This guest post is by David Macvicar. He and Sean McGrath are wedding photographers based in Nova Scotia, Canada. Storyboard is their bright idea.

Have you ever wanted layout photos like in the image below, but were absolutely defeated by the number of steps and amount of time required to make this happen?

I think the process goes something like this: Create a new image at the right size, open up each image, resize, drag, resize again, nudge image, etc. etc. Even with an action, you are still doing a number of steps that slow down your blogging workflow. Wouldn't it be fantastic if this process was completely automated and worked at the touch of a button, or a simple run of an action?

That's why we created a photoshop script called Storyboard. It makes blogging diptychs and multiple image layouts as easy as selecting the images and clicking a button. We built this tool for ourselves, because we didn't have time to do layouts the traditional way, but just loved the impact they have on a blog post.

So what exactly is Storyboard?

Storyboard is designed for photographers who blog their work and love to show numerous images which provide a sense of storytelling. Diptychs, triptychs and other combinations of images are perfect for telling a story from a wedding or a portrait session. It works with any blog size & color, any number of images, any combination of aspect ratios, and best of all it was designed with speed in mind. We wanted it to be as fast as possible to build image layouts for your blog.

Why use Storyboard?

We have heard from photographers who have resorted to a tonne of different ways to handle this situation – create actions that still require a lot of user input, photographers who have created InDesign documents with predefined layouts (who wants to jump between different applications!?) and a few other situations which were less than ideal. Other blogging actions often lock you into pre-determined blog sizes (900px, 750px, 600px to name a few) … what if your blog is a different size? What if your blog background features a different color? It's much better to have options than it is to be pigeon-holed into some other photographer's idea of how to blog. Since creating these layouts is a challenge and the brands and blogs of photographers all vary, we thought it was time to solve this problem and provide the best solution for blogtographers! With Storyboard it is possible to create an entire blog post worth of images in just a few minutes.

What does a storyboard look like?

Here is a basic example:

And here is something a bit more complex:

How can I configure Storyboard to work with my blog and workflow?

Storyboard is a simple script, but has a powerful configuration panel. Within a minute you can have it working specifically for your blog. Here are the parameters you can change to work with your blog:

– Set your blog width
– Set the space size between your images
– Change the background color to match your blog brand
– Run actions before your Storyboard saves (perfect for running web sharpening actions)
– Save your Storyboard's automatically and have them close out for quick workflow speed
– Choose your destination/save folder and filename
– Handy archive to folder feature moves images you have already used into a folder of your choice
– Visual re-ordering of your images in your Storyboard by seeing thumbnail order of your images (get the most visual impact by choosing the image order)
– Loop Mode: Storyboard will prompt you to keep making boards – the fastest way to create a blog post

Check out this video on how to configure Storyboard for your blog:

Availability

Storyboard is available at an introductory price of $54.99. Get your copy here and to learn more about Storyboard visit us on the web at http://www.storyboardrocks.com/

Win! Storyboard is generously offering ONE free license to a Tiffinbox subscriber. Here is how you may be able to win this awesome Photoshop Script.

1) Subscribe to the bi-monthly Tiffinbox newsletter

2) Tweet the following:

I just learned about an amazing new Photoshop Script for blogging @Storyboardrocks on @PicSeshu’s Tiffinbox.org Please RT!

IMPORTANT: Don’t forget to mention your Twitter handle so that I can make sure you have done both. I need to see a minimum of 50 real, honest, entries before I can give this away on January 20, 2011.

David and Sean also want to mention that anyone can enter this contest. If you have previously purchased Storyboard, you can still enter and they will just refund you.

This guest blog is by Ellen Petty, the Head Brandslinger at Identity Kitchen, a marketing and design studio specializing in photographers. She and her business partner Marty Thornley just launched a new line of affordable all-in-one WordPress portfolio sites designed specifically for professional photographers at PhotographyBlogSites.com.

