Category: Company News

Light Blue 2023.1

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We’re pleased to announce a major update that makes it easier for you to work with existing clients and get paid in new ways!

Light Blue 2023.1 is available as a free upgrade for all subscribers.

New online payment methods

We’ve added support for the full range of payment methods available via Stripe, including ApplePay, Google Pay, Klarna, Afterpay / Clearpay, iDEAL and Bancontact, in addition to our existing card payment option.

This makes it easier for your clients to pay you. “Buy now, pay later” services like Klarna and Afterpay / Clearpay have been popular feature requests, and in some countries there are specific payment methods that have overtaken card payments as the most popular way of making online payments.

Forms in workflows

You can now include forms as steps in your workflows, allowing you to automate double-checking your clients’ details and requests in the run-up to a shoot.

For example, you could include a “check wedding or portrait session details” step in your workflow, maybe a month before a wedding or a week before a portrait session. The workflow would automatically email the form to your client on the date that you’ve chosen and when they’ve filled it in it will appear in the Inbox in Light Blue just like a normal form.

One of the best features of Light Blue’s forms is that they are pre-filled with the information you already have about your clients and the shoot, which makes it really easy for them to fill it out because they only have to type in new or updated information. This applies to workflow forms, too: the form shows the current information about the shoot and contacts, so any changes you’ve made since adding the workflow will automatically show up in the form.

“The ability to add forms to workflows is an AWESOME addition for time-saving and staying on top of getting valuable information from clients before sessions.

Pre-wedding questionnaires are vital and having them sent automatically 3 weeks before a wedding is very useful.

Automating the collection of feedback from clients after sessions is also great!” – Jesse Starr

Scheduling requests

Scheduling requests allow you to use your scheduling calendars to book meetings or shoots with existing clients. You can send a scheduling request from either a shoot or a contact: your clients will love them because the booking form will be pre-filled with the information that you already have, and you will save time because the event that’s created will automatically be linked to the relevant records in Light Blue.

“Now when we reply to an enquiry we can send them a scheduling request and they book in themselves without loads of emails to find the right time. This makes communication smoother and less invasive.” – Mark Fenwick

You can insert a scheduling request into an email or text message, and you can automate inviting your clients to book a consultation or viewing session by including them in workflow messages.

“I can send clients a link where they can choose and book a planning call (via Zoom), saving time to-ing and fro-ing to find suitable availability.” – Emma Jackson

Making phone calls from the desktop app

You can now make phone calls to your clients from within the Light Blue desktop app. After clicking the “Phone Call” button a call will start using either VOIP software installed on your computer, or your mobile phone. If you make a lot of calls, you’ll save time and cut down the number of typos when dialling.

“We make over 500 calls a day through Light Blue and already by just over a couple of hours testing we have increased our productivity by 60%.”

And more…

You can find out about the other new features and changes in this release in the Light Blue 2023.1 release notes.

Free upgrade for subscribers

Light Blue 2023.1 is a free upgrade for all of our subscribers. We’ve loved seeing how our prerelease testers have been using it to get paid in new ways and streamline their admin, so we’re keen to see what you do with it!

Christmas & New Year support

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We’re still here to help over the festive season, but we’re also going to be taking a bit of a break so won’t be answering emails quite as quickly as normal between Christmas and New Year:

  • We’ll be offering our usual support hours until 5pm UK time on Friday 23rd December.
  • There’ll be no email support during the public holidays on Monday 26th & Tuesday 27th December.
  • We’ll be offering limited email support 28th-30th December.
  • There’ll be no email support during the public holiday on Monday 2nd January.
  • We’ll return to normal hours from Tuesday 3rd January onwards.

Wishing you all the best,

Tom & the Light Blue team

Looking back on 2022

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We hope that 2022 has been a successful year for you. It’s been another rollercoaster, with emerging from the pandemic being a real highlight but plenty of other challenges along the way.

We always like to take stock at the end of the year and reflect on the things that we’re particularly proud of and we hope you’re able to do the same!

“Best Professional Software” award

We’re here to help professional photographers to run a successful business, so we’re delighted that so many of you voted for us in the “Best Professional Software” category at The Societies of Photographers convention awards. Light Blue was up against giants of the photography industry such as Adobe’s Lightroom and Photoshop in this category, so it’s an enormous achievement for such a specialised product to win.

We’re incredibly grateful to everyone who voted for us, and to our customers for placing their trust in us to look after such an important part of their business. We’d love to win again in 2023, so we would really appreciate you casting your vote for us in the “Best Professional Software” category!

Major updates and new features

This year has been a great year for launching new features that are helping thousands of photographers to book more shoots and keep themselves organised.

Light Blue’s new online scheduling calendars allow your clients to book shoots and appointments directly into your diary. You no longer need to send messages back and forth to find the perfect time, or rely on complicated integrations with third-party tools. This has been a really popular addition and we’ve had great feedback from customers, old & new.

