Live Blog: Photo Publishing

Written by Joel Basa, e-Marketing Manager at Xerox Corporation
We’re  blogging live from our Photo Publishing Thought Leadership Workshop (TLW). We have an exciting set of presenters and topics to discuss with you centered around Photo Publishing. On March 31, we hosted our first Live Blog on Higher Education and we’ll be following a similar format.
We’ll have complete “play-by-play” coverage of this workshop. If you have questions, comment below and I’ll have try to have them addressed during the workshop.
Agenda

• 8:15-8:35 – Enlarge your profit picture with Xerox, Brian Segnit
• 8:35-9:15 – PMA Photo Marketing Perspective, Gary Pageau PMA
• 9:15-9:30 – Coffee Run/Yoga Break
• 9:30-10:15 – MyClick2Print Overview, Raj Garg
• 10:15-11:00 – Building your Consumer Photo Opportunity with DigiLabs, Nader Anvari
• 11:00-11:15 – Stretch Break
• 11:15-11:45 – Becoming a Yearbook Publisher with LumaPix, Bob Winkler
• 11:45-12:15 – iGen and ColorPress 800/1000 Updates
• 12:15-1:00 – Lunch
• 1:00-1:45 Xerox Photo and Custom Media, Adam Missell
• 1:45-3:00 – Finishing, CoverBind, Duplo, FastBind, Powis, Kim Weeks
• 3:00-3:15 – Afternoon Break
• 3:15-4:45 – Hands on Photo Book Exercise, Nader Avanri
• 4:45-5:00 – Wrap Up

[8:15] – Attendees just arrived and we’ll be getting started soon.
[8:30] – Ollie from the UK had a great question, that I’m hoping to have addressed during the workshop. If you have questions, please comment below and I’ll see if they can be addressed during the session.
[8:40] – Here we go! Barb from the Gil Hatch Center is kicking us off.  She’s handing it off to Al Ryan to start talking to us about “Enlarge Your Profit Picture.”
[8:44] – Question being asked, “Who is doing Photo Books?” (Handful of people raise their hand). Are you viewers doing photobooks? calendars? greeting cards?
[8:46] – Al is saying that the Photo Market is the most profitable application by far…greater than $10B opportunity. It can be split into three different areas: publishing (Ex. Yearbook), Consumer and Corporate (Ex. Calendars)
[8:50] – Simplified version of the slide being presented by Al:  The Xerox Photo Strategy – Get (Download, Upload Kiosk) -> Print -> Finish (In-line, Off-Line, Near Line) -> Grow (100’s of tools, industry experts, etc)
[8:52] – Al showing a great photobook application with EverFlat Paper and a custom cover.  I’ll try to grab a photo of it a little later.
[8:58] – Al talking about the Matte Dry Ink that was just announced and he’s passing a sample around the room. We’ll go into more detail on this a little later with Jeff Knauss.
[9:02] – Ollie’s question on how to bring the “tangible” feel of photo books to an “intangible” medium such as the Internet was just asked…the audience and presenters were asked to think about this to discuss later.
[9:04] – Gary Pageua from PMA is now up. He’s showing a trends in communication slide…the slide shows how in the past very few were publishers and now nearly everyone is a publisher of some sort and its more than a technology trend its a cultural change.
[9:07] – Gary indicates the traditional photo print volume is under stress and in quick decline but the digital photo print business has seen growth. With regard to bringing the “tangible” feel to “intangible”  mediums such as the internet, Gary indicates tying a retail space to drive individuals to digitally print is one way. The way I see it, imagine walking into a retail store and seeing sample photo books on display. It then “invites” me to a web site to upload my digital photos. As a consumer I would have more confidence in the actual photo book since I was able to touch it at a retail store.
[9:12] – Photo Book pathways – Home: crafting – digital scrapbooking, Online: Online order, fulfill to home, Retail: Order at home, pick up at store.