Early in 2009, Marty Thornley and I sat down to discuss a more efficient way for photographers to display their work online. We had both, separately, been working with photographers, and discussed the idea of an all-in-one portfolio blogsite that looks and feels like a flash site, with all the SEO benefits of a WordPress blog. We made our wish list; social media integration, customization, easy-to-use backend, unlimited galleries, and integration of fantastic photography tools. After developing many, many custom blogsites for photographers, we saw our theories in action and set out to develop Photography Blogsites.

WE STARTED THINKING ABOUT WEB PRESENCE

Creating a web presence from scratch is simply too much work. You need a hosting account, a website, a blog, facebook, twitter, etc. etc… That's already 3 or 4 places to login and update. If you have a second or third branch of your business this could be multiplied over and over. Like any software, WordPress needs to be updated from time to time. While WordPress itself has become pretty easy to automatically upgrade, sometimes the theme and/or plugins you have been using are not up to date with the new version. So you go through the automatic upgrade and your site breaks. To do this correctly you would backup your database and all your files in case something goes wrong. The problem is, do you know how to backup a database and restore it when something goes wrong? And if you do, you know this process takes a while. Again multiply this by all of your sites. It's not fun.

We set out to make this faster, easier and less expensive, while still providing all the SEO benefits, the support, the security and backups, and the upgrades. All the difficult stuff becomes much easier because we are offering sites on a networked system. We can fix any problems, answer any questions and best of all, release exciting new features to everyone at once. You will always have the latest features immediately.

THEN WE PERFECTED THE FEATURES

a) EASE OF USE

Our system is a networked installation, called WordPress Multisite. We backup everything twice daily and upgrade all of our plugins and themes, as well as the core WordPress files ourselves to make sure they are up to date and will continue working without a hitch. The process is totally seamless to site owners, who will never see the upgrade messages or worry about backups or upgrades or broken sites.

There is no need for hosting. No need for installation of anything. Ever. You don't even need to check your email for a confirmation link. The signup process takes about thirty seconds and your site is ready to start using. From there, our free trial period lasts 7 days. You won't even be asked for any payment information from us unless you decide to activate a subscription plan.

b) ALL IN ONE SITE

One login gives you access to the portfolio site, the galleries, and the blog. Everything is all one. We offer unlimited galleries, unlimited informational pages, your blog, plus a hub for your social media marketing efforts. One address, one place to maintain so you can get back to taking photos, your passion, and the reason you got into this in the first place.

c) SEO

Search Engine Optimization (SEO) is a huge, often misunderstood, topic. What it comes down to is making sure that your site is as visible and findable as possible. While search engines like Google are a big part of this, you also need to be found on Twitter and/or Facebook. You need to be visible to iPhones and mobile devices. This means that your site should built 100% using HTML, and not Flash. There are varying arguments in the whole Flash vs. HTML debate. The only way for Flash sites to compete in the SEO world is to have secondary version called mirror sites for search engines, and a third site for mobile devices. Not only do visitors potentially see three different sites but these are three different pieces of code to maintain and worry about upgrading. Add to that a separate blog, sometimes on a different domain that opens in a different window.

One more argument for a Flash-free portfolio site, just last week Google announced a new feature called Instant Preview, which adds a snapshot of your site to the right of your search results. Unless, your site is Flash, which previews as a grey box. This will revolutionize how potential clients will do their searching. You can find out more information on our blog.

WordPress takes care of 90% of the on page SEO. We have put in some extra features to help take care of the rest. All of the standard SEO plugins are installed automatically: All in One SEO PAck, SEO Friendly Images, XML sitemaps are automatically generated and sent to Google, Yahoo and Bing. We have also developed a plugin in house specifically for photographers called SEO Image Galleries. The only WordPress gallery that uses 100% HTML (no Flash) and automatically adds valuable ALT attributes to every images.

