Just released today, we have a new font and two new backgrounds available for you on all our HTML5 products!

The new font, NotSassure, was developed by using excessive photocopying with extreme enlargements and reductions to magnify the imperfections. This helped to rough the edges and give NotSassure a non-digital quality.

Cool Spring Chevron and Chevron Transparent both display a chevron pattern set up in tiled format for fast page loading. Chevron Transparent is a transparent PNG that allows your background color to show through the chevron pattern. Cool Spring Chevron is an opaque JPG in a fresh, lighthearted Spring pastel. Both can be used with all of our HTML5 products.

We think you’ll enjoy these fresh, fun new elements!

We’re always looking for ways to make our website solutions work just a little bit harder for you and your customers. Today, we have not one, but four to share! 

• NEW grid view for Content Site and Business Solution gallery pages
• NEW focal point editor for Content Site and Business Solution gallery pages
• NEW music for Content Site and Business Solution galleries
• NEW custom social media icons for HTML5 Portfolio Sites

Grid View for Gallery Pages

We want to introduce you to our latest innovation, grid view for gallery pages!

Until now gallery pages on the Content Sites and Business Solutions opened with a single large image. Now you can also choose from several layouts that will display all the image thumbnails in the gallery at once.

By clicking any individual image in the grid layout, you will open the image in large view mode. The images will then display in a slideshow format. The large view mode even works with our color-shifting technology, as shown below.

To return to the grid view, simply click on the icon in the bottom right corner of the page. Your visitors can toggle back and forth between the two views just that easily.

Another nice feature we’ve added to the grid view is endless scroll. No matter how many images your gallery has, your visitors won’t have to click through pages to see them. The image thumbnails load as they scroll down the page!

So, how do you use this new feature? Couldn’t be easier – you can select from several available grid view layout styles right in your control panel, including collage, collage large, rectangle, rectangle large, and square.

We think you’ll love the ease and style of grid view for your gallery pages.

Edit Focal Point

Another new feature for your Content Sites and Business Solutions gallery pages is the ability to edit your image focal point. Now when you upload an image, you’ll be able to select the focal point of the image to determine how it will display on your page. This allows you much greater control over how your images will display within the grid layouts!

This feature works with the Rectangle, Rectangle Large, and Square page layouts for our Content Sites and Business Solutions.

Gallery Page Music

In addition, you can now play music on your HTML5 Content Sites and Business Solutions gallery pages!

You can select up to three songs to play in order on your gallery pages, as one song finishes the next starts. Choose from among our selection of more than 50 royalty-free songs, or upload your own royalty-free music to play (upload as an MP3) as your images display.

Custom Icons for HTML5 Portfolio Sites

One of our favorite recent innovations was giving you the ability to add custom social media icons to your HTML5 Content Sites and Business Solutions. We liked it so much we’ve now added it to the HTML5 Portfolio Sites!

From your control panel, click on Add Icon and you’ll be able to either choose from among our extensive bank of social media icons, or upload your own as a PNG image, to a maximum size of 16×16 pixels. Once you upload your custom icon, you’ll be able to use it to link to your chosen social media page!

We think you’ll enjoy the way these new features will show off your style!

Once an area filled with nutmeg, pepper and fruit orchards, Orchard Road today is a magnet for tourists and shoppers alike. This colorful Singapore district boasts an extensive underground pedestrian walkway system connecting the various shopping malls. Filled with international luxury labels, Orchard Road offers a premier shopping experience for every taste and style. 

This iconic shopping destination inspires our latest design. Orchard Road works beautifully for our HTML Content Sites, Blogs and E-Commerce tools for Photographers, as well as our Core Business Solutions and E-Commerce Solutions for Small Businesses. We’ve really taken the left side navigation feature of this design to a whole new level.

We’ve incorporated several features to give your website a true “Blue Ribbon” look:

• Your navigation menu is incorporated into a tastefully designed graphic.
• Plenty of space to showcase your logo.
• Drop in a custom background to make your site uniquely yours.
• Elegant accents underscore each of your items.
• A bold stroke at the bottom completes each page with a dramatic flair.

With all the customization features this design offers, you have the recipe for an award-winning site!

We have a special treat for you on the gallery page! Take a look at the thumbnails: There’s a bold stroke above the selected thumbnail image for extra emphasis. We’ve been experimenting a little with our thumbnail display to make it look like a “miniature website”. Let us know what you think!

Orchard Road’s blog pages show how perfectly integrated our Core Business Solutions are. The bold stroke at the bottom of the design is reflected with the tabs bar at the top of the list area. Your individual posts also feature elegant accents to separate them.