[9:18] – Gary is talking about Photo Cards now. 4×6’s are the most demanded size for photo cards.
[9:23] – He is now addressing the growth of Photo enthusiasts and how the growth of this type of photographers is driving additional needs for photo books and cards. Enthusiasts are shooting thousands of photos per month but want to focus on investing in their hardware and look for resources for the actual printing of their work.
[9:27] – PMA just released a 2010 US Professional Photographers report. In this report, the data indicates this group is seeing a decline in offering prints but have seen a rise in digital files to CD/DVD. They have also seen a rise in photo cards and photo books.
[9:30] – Gary just wrapped up. Next up, Raj Garg to talk about MyClick2Print. Al is talking about High End Business Applications. He’s showing a great Real Estate Application. The photo book shows a real estate listing branded to the realtor and personalized.
[9:30] – Raj is up now and he’s talking about cloud based applications. Some interesting GC Dynamic Facts: Print Providers are realizing they need to provide “Value-Based Services” to survive and grow. The Print “Spend” over the web has increased YOY by 18%. 30% of Print Providers now offer “Web-to-Print” services. However, 70% of Print Providers have not implemented S/W to support their business.
[9:38] – MyClick2Print – Co-branded ASP Web portal that enables clients and their customers to use key workflow applications for a low annual fee. Components: Main Applications (1:1 Template Based Applications, Electronic Job Submission, E-Commerce via PayPal), “My C2P” client branded site, Business to Business Portal.
[9:41] – “What is the cost?” $2499 License annual fee. “What other applications are available? Are posters available?” They are currently developing more applications, posters aren’t currently offered.
[9:45] – if you’d like to learn more, visit the MyClick2Print Site. Raj is now showing actual samples from the MyClick2Print portal. Some personalized, some photo applications. Photo Below. Raj is about to take our group through a live demo. For those of you online, please take a look at the tour online.

[10:03] – Still going through this great demo. Raj is reviewing the Business to Business portion.
[10:06] – Raj is wrapping up…we’ll take a quick break and be right back in 10 minutes or so. If you have questions, this is a great time to submit them.
[10:27] – Started back up here. We’re going to talk about “Build Your Photo Business with DigiLabs.” Later, our participants will actually build a real photo book.
[10:31] – Who is DigiLabs? They are Xerox Business partner. They enable printers for Photo Services. They provide you with a ‘branded” and ‘customized’ software. You can distribute the software to your clients: consumers, professional photographers, and commercial users. Clients create personalized photo products with their own photos and creative expression. These products consist of personalized photo books, calendars, greeting cards, etc. Clients place an order, and the job comes through as a PDF. You Print and Finish.
[10:32] – DigiLabs private-labeled customized software runs on MAC and PC and supports any font in any language. There are advance marketing tools for business growth and continued success. Amazingly, its free to distribute. There is also a retail solution, kiosk like.
[10:37] – There is also managed services offered by DigiLabs. It offers a modular solutions and flexible business models allowing you to use your own back-office or use DigiLabs Managed Services, which is a full service cloud-based back office.
[10:38] – DigiLabs Value Chain Summary Slide: Consumer or pro photographer captures memories -> creates a personalized photobook, card, or calendar, places an order (online or in store), order is processed and routed to print service provider, printed and finished and shipped to end user. Most interesting, the first two steps are shifted upstream to the consumer.
[10:41] – Demo Time for DigiLabs. If you have questions on the solution, please comment below!
[10:45] – Nader is building a photo book as I type.  It took about 2 minutes total. Here’s a quick photo.

[10:58] – Question in the room. “Can you customize the background in the photo book templates?” Answer: “Yes. There are many aspects of the photo book that are completely customizable.” Question:  “Can you control where the output gets printed?” Answer: “Your customized version will go to your specific FTP server however there are multiple layers of control.”
[11:04] – Nice little feature with DigiLabs. Online Sharing. If one of your customer creates a photo book in the software, you can do Online Sharing which creates a Adobe Flash version that you can distribute by email.
[11:09] – Nader makes a great point. The key benefit of automation is being able to generate revenue by having many jobs with smaller quantities.
[11:18] – Next up, Becoming a Yearbook Publisher with LumaPix, Bob Winkler. What is LumaPix? Started with a collage and evolved to a pro tool for wedding album layout. Led to scrapbooking version which naturally led to yearbook path.
[11:23] – Yearbooks – Changing Buying Habits – Black and White->Full Color, Paste Up->Digital, Standard Covers->Custom Covers.
[11:30] – LumaPix provide co-branded software to the publisher so that they can sell to schools. They do not sell directly to schools but refer to a publisher. Lumapix Business Advantages: Co-Branding, Form Factors(show only sizes that you offer), Directed Output(school can only send files to you for printing) and Automated FTP(FTP information is built in and hidden in software. Additional advantages: Remote Storage (hybrid offline/online, enables collaboration, streamlines production) and robust support.
[11:36] – LumaPix also support directories (church directories, sports team and league, specialty directories).  Cloud based solution to be launched soon.
[11:36] – Demo time! I’ll try to grab another photo of the software but in the meantime, please visit the LumaPix web site.

