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From The Ground Up — FolioArchive Custom or Branded Sites

FolioArchive leverages ISProductions' commercial content management system so that your graphic designer or ours can create a custom web site that you can easily maintain on your own. With FolioArchive's content management system you are able to update and maintain your web site with a web browser from any location 24/7, 365 days a year. The programming muscle of FolioArchive's content management system allows us to handle the needs of large sites and its ease of use makes it possible for us to offer it to individuals with little technical experience.

FolioArchive's Image Archive — A Database Driven System

With FolioArchive you can create and manage a large custom designed web site with a sophisticated image archive. The image archive allows your site visitors to find the images they need and it enables you to organize your images online.

Creating Folders - With FolioArchive you can create any number of folders and subfolders and FTP images in mass.  You can assign unique attributes to each folder allowing you to control thumbnail sizes, captioning and security features as well as different pricing options on a per folder basis. For example, you can create a folder that will display fixed price items, another where all the images need to be licensed and still another with both options. 

Virtual Folders - FolioArchive's unique virtual folder system allows you to create image selections on the fly. Consider this scenario, a potential client contacts you and requests images that are predominantly red in color and feature a person. Instead of spending hour after hour compiling a collection of images that match that criteria, FolioArchive allows you to conduct a search throughout your entire database for images with those characteristics and then associate them to a virtual folder. Being able to create virtual image folders on the fly is an extremely useful and time saving feature of FolioArchive. It lets you organize your work without any double entry, and rapidly deliver image selections to your clients.

Uploading Images - Using FTP FolioArchive allows you to upload 100s of images at a time into folders. Simply select a body of work and drag and drop it into your destination folder in FolioArchive. There is no need to upload one image at a time. After you start the upload process you can walk away and return later when it is complete. Once all images are in the destination folder you just click the "synchronize" button to add all of the new images to your online archive. IPTC information is automatically captured saving you precious time classifying images and streaming your work flow.

Captioning and Keywording - after uploading images you will want to make sure site visitors and search engines can find what they are looking for without having to visit every single image in your database. Remember, you could have tens of thousands of images in your FolioArchive site. To facilitate searches you need to add metadata to each image, which is nothing more than text based descriptions. You may want to specify metadata, such as, the name of the image, the author, location, a short description, etc. If this information all ready exists in your IPTC fields FolioArchive will input it for you.

FolioArchive's text search allows your visitors to find images based on text descriptions; you should consider adding keywords to all of your images, as people may search for images using different search terms than those used in your image captions. For example, a visitor may be looking for an image of a "blue sky," but another may be looking for an image of a "sunny day." Ideally images that share both of those search criteria will use all of those keywords. It is a big task to classify each image, but the more you add captioning and keywording to your images the better chance your images have of being found.

Keywording System - FolioArchive has a valuable and time saving program to generate image keywords. This tool may be used by itself or in addition to a third party keywording system. The arduous task of generating good keywords is greatly simplified with FolioArchive's built-in keyword tool. To generate keywords just provide a seed word such as "Happy" and FolioArchive's keyword tool suggests other keywords you should consider such as "bright, joy, merry, sunny, etc...." In just a matter of seconds, the system can generate keywords that may make the difference between your images being found or forever lost.

Batch Keywording - You can save collections of keywords in FolioArchive's keyword templates. This is a time saving feature for users who have images that share a number of keywords. Keyword templates may have any number of keywords in them and these templates can be applied one image at a time or to entire folders.

Cool tip: If you modify a keyword in a template it automatically modifies all images using that template. You can also use templates to subtract keywords from images and much more.

Pricing Modes - With FolioArchive you can create fixed price templates and manage custom pricing/licensing of images. Once you create a fixed price template you can apply it to entire folders or to one image at a time. Your pricing templates can include as many price options for an image as you need. Your clients can request special price quotes from you through a price quote submission system and track the status of their request. You can also make images available for immediate download.