The E-Commerce area for Orchard Road blends perfectly to give your customers a true “shopper’s paradise” experience.

Special thanks to Matt Andrews and Jill Miller for sharing their images for the sample of Orchard Road, which is now available in your HTML5 Content Site, E-Commerce, and Blog, as well as Core Business Solution, and E-Commerce Solution control panels. Make the switch today for free!

View Samples

• View HTML5 Content Site Sample of Orchard Road

• View Core Business Solution Sample of Orchard Road

• View E-Commerce Solution Sample of Orchard Road

New Font and Background

In addition, we have a great new font and background to share.

Miss Donna Regular. She is contemporary, powerful, versatile, curvy, sassy, and fun. This great font takes you into the world of movie posters, decor ads, and fashion with bold, clean, legible lines. This font is now available for our HTML5 Portfolio Sites, HTML5 Content Sites, Blogs, E-Commerce tools, Core Business Solutions, and E-Commerce Solutions. 

Bathroom Tile. This transparent tile background is really versatile. It is naturally black and white, but you can apply a color instead of white to it. You can now use this background with our HTML5 Portfolio Sites, HTML5 Content Sites, Blogs, E-Commerce tools, Core Business Solutions, and E-Commerce Solutions.

Enjoy! We hope you have fun with this new design as well as the new font and background.

We hope everyone is enjoying the additional space we added to everyone’s membership levels in January. As we announced last month, your membership plan is now based on the total number of files you have uploaded, rather than images. Therefore, every file counts as one, whether it is a JPG, PNG, MP3, or PDF.

To help you manage your files we have added a new “Files” tab to the control panel, in place of the music/PDF tab. There are three categories within this tab:

• Music: This is where you can upload MP3s for playing in your Portfolio Site galleries.
• Other: This is where JPG, PNG, and PDF files can be uploaded.
• File Usage: This is where you can see how and where all your files are used within your site.

All of your previously uploaded files have been automatically sorted into the appropriate categories. You will also notice a new section on the “Other” area of the “Files” tab called “Your File Library” where you can see a listing of your files, labeled with the file type, and link which is a unique address for that specific file.

By adding specific file links you can really harness the added capabilities of our advanced text editors in our HTML5 Portfolio Sites, HTML5 Content Sites, Business Sites, and Blogs. Using the Text Editor in these products, you can embed files through the HTML code. This allows you to build tables and cells with embedded images to create practically any look you want. Admittedly working with code is not for everyone, however for those who are so inclined you can now embed files directly hosted by PhotoBiz.

If you are interested in exploring the opportunities that HTML code can provide or taking a refresher course on HTML coding check out our PhotoBiz Live webinar on YouTube. To learn more about HTML tables and coding, we also recommend these sites: Code Academy and W3 Schools.

A few weeks ago we introduced PhotoBiz HD (High Definition). HD for everyone means 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 Business Site gallery to take advantage of HD quality display.

“SD”, “HD”, How do I tell the difference?

We made some adjustments to the PhotoBiz control panel to make it easier to denote which of your images are SD or HD sized. You may have noticed that now, when you upload images (or with images previously uploaded to your account) occasionally an “SD” icon appears above your images. In this case, “SD” stands for Standard Definition.

Since there wasn’t previously an HD option, all images previously uploaded to your account will show the SD designation. If you upload images that are HD sized, you will not see an “SD” icon above the image. If you wish to convert your previously uploaded “SD” images to HD, you may do so by simply re-uploading them at a size larger than 1500 pixels wide by 865 pixels high to your account. The best size to upload for HD is 3000 pixels wide by 1730 pixels high.

What are these little color swatches all about?

So now that we’ve cleared up the “SD” mystery, what do the small color swatches above the image thumbnails mean? These swatches are related to PhotoBiz’s industry leading Color Shifting technology, and are a result of our decision to make selecting colors for color shifting a more streamlined process within the control panel. To simplify the process, when viewing your image in the control panel there is now a “Color” button that takes you to the Color shifting selection screen.

The Color Shifting selection area will feel familiar, and you will still be able to select a color from the image itself using the eyedropper tool, or if you know an exact color, you may type it in using the color’s six digit HEX code.

After a color for shifting has been selected and the image settings have been updated the control panel will display your image thumbnail and an easily referenced color swatch just above it. You will also be able to view the six digit HEX code of your selected color swatch by hovering your mouse over the swatch thumbnail.

So there you have it! Your images already look great, we’ve just added a few adjustments to the control panel to help make them even better. We hope these enhancements to the image control panel make using PhotoBiz even more enjoyable.