I’ve had a lot of fun traveling for tradeshows over the past several months, starting with Atlanta, GA for Imaging USA in January. For those of you who attended Imaging USA, you may recall we had some pretty cool neon colored shades that we gave out to people who wanted to enter our #PhotoBizLovesMe contest on Instagram. One very lucky PhotoBiz customer, Elisa Bricker, won a free HTML5 Portfolio Site, 3 months membership, and a We Build It For You service by entering the picture you see here to the right.

Just last week the finishing touches were put on Elisa’s new site, and we are excited to share the before and after images as well as her experience with our design service and Imaging USA. Take a look for yourself.

Me: What is your favorite part of attending events like Imaging USA?

Elisa: I love meeting new people and seeing new products and ideas. I’m a relational person, so it’s very hard for me to choose a product or service based on a website. I love being able to have conversations, build a relationship, ask questions, etc.

Me: What did it mean to you to win our contest?

Elisa: We were so excited to hear that HTML5 templates were available, but were still on a Flash platform (with a mirrored HTML site and mobile site). I desperately wanted to make sure that our clients were experiencing the same site when they visited on their iPhone or iPad as they did on their computer, so I was so excited when I heard we won!

Bio Page – Before

Me: Tell us about your experience with the creative process of our design service.

Elisa: Our web design service went really smoothly. We had a strong idea of what we wanted and, within the confines of the templates available, we were able to implement a new site that represented our brand. The team interviewed us to understand our style and aesthetic and went to work! We needed only one round of revisions and the site was up and running in what felt like no time. Our designer even had a few ideas for upgrades we didn’t even know existed.

Bio Page – After

Me: What is your favorite part of your newly redesigned website?

Elisa: I love that the site represents our brand’s clean and light aesthetic well. One of my favorite little upgrades was that we now have our signature on our about page. Sometimes it’s the little things that make me so happy!

Me: Would you recommend our design service to others?

Elisa: Absolutely. The site was designed so much faster that if I had done it myself, and our PhotoBiz designer had some really helpful ideas and suggestions. In addition it was faster and less finicky that our previous custom design.

Brand New Pinterest Page – After

Me: Why do you love PhotoBiz?

Elisa: We have always loved PhotoBiz for their templates and customer service. I love being able to make updates myself, and also appreciate the fantastic customer service we’ve received over the phone and by email.

Congratulations to Elisa on her new site! We are excited to help her tell the story of her brand using our designs. If you are looking for a new website, or even a new look to your existing PhotoBiz website consider what our We Build It For You service can do your for your business.

Just in time for Imaging USA, we come bearing new features and more space for everyone – HD images for your website, and more space for the images, PDFs, and music files on your website. It’s just an example of how much PhotoBiz loves you!

HD for everyone means starting today you can upload larger images, twice as large in fact. You can now upload images at 3000 x 1730 pixels for your Portfolio Site, Blog, and BizSite gallery to take advantage of HD quality display.

Your images already look great, here is to making them even better. We have updated some of our sample sites to help show off this new feature and are working to update even more of them with HD images. Check out the Maroma, Burrow Beach, and Mumbai HTML5 Portfolio Site samples for a glimpse at what HD images can do for your website.

On top of that you now have 25% more space to show off your work. That’s right we have increased the amount of space in all of our membership plans. Plus, your membership plan is now based on the total number of files you have uploaded rather than images, so your music and PDF files no longer count as multiple images. Each file counts as one, whether it is a JPG, PNG, MP3, or PDF.

So feel the love, and start uploading HD images and more files today! And make sure to stop by our booth at Imaging USA next week, we are #1153. We have some great specials in store for expo attendees and our loyal customers. Watch your inbox for a preview!

Ah, Rome! The Eternal City joins our most popular series of FLASH+ designs. Rome wasn’t built in a day so it took a while for this fabulous full screen version reminiscent of Milan, Venice, and Florence to become a reality. Like the other “Italian” designs the Rome FLASH+ Portfolio Site design has most of its important elements built to one side of a giant display area to show your images in all of their glory.

Because Rome is built with the latest FLASH+ technology the menu and logo grouping can be either on the left or right as opposed to being fixed only to left side as with previous “Italian” designs. If a background is used it will be shown above the menu.

Personalize your design by using our unique color shifting technology. Choose any color from your image and apply it to selected menu items, drop-down menus, gallery arrows, and as a tint over non-selected thumbnail images.

Speaking of gallery pages PhotoBiz shows off another piece of FLASH+ magic. As the gallery page opens the image thumbnails slides down from the top edge of the page in a tinted overlay where it hovers for five seconds before sliding back out of view. Mouse over the top of the page and the thumbnails will re-appear.

Each and every PhotoBiz template offers a unique loading symbol. Below is our first 3D effect symbol that we are using for Rome.

Milan and the other “Italian” designs have been some of our most popular FLASH designs in use. We have been reserving the name “Rome” for when we could offer our latest and best FLASH+ full screen design built to reflect these familiar layouts.

The Rome design is available now in your PhotoBiz Control Panel! If you are a current PhotoBiz FLASH or FLASH+ customer, you can switch to this new design for free with one click of your mouse! If you want to preview it first, no problem, there is also a one-click preview feature.

Special thanks to Janine White of Mt Louisa, Townsville in Australia for sharing her images for the sample of the Rome design.

View Rome FLASH+ Portfolio Site Sample

The newest version of the PhotoBiz To Go App is now available in the iTunes App Store and the Android App Store! We’ve added more functions so that now all customers can take advantage of our app and stay connected on the go.

With the release of the new version, you can now update your account information on the go including login email, password, and credit card information.

Need to re-activate an account? Just login and pay your reactivation fee directly through the app to get back in action.

You can also get Passionate Support® on the go by calling PhotoBiz directly through the app. With one tap of “Call Support” your phone will dial us! 

Prefer to email us for support? You can do that too, it works exactly like submitting a ticket through your PhotoBiz control panel. Your account ID is automatically attached to a support ticket and you will get confirmation that the support ticket has been received, complete with a ticket ID number.

PhotoBiz To Go has been a big hit with our customers and so we are happy to add to its capabilities. Current users of the PhotoBiz To Go app should update right away. If you haven’t downloaded the app yet, be sure to check it out!

PhotoBiz wishes you Happy Apping this Holiday Season!

Ready for a font that is a little more radical than our usual selections? Try Ratbag!

It is our first “grunge” font and can be used on our HTML5 Portfolio Sites as well as BizSites, Stores, and Blogs. With it’s funky distressed effects and distorted baseline, Ratbag is perfect for aggressive looking page titles and headlines.

More Tile Backgrounds!

We have also added two new tile backgrounds to the mix: Cascading Circles and Geometric Lines. Tiled backgrounds are designed to keep upload times to a minimum, and both of these are also transparent allowing you to apply your own color to them.

Another fantastic font and more choices to personalize your design show that PhotoBiz is committed to keeping our line up of products at the leading edge of the industry. The two new backgrounds and the new font are now available in your control panel.