Finding Your Images - Search and Browse and More - FolioArchive offers several ways of navigating and viewing your image archive. A user may browse through your images by clicking on folders and subfolders that are displayed in the "browse by" menu. The user may decide to conduct a search with a simple term like "park" or a full text phrase like "children playing in the park." FolioArchive recognizes plurals like "Parks" and can interpret queries that use natural English like "a car speeding on the highway." The advanced search allows your site visitor to specify additional parameters including license type, predominant image color, custom categories that you may have created like "North West Images," etc. All search terms entered by registered site visitors are stored so that you can monitor what your clients are seeking, enabling you to better target your keywords and captions.  

Finding Your Images - Search Engines Are Looking Too - Search engines can read the metadata in FolioArchive sites!

Attention To Details - Image Display - If necessary FolioArchive allows you to control the way thumbnails and images are created from your originals on an image by image basis. This unprecedented level of control over image size ensures that your images look their absolute best. You can control the size of your images, the interpolation method used to downsize them from your original, the amount of sharpening and more. FolioArchive will display a thumbnail, medium size and enlarged view of each of your images. The thumbnail, medium and enlarged size dimensions are controlled by you. 

The Lightbox - A Working Tool

FolioArchive offers a powerful lightbox system that will impress the design team of a corporate client or the bride and groom whose wedding you just shot. How does it work? Users add images to their lightbox to keep track of their image selections. Using the lightbox the site visitor can perform tasks that apply to a group of images. Some of these tasks include: submitting licensing requests, pricing requests or orders, and creating comp cards, and sending the entire lightbox by email, etc. FolioArchive also supports group lightboxes so that several people can share selections, make comments and go through a review process. Imagine what this means for the bride and groom and their families or the corporate design team with different office locations.

Client Areas, Group Areas and Assignment Zones

FolioArchive allows you to assign folders and lightboxes to individual registered users or groups of users. If you make a folder private and assign it to a specific user it is then available for their exclusive use and cannot be viewed by others. Your entire FolioArchive could be set up to maintain private client areas for all of your customers; your clients would then login to your FolioArchive site and see only those images that you assign to them and any public areas you decide to publish for all users.

Folders can also be setup as upload areas where your clients can upload specifications and other materials you need from them in order to complete a request. These upload areas are only visible to users with specific login access and are hidden from all other users. You may also enable download areas by adjusting the user's access to certain images in a folder (e.g. display download button).  

Assignment Zones in FolioArchive are private areas that have user upload, download and image review functionality. If desired, you can also create public folders with password protection at the image level. Why do this? This feature allows you to advertise that such work exists, but requires a password for access.

Note: The client administration system in FolioArchive allows you to manage access rights and keeps track of all login history.

License Pricing and Sales

FolioArchive has full shopping cart and e-commerce functionality. If your images need to be licensed on an individual basis FolioArchive offers an efficient means of communication between you and the buyer. The prospective buyer can send images previously saved in a lightbox directly to you as part of a request for quote. The email notification from the buyer to you includes detailed licensing information such as use, medium, circulation, placement, etc. You can edit the request and add comments and pricing. This information is automatically recorded in the database and sent to the client. Both you and the client can keep track of the request status at any time. The client can purchase the items using a credit card once you have added pricing. With fixed price items, on the other hand, a user only needs to select the appropriate price line and click on the familiar "add to cart" button.

Payment Processing - 3 Different Ways to Accept Payment  

FolioArchive allows you to assign folders and lightboxes to individual registered users or groups of users. If you make a folder private and assign it to a specific user it is then available for their exclusive use and cannot be viewed by others. Your entire FolioArchive could be set up to maintain private client areas for all of your customers; your clients would then login to your FolioArchive site and see only those images that you assign to them and any public areas you decide to publish for all users.

Folders can also be setup as upload areas where your clients can upload specifications and other materials you need from them in order to complete a request. These upload areas are only visible to users with specific login access and are hidden from all other users. You may also enable download areas by adjusting the user's access to certain images in a folder (e.g. display download button).  

Assignment Zones in FolioArchive are private areas that have user upload, download and image review functionality. If desired, you can also create public folders with password protection at the image level. Why do this? This feature allows you to advertise that such work exists, but requires a password for access.

Note: The client administration system in FolioArchive allows you to manage access rights and keeps track of all login history.