Most recently, Light Blue 2022.2 is a major update that expands the range of third-party apps that you can use with Light Blue. Linking your Zoom account to Light Blue makes scheduling online meetings with your clients even more convenient and you can now configure your scheduling calendars to automatically create a Zoom meeting when a client makes a booking. Light Blue’s new Zapier integration is the most comprehensive in the photography industry, with triggers and actions that allow you to use Light Blue for all of your day-to-day work while taking advantage of industry-leading apps and services in a totally automated fashion. We also launched new integrations with Pic-Time, Square, and GotPhoto, helping you to make the most of other apps while keeping Light Blue at the heart of your business.

Out and about

Things definitely felt like they were getting back to normal in the UK by the Spring, so it was great to be able to get back to seeing photographers face to face at trade shows including The Photography Show, The Societies of Photographers convention, and the The Newborn and Portrait Show.

If you’d like to come and see us in person to find out more about how you can use Light Blue to organise and grow your business, your first opportunity in 2023 will be The Societies convention in London in March.

What’s next?

We’re always working hard for you, helping photographers to succeed with Light Blue and building new features that will help your business in exciting new ways.

Our prerelease testers will shortly be getting their hands on features including forms in workflows, scheduling requests that make it more convenient to use online scheduling calendars with existing clients, and new online payment options for anyone who’s using Stripe with Light Blue. All of this work is happening alongside work on our Android app, so if you’d like to get early access to any of these features then please let us know.

Meanwhile, we’re always available to help you get started with Light Blue or to make the most of any of the features that are designed to help you make the most of the opportunities out there while delivering a great service to your clients. The Help section of our website lists the ways we can help you, from our getting started guide through to booking a Zoom call to give you a hand with anything that you need to get 2023 off to a great start.

Wishing you all the very best,
Tom & the Light Blue team

Black Friday deals for photographers 2022

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Email template giveaway

Get 37 email templates for your business, absolutely free!

Get more organised for less this November.

Save money on Light Blue’s time-saving software for photographers, making your admin simple so that you can focus on nurturing relationships with your clients and growing a successful business.

Continue reading “Black Friday deals for photographers 2022”

Light Blue 2022.2 integrates with thousands of other apps

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Light Blue 2022.2 is a major update that expands the range of third-party apps that you can use with Light Blue.

Zapier

Zapier is a service that saves you time by connecting the apps and services that you use and automating them for you. Light Blue offers a set of triggers and actions that allow you to use it with thousands of other apps. With Light Blue at the centre of your business, you can use it for all of your day-to-day work while taking advantage of industry-leading apps and services in a totally automated fashion. You can also use Light Blue’s Zapier integration actions to send information to Light Blue.

Light Blue’s new Zapier integration is the most comprehensive in the photography industry, with triggers and actions that allow you to use Light Blue for all of your day-to-day work while taking advantage of industry-leading apps and services in a totally automated fashion.

“Invoices are now automatically sent from Light Blue to our accounting system, clients unsubscribing from our mailing system update Light Blue, and we can send bulk emails through our mailing system by tagging contacts in Light Blue! With the latest updates, all of these tasks just happen. Thank you Light Blue!” – Rose Stacey

Zoom

Linking your Zoom account to Light Blue makes scheduling online meetings with your clients even more convenient. You can now configure your online scheduling calendars to automatically create a Zoom meeting when a client makes a booking.

Pic-Time

Pic-Time offer beautiful client galleries and art galleries with smart sales features, so we’re delighted that you can now link your Pic-Time account to Light Blue. Doing so allows Pic-Time to send client orders to Light Blue’s Inbox, from where you can import them at the click of a button and keep all of your orders together in one place.

Square

Making things more convenient for your clients makes them love working with you even more, and the feedback that we get from photographers is that their clients love using Light Blue’s online scheduling, contract signing, and invoice payment services. Using an online payment option with any of those services helps you to get paid more quickly, so we’re pleased to be able to add Square to the list of online payment processors that you can use with Light Blue.

GotPhoto

Schools photographers using GotPhoto can now import batches of orders into Light Blue and automatically link them to the right shoot, enabling you to combine Light Blue’s planning and reporting tools with GotPhoto’s sales tools.

And more…

You can find out about the other new features and changes in this release in the Light Blue 2022.2 release notes.

Free upgrade for subscribers

Light Blue 2022.2 is a free upgrade for all of our subscribers. We’ve loved seeing how our prerelease testers have been using it to streamline their admin and make the most of the other apps they use in their business, so we’re keen to see what you do with it!

Light Blue wins “Best Professional Software” award

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We’re delighted to have won the “Best Professional Software” award at The Societies of Photographers convention!