[11:45] – Really impressed with the image handling within the software.  Bob dropped a lot of photos into the software and it didn’t seem to slow down. You can see how this automation would help students quickly focus on being creative rather than worrying about how to make things work.

[11:46] – PSPA file demo now. Its a standard that enforces consistency in a yearbook.  Using the accompanied text file, LumaPix software allows for a quick creation of the traditional class pages found in yearbooks.

[11:55] – Wrapping up the LumaPix demo. I wish we could really stream these demos out since I’m not doing them justice. Next up will be an update on the iGen and ColorPress 800/1000 with Jeff and Karen from Xerox.

[12:00] – Karen and Jeff about to give us some updates on the iGen and Color 800/1000? Anybody have either of these products in their shop?

[12:01] – Jeff is pointing out the new Matte Dry Ink and also the 26″ sheet size. Jeff is talking about differences in the iGen3 and iGen4. He’s talking about the inline spectrophotometer that enables color consistency. He’s also talking about the importance of operational prints per hour.

[12:06] – Jeff is sharing some great applications of the 26″ sheet size.  He’s also is sharing a great photo book that is finished completely inline. Karen will now discuss the Color 800/1000.  She’s talking about the media latitude of this press, 350 gsm at rated speed. Modular finishing options available. She also is inviting people to buildyourownxerox.com.  She’s now talking about clear toner capability of the press that enables floods, spot treatment.

[12:15] – Break time…be back after lunch! I’m starving! Again, if you have any questions on the content we’ve reviewed or anything else, please comment below.

[13:15] – Here we go! We’re going to review Xerox Photo Media. The first one is EverFlat paper. This media will help with the bowing that is typically found in traditional paper.

[13:22] – Customer just chimed in saying his experience with the EverFlat has been great and his customers have been very happy. Some other applications for EverFlat: Cookbooks, Photobooks, Yearbooks

[13:26] –  Next up is AccordionPix. I’ll try to take photos of these great media samples. Cheryl is also reviewing PhotoPix and SportPix media.  The Xerox FunFlip was just passed around as well. Here’s a great video that will show a FunFlip in action:

[youtube]http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=Kv4MMBH5KYQ[/youtube]

[13:33] –  Anybody using specialty media in your print shop now? I’d be interested in hearing what you’re doing and what your customers are clamoring for.

[13:41] –  Next up…finishing! We’ll be going through a variety of finishing hardware with Kim from Xerox and a variety of finishing partners. Four Partners: CoverBind, Fast-Bind, Powis, and Duplo.

[13:49] –  Coverbind up now to talk about their finishing solutions.  They are talking about Print On Demand Covers. So, in a nutshell, print the cover on a digital machine, insert contents and cover into simple binding machine and the cover is then applied. They are also showing some great examples of Ambassador and Ambassador with Window covers. Video on the Ambassador product can be found here.

[youtube]http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=oU2kYofgtoU[/youtube]

[14:05] –  CoverBind presenting many more solutions and finishing hardware.  Please take a look at their YouTube channel and web site for more information. Next up, Duplo.

[14:14] –  Duplo discussing the DC-645. This great video will help describe the product?

[youtube]http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=-1c-rxZLf58[/youtube]

[14:17] – Another great product (205A UV Coater)  being presented…great Youtube Video to share again.

[14:22] – FastBind up now. For those of you who attended GraphExpo, FastBind was in our booth and showed some great finishing solutions.  What does FastBind do? There claim to fame is to make a custom case and bind the custom case with high quality. They’re showing there BooXter Binding, Elite XT Perfect Binding and FotoMount Binding.

[14:32] – Some great FastBind videos being shown in the room. They aren’t on YouTube but they are located here.

[14:36] – Some new solutions being passed around the room, custom photo boxes, printing on leather. Very impressive.

[14:41] – Next up – Powis. Image Wrapper slide being shown…allowing you to produce a full color book. FoilFast Printer p21X being shown. Moving quickly here due to time…Fastback Hardcover Guide HCG2 quickly being presented. Next up Production WorkCell System.

[14:48] – PhotoPress Binding System now being presented. All these systems work with Xerox EverFlat paper.  Moved very quickly and wrapped up the finishing portion. Next up, hands on workshop for photo books.

[15:08] – Not sure how I’m going to be able to share the hands on workshop here from the Gil Hatch Center. I will have to sign off around 4:00 but we should be re-starting in a couple minutes.

[15:20] – I’m going to sign off at this point. The workshop attendees are now creating their photo books in DigiLabs. I will update this blog post tomorrow with the finished photo books!