fan page and then type this as a message update on your account. Typing it out instead of copying and pasting this message is important!

@Collages.net just reduced their prices for online posting. I love extra money in my pocket! http://ow.ly/1zh5n

On Friday, April 23rd, Collages.net will pick one professional photographer who posts this message on Facebook and one professional photographer who posts this message on Twitter to receive a $500 coupon for free prints from collagesColor. Good luck, and thank you for helping us spread the message!

Collages.net will be conducting routine maintenance on its servers between the hours of 2:00 AM and 7:00 AM EST on April 16, 2010. All efforts will be made to minimize downtime, but it is possible that outages will occur during these hours. We strongly encourage all users to avoid uploading events and ordering products during the evening of April 15, 2010 unless you are confident that the upload will complete before 2:00 AM on the 16th. However, once the maintenance has completed, you may proceed with uploading events and placing orders as normal. Please direct any questions concerning the maintenance to Collages.net’s Product and Workflow Consultants at customerservice@collages.net.

On March 23, Collages.net President and CEO and PPA board member Kevin Casey traveled to Washington, D.C. with the entire PPA board to lobby for healthcare and copyright protection for professional photographers. Here is a glimpse into his trip to Washington.

“The entire PPA board board and I met with 12 senators and representatives to ensure that legislation is designed to protect small business owners, but more specifically professional photographers. The specific issues we addressed were healthcare and methods to further protect the copyright of images taken by professional photographers. I was able to meet with representatives for Senator Debbie Stabenow, Senator Arlen Specter, and Senator John Cornyn and three other groups from the PPA also met with other representatives throughout the day.

The main message we brought to capitol hill was healthcare for small businesses as well as copyright protection for professional photographers. Since standard methods of protecting copyrights, registering images with the U.S. Copyright Office, and litigation in Federal Court is unavailable for most professional photographers with a limited income, reform to streamline the process is needed. The process of registering images is expensive and time consuming, which makes many professional photographers’ work vulnerable to copyright infringements. The industry has been good to me and to Collages.net, so it was a privilege to lobby for these issues on behalf of all professional photographers.

On behalf of the PPA board, I look forward to the results of our work in Washington, D.C. and hope that our efforts will continue to have a real and positive impact on the professional photography industry.”

-Kevin Casey, Collages.net President,CEO, and PPA Board Member

Collages.net will be conducting routine maintenance on its servers between the hours of 2:00 AM and 7:00 AM EST on February 19, 2010. All efforts will be made to minimize downtime, but it is possible that outages will occur during these hours. We strongly encourage all users to avoid uploading events and ordering products during the evening of February 18, 2010 unless you are confident that the upload will complete before 2:00 AM on the 19th. However, once the maintenance has completed, you may proceed with uploading events and placing orders as normal. Please direct any questions concerning the maintenance to Collages.net Customer Service at customerservice@collages.net.