These trade awards are some of the most prestigious in the photography industry and voted for by thousands of professional photographers. In this category, Light Blue was up against giants of the photography industry such as Adobe’s Lightroom and Photoshop, so it’s an enormous achievement for such a specialised product to win.

We’re incredibly grateful to everyone who voted for us, and to our customers for placing their trust in us to look after such an important part of their business. It’s been a tough couple of years for the professional photography industry but we’ve come through it together and we were touched by all of the feedback we had at the show from everyone that we’ve helped during the pandemic.

We’re looking forward to an exciting year ahead, building upon our recent major updates with exciting new features and improvements that continue to help photographers grow their businesses and streamline their admin.

Light Blue wins "Best Professional Sofware" award

Light Blue 2022.1 available with new online scheduling features

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Light Blue’s new online scheduling calendars allow your clients to book shoots and appointments directly into your diary. You no longer need to send messages back and forth to find the perfect time, or rely on complicated integrations with third-party tools. 

We’re excited to announce launch of the latest version which is available as a free upgrade for all subscribers.

“Light Blue’s online scheduling automates another task that helps me focus on improving other aspects of my business, and makes the whole experience much more professional and seamless for my clients.” – Michael Love

Streamline enquiry management

Online scheduling simplifies the booking process for your clients whilst providing tight integration with Light Blue’s other powerful features such as contracts, forms, payments, and workflows (including automated emails and text messages), so you have all the important details together in one place.

“I can’t always reply to client’s calls and emails when they want to book me. Now they can check my availability and book without waiting for me to get back to them. It saves so much time for me and is a better experience for the client!” – Jane Jordan

Avoid double bookings

We know that you have to juggle all sorts of commitments so, as well as automatically blocking off times that clash with events in Light Blue, we’ve also made it possible to link your scheduling calendars to Google Calendar or calendar feeds that you can use to stop clients from making bookings that clash with your personal commitments.

Your availability is updated in real-time as you (and your clients!) schedule events in your diary, and it’s easy for you to set up weekly availability as well as ad-hoc availability for specific types of event.

“It’s a really good way to streamline booking in smaller sessions so you have to do very little, but from the client point of view it’s extremely efficient and straightforward. You can also set options to make sure you aren’t overwhelmed and ensure that your client has all the information they need to proceed without having to send a million emails. Plus, when you open Light Blue, everything you need is at your fingertips.” – Angela Ward-Brown

Free upgrade for subscribers

This has been a really popular feature request and something that we’ve been keen to implement for some time, so we are really pleased to have had such positive feedback from our testers and are delighted to offer this feature to our subscribers for no extra cost.

“Having CRM and scheduling in the same program saves a ton of time and money. Plus it saves all the headaches of trying to make two separate systems integrate.” – Julian Austin

Get started by updating to Light Blue 2022.1  and then adding a scheduling calendar via the Preferences window. Learn more about how to set up and use online scheduling calendars in our detailed help article.

You can find out about the many other new features and changes in this release in the Light Blue 2022.1 release notes.

Christmas & New Year support

Reading Time: < 1 minute

We’re still here to help over the festive season, but we’re also going to be taking a bit of a break so won’t be answering emails quite as quickly as normal between Christmas and New Year:

  • We’ll be offering our usual support hours until 5pm UK time on Friday 24th December.
  • There’ll be no email support during the public holidays on Monday 27th & Tuesday 28th December.
  • We’ll be offering limited email support 29th-31st December.
  • There’ll be no email support during the public holiday on Monday 3rd January.
  • We’ll return to normal hours from Tuesday 4th January onwards.

Wishing you all the best,

Tom, Ian & Dani

Our new online scheduling calendars are available for testing

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We’re delighted to let you know that our next major update is in prerelease testing and includes one of our most popular feature requests: an online scheduling tool that allows your clients to book shoots and appointments directly into your diary. You no longer need to send messages back and forth to find the perfect time, or rely on complicated integrations with third-party tools.

Setting up our online scheduling tool is quick and easy, and you can choose which types of shoot or appointment are available online. Your availability is updated in real-time as you (and your clients!) schedule events in your diary, and it’s easy for you to set up weekly availability as well as ad-hoc availability for specific types of event.

Our new online scheduling features give you the option to include a customised booking form, contract, and booking fee when a client is scheduling a shoot, making the online booking process easier than ever. It’s also tightly integrated with Light Blue’s automation tools, so the reminder emails, text messages, and tasks from your workflows help you to deliver great a great service for your clients.

Want to start using our online scheduling calendars right now?

We’ve opened up testing to any of our subscribers that want to take part. So, if you’d like to start offering online booking to your clients, or you’re interested in replacing a third-party scheduling system with our own, tightly-integrated scheduling system, please get in touch and we’ll let you know how to get involved.