d) EASY TO CUSTOMIZE

Out of the box, WordPress is not an automatic website/blog. You need to hire an outside programmer/designer to work a theme to your liking. That is where we come in. We created themes where just about every aspect can be easily customized by uploading patterns, logos, favicons, social media icons, blog post separators, your photos, or choosing from the options we have included in each theme. You can change the color or fonts on your menu, change the color the menu rollover the background. The possibilities are virtually endless.

e) COST

These sites replace a portfolio site, a blog and any hosting you might need for both. Our lifetime plans are a one-time payment, nothing else to buy ever, no monthly fees ever. Our monthly or yearly plans include everything – your full site, built in blog and hosting. For anyone totally happy with their current website, we also have a blog only versions of all of our themes.

f) SUPPORT

We have put together a support site focused on our sites, but is also a great resource for anyone using WordPress. We have detailed documentation, tutorial videos and a forum. If you have a question or concern, we have a built in ticket system that can be accessed directly from your site.

g) SECURITY & BACKUPS

To help prevent problems, we have enlisted a number of plugins and settings to make sure spam is kept to a minimum and the security of the site is as solid as possible. In the worst-case scenario that something does happen, the best way to protect a site is to have a good backup plan. We backup our database twice a day and all of our content once a day. The backups are stored both locally on our server and remotely.

h) AND FINALLY WE LAUNCHED

We are proud to announce our first three themes in both blogsite and blog-only forms: Latte, Espresso and Cuppa Joe. Because we believe in our product so much, we offer a 7-day free trial. Take our sites for a spin. You can upload your work, writes some posts, link your Twitter and Facebook, and even seamlessly switch between all our themes.

We are offering an introductory lifetime membership for $499. That includes all our themes (now and forever), 4 GB of hosting on our screaming fast servers, our support, maintenance and much, much more. For a full list of features visit our features section. This offer will end on November 30, 2010.

We’d love to hear your thoughts as we will keep developing our sites to be the best they can be. As always, thank you so much for your support!

Win on BLACK FRIDAY 11/26/2010! Photography Blogsites is generously offering ONE LIFETIME MEMBERSHIP (Worth $499) to a Tiffinbox subscriber. Here is how you may be able to win:

1) Follow @photoblogsites on Twitter

2) Tweet the following:

“I just read about Affordable WordPress Portfolio Websites @Photoblogsites on @PicSeshu’s Tiffinbox. #photoblogsites Please RT!”

3) Comment below and tell me WHY you deserve to win. Don’t forget to mention your Twitter handle so that I can make sure you have done both. We need to see a minimum of 50 real, honest, entries before I can give this away on Black Friday 11/26/2010. So whatchawaitinfor?

This is a guest post by Iurie Vlasov, a Marketing professional at Vitriol Consult LLC specializing in SEO and Innovative web-marketing.

On August 23, the world of photographers was touched by a piece of news that created quite some buzz – a totally new and innovative proofing system was to be released in October – ProofPress. You may be wondering what is the point of another photo cart when there is a myriad of different other products for online proofing available out there. Read on and you will understand!

“Design is not just what it looks like and feels like. Design is how it works.” ~ Steve Jobs

The creators of ProofPress, two young dashing individuals from Florida with an extensive experience in web-development and who specialized for years in e-commerce systems have come with an idea to create something different for the photographer. There is nothing new when it comes to photo proofing systems, and most of them already out there are very similar in functionality, but different in quality and price. ProofPress on the other hand was created with the end user in mind. But there are two end-users to a photo cart system you will say. Indeed, there is the photographer on one end who has the task of managing the system and the customer on the other end. Many photographers today are just too busy to deal with all the “advanced” functionality their current photo proofing cart provides, and may give up on using one for the sake of saving time and use the old-school “on-the-phone” method to get their print orders from clients. So much for saving time.

Now back to those two guys in Florida. What they did is to have an idea that was revolutionary. Being developers and not photographers they got in touch with a few portrait and wedding photographers and spent time talking and understanding what their needs were and what is that they miss most in their current systems. After many hours and tens of pages of sketches and charts and mockups etc. they finally decided to give the modern photographer a system that would work directly out of their WordPress blogs. Not bad, because 85% of the photographers out there use WordPress for their photo blogs, because it's reliable, because it's easy to use, because it's safe, because it's constantly developing and updating, and yes because – Google loves WordPress.

