Blog

16/10/2024

We’ve made a new feature live for all of our subscribers: your contact forms and booking forms now use a modern, privacy-focused replacement for reCAPTCHA. Protecting your Light Blue account from bots is important, but there were a few drawbacks to using reCAPTCHA: asking your clients to solve CAPTCHAs isn’t a great experience for them, […]

15/10/2024

Blogging weddings is essential for SEO, keeping your portfolio fresh, and sharing your work on social media. But writing them can feel tedious—something many photographers put off. Here’s a tip to streamline the process: send a post-wedding questionnaire to the couple using Light Blue’s forms feature. Ask questions that help you craft the blog, like […]

15/10/2024

No matter how well you plan to only work with your ideal photography clients, you’ll likely face situations that are less than ideal. Step forward The Difficult Client. Maybe you know the type: they want more than they’ve paid for; they want an extra discount on your already-great deal; they want you to reshoot the […]

25/09/2024

Emma, a portrait photographer in our community, recently asked about how she could forecast what her clients might spend from their sessions. While it’s often possible to make an educated guess based on past experience, Light Blue has a powerful way to help streamline this process using custom fields. Custom fields allow you to tailor […]

16/09/2024

For many wedding photographers, capturing stunning images is just the beginning. Turning those beautiful moments into tangible keepsakes—like a wedding album—can be a challenge. Despite the clear value of printed albums, many photographers struggle to make album sales a substantial part of their business. This can be due to discomfort with the “hard sell” approach, […]

16/09/2024

We’ve just released Light Blue 2024.1.2, which is a minor update that adds new features and fixes bugs reported since we launched Light Blue 2024.1. It includes the following changes:

12/09/2024

Managing conversations with clients across multiple channels—whether it’s email, text, WhatsApp, Facebook Messenger, or Instagram DM—can be a challenge for busy photographers. With messages spread across so many platforms, it’s easy to lose track. That’s where Light Blue’s customisable home screen can make a real difference, keeping everything together in your CRM for photographers. “I […]

12/09/2024

Lots of photographers all around the world are using Light Blue’s text messaging features to cut down on no-shows and keep in touch with clients, but did you know that you can have two-way conversations with them too? With Light Blue’s two-way SMS number option, you can rent a phone number to both send and […]

11/09/2024

Keeping track of unsigned contracts can be a challenge, especially when you’re juggling multiple clients. That’s where Light Blue’s automatic contract reminder emails come in. This feature ensures that contracts don’t slip through the cracks by sending reminders to clients who haven’t signed, helping you close more bookings. You can set the reminders to go […]

10/09/2024

Next week, Apple are going to be releasing major upgrades to macOS and iOS. iOS 18 and macOS 15 Sequoia are going to be released on 16 September. We’ve been testing the current versions of our macOS and iOS apps on the prerelease versions of macOS 15 and iOS 18 and haven’t found any issues. […]

05/09/2024

What’s changing? Microsoft are ending support for “basic authentication” (i.e. giving us your username and password) when sending emails. Instead, they want everyone to use a more modern approach where you log into your Microsoft account to authorise Light Blue to send emails. This applies to all Microsoft email services, including Exchange, outlook.com, and hotmail.com. […]

29/07/2024

We’ve just released Light Blue 2024.1.1, which is a minor update that adds new features and fixes bugs reported since we launched Light Blue 2024.1. It includes the following changes:

18/07/2024

You know that great feeling. You complete a job and it’s ticked all your ideal photography client boxes: easy communication, shared values and approaches, great results and prompt payment. If only you could replicate this week in, week out. Finding a consistent client base for your photography business can be tough. But it’s crucial for […]

20/06/2024

Your clients are one of your most powerful marketing tools. Their happiness with your photography service is priceless. And what they say about it can have a huge influence on your success. Indeed, research shows 9 out of 10 people trust what a customer thinks about a business more than they trust the business itself. […]

08/05/2024

We’re pleased to announce a new update that helps you to get more from Light Blue’s powerful online scheduling feature, gives you more options for accepting payments from your clients, and improves dozens of other features. Convert incomplete bookings into confirmed shoots Light Blue’s scheduling calendars make it really easy for clients to book shoots […]

08/05/2024

Reviewing incomplete online bookings Our scheduling calendars are very popular with lots of photographers because they make it really easy to book shoots and appointments with clients. When scheduling a shoot that includes a contract and/or booking fee, clients have up to 15 minutes to complete their booking, after which their slot is made available […]

01/05/2024

“To achieve great things, two things are needed: a plan, and not quite enough time.” Wise words from composer Leonard Bernstein. And when you’re running a photography business, they’ll resonate even more. Juggling long-term planning with the day-to-day demands of clients, shoots and admin eats time. But there are ways to lower your business’ appetite […]

30/04/2024

Advanced Custom Fields (ACF) is a popular WordPress plugin that’s used by a lot of WordPress themes. A recent ACF security fix has affected the way that the plugin handles HTML that’s been inserted by users, and that can cause embedded content to not work as expected. If you’ve embedded one of Light Blue’s contact […]

14/03/2024

Our Android app has been available to all of our subscribers since January, and now it’s no longer in the prerelease section of the Google Play Store: you can find it by searching for us on the Play Store, or by clicking this link 🎉 Our prerelease testers have been sending us great feedback about […]

19/02/2024

We launched the first version of Light Blue 15 years ago this month and WOW, what a 15 years it’s been. Light Blue’s founder, Tom, reflects on how far we’ve come since 2009. It’s an understatement to say that Light Blue has been so much more successful than we ever imagined, used by thousands of […]

19/02/2024

We’ve just released a minor update for our iOS app, which should start to appear in the App Store shortly. This update includes the following new features and bug fixes:

30/01/2024

Gmail and Yahoo have recently announced changes to how they will deal with incoming emails. These changes will come into effect in 2024. The short version of this post is that you don’t need to worry about this if you’re sending emails from Light Blue via our email servers. If you’re sending emails via a […]

17/01/2024

We’re delighted to announce that our Android app has been approved for the Google Play Store 🎉 The feedback from our prerelease testers has been great so, now that it’s available via the Play Store, we’re inviting everyone who’s said they want to start using our Android app as soon as possible to try it […]

10/01/2024

Light Blue is at the heart of your business, and using our Zapier integration allows you to use it for all of your day-to-day work while taking advantage of industry-leading apps and services in a totally automated fashion. Zapier is a service that connects the various apps that you use and automates those connections for […]