Well, here we go, why not have a proofing system that will work as a plugin from your WordPress administration back end. No need to remember different passwords for different admin accounts, no need to have a multitude of admin urls to remember, but instead just one plain WordPress backend. And that is what ProofPress does, installs as a plugin in your WordPress and opens a whole new system in there. The guys jokingly call it, “a system inside a system.” But be aware that you need to have a self hosted blog on an actual domain that belongs to you and NOT one of those “johndoe.wordpress.com” blogs.

That is all good you will say, but what makes it so special? My answer is simple here, it will indeed offer what most of the systems out there do right now but will also be packed with other features:

a) Full front end customization, you as a photographer will be able to customize your proofing site by editing a multitude of options, like changing your logo, background, fonts, colors you name it… and the system will also be compatible with custom created templates. Now you will be able to apply your branding and design and have a unique photo cart.

b) Per client management. No more gallery grids. Each of your customers will be provided with his own client site where he will see only his galleries and information that you provide, including a text page which you can edit the way you want by adding a model release form, or maybe some what-to-wear information

c) A revolutionized way of managing collections (packages). ProofPress will offer the most flexible way of creating a collection. Managing print credit, discounts etc has never been easier and you know what, you can even let your clients create their own custom collections.

d) You will also be able to manage your financials and send invoices directly from your administration panel which gives you some basic accounting features and you will always know the state of your expenses and profits. A great feature for beginners who don't really need a bookkeeping system like Freshbooks etc.

These are some of the many features that ProofPress will offer. Stay tuned for the official press release the guys will publish in the beginning of October. Meanwhile you can contact them via email at info@proof-press.com and sign-up for a 30% discount at ProofPress.

The Front End:

The Back End:

Win on 10/10/10! ProofPress is generously offering ONE free license to a Tiffinbox subscriber. Here is how you may be able to win this WordPress plugin: First, Tweet the following: “I just learned about a very cool WordPress plugin called @ProofPress on @PicSeshu's Tiffinbox. #ProofPress Please RT!” Second, comment below and tell me WHY you deserve to win. Don't forget to mention your Twitter handle so that I can make sure you have done both. I need to see a minimum of 50 real, honest, entries before I can give this away on October 10, 2010. So whatchawaitinfor?

WINNER ANNOUNCED – Kate McKenna – from Medford, MA has won ONE license of ProofPress, the forthcoming WordPress Plugin. Follow her on Twitter. Congratulations Kate!

Yes, it's been a while. No, a long while since I posted anything new under this domain. Much of that was due to a heavy photography schedule. Then lack of sleep and paucity of time took swipes at me. But I am back.

A huge THANK YOU to James and company at The Men With Pens for helping me move this blog from Typepad to WordPress. That process was daunting and I couldn't have done it without their expert, patient help. If you are considering a similar move, I wholeheartedly recommend their services because they are that good great.

Truth to be told, I am a newbie to WordPress. I love the interface and from the websites I have seen using this fantastic blogging platform, I know much can be done here on Tiffinbox. I am very excited about the possibilities to share the kind of information that you will find useful and inspirational.

Ok, so there have been lots of changes here. It will be back to the business about publishing those things that make Tiffinbox special. I will be working on fresh new content, thanks to my connections, friends and followers on Twitter. If you aren't following me yet, what are you waiting for? I am the one that calls himself, @seshuthephotog. Simple, eh? I have spoken to photographers, artists, authors who have all shared their enthusiasm about Tiffinbox and are willing to share their insights and give us a sneak peak into their new projects.

If you have a blog you want me to check out, let me know. If you want a book reviewed, send it to me. If you are working on art project or really anything you think would appeal to those interested in South Asia, ping me now. So, the big question is – are you in for the ride? If so, leave a comment.

Did I tell you that I am back?