PLEASE NOTE:
The majority of the contents in this guide apply to both StudioPlus Spectra AND myStratus Desktop.
In most cases, instructions referring to "Spectra" also apply to myStratus Desktop.

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Home > Digital Workflow > Workflow How To's > Stage 2 - Sales Presentation
Stage 2 - Sales Presentation

The Present Images stage of the Digital Workflow provides you with the tools you need to prepare and present a slideshow and the session images to your client in a professional way. You can set up and run the presentation and slideshow from the Workflow hub or from the actual session record.

Workflow Hub - Present Images Stage

Preparing a Sales Presentation

You'll want to set up your sales presentation before you present it to your clients.

  1. Open the Workflow hub and select the Present Images stage on the digital workflow drop-down list. Select the session from the session list and the session images will appear on the left portion of the screen.

  2. Use the following tips and tools to prepare the images for presentation: (See the Digital Workflow Reference Guide for a complete list of functions and features you can use to edit and prepare your images for the sales presentation.)

    • Select Multiple Images - Click on an image and then press the Ctrl key and click on another image. To select a series of images, click on an image and press the Shift key and click on the last image in the series. You can make changes to all the images you've selected.

    • View Larger - Click Image Viewer in the Show group of the ribbon to open the image view. The selected image will appear larger in the center portion of the screen. You can scroll through the images one-by-one using the arrows below the main image (or use Q for previous and W for next). Jump to another image by clicking on a thumbnail on the left.

    • Organize - Click Image Groups in the Show group of the ribbon to display the image groups for this session. They will appear to the right of the image(s). Right-click in the groups portion of the screen and click Add New Group to create additional image groups. You can then drag and drop images into the folders. The All Images group will always contain all the session images. The Ungrouped image group will always show images that are not in any group.

      HERE'S A FLASH FOR YOU!

      There are many ways you can use image groups. Create a group for your slideshow and then rearrange the images as you want them to appear in the slideshow. Create groups for outdoor and indoor images. Create groups for your weddings to organize pre-ceremony, ceremony, and reception images. Within each group you can arrange the images in any order and then use the Sales Presentation to present these groups to your clients. These groups are saved with the session so you can access them at any time. You can even have Spectra/myStratus automatically create default Image Groups for all of your sessions. See Company Preferences - Digital for more info.


      HERE'S A FLASH FOR YOU!

      The software includes a feature you can use to organize session images in Spectra/myStratus based on metadata that has been applied in Lightroom. For example, if you use Lightroom to rate and group images, you can carry those ratings and groups over to Spectra/myStratus by clicking Organize on the ribbon and then selecting a Lightroom Metadata Preset you've created for this type of session. For more information on setting up your Lightroom presets, refer to the Lightroom Metadata Presets and Lightroom Metadata Preset Details topics.

    • Change Thumbnail Size - Use the Size drop-down list in the Options group of the ribbon to adjust the size of the thumbnail preview images on your screen.

    • Show Rated Images - Use the Show drop-down list in the Options group of the ribbon to show only images with a specific rating.

    • Show Image Group - Use the Group drop-down list in the Options group of the ribbon to show only images in a specific group.

    • Rearrange Order - Click on an image (or a selection of images) and drag to a new location to rearrange the order of the images. The built-in slideshow will automatically show the images in the order you've chosen.

    • Adjust and Correct - Open the Adjustments panel to make a wide variety of adjustments and corrections to the images. Note: These adjustments are applied only to your preview images and are non-destructive. There is an option to apply your adjustments to the hi-res images during the retouch and/or rendering process. See also: Adjusting Images in Spectra and Perfectly Clear Plug-In

    • Adjust Slideshow Settings - Your default studio slideshow settings will automatically be used for each slideshow. To change these settings for an individual session, click Change Slideshow Settings. Use MP3 files, WAV files, or music directly from a music CD for your slideshow. MP3 and WAV files are preferred. You can choose up to five songs for each slideshow. After the last song is played, the sequence of songs is repeated. Click OK to save and close the Slideshow Settings for the session. See Setting up Digital Workflow for information about setting up the studio default slideshow options.

Playing a Slideshow

  1. Click Start Slideshow to begin the slideshow.

  2. Press the Space Bar to start the slideshow, the "I" key to show the image number, and Esc to end the slideshow.

  3. Click Stop Music to fade out the music.

Starting a Sales Presentation

Follow these steps to give an effective sales presentation to your clients:

  1. From the Workflow hub, select a session and click Start Presentation in the Slideshow group of the ribbon. The Sales Presentation window, designed to present the session images to the client, will open as a separate window in front of the Workflow hub. 



  2. Once inside the Sales Presentation, the left portion of the screen will contain thumbnails of your preview images and the center portion of the screen will display the Image Viewer. If you move your cursor to the top of the screen, the toolbar will appear.

  3. HERE'S A FLASH FOR YOU!

    You can set up your presentation so you control which images your client sees on the projector, while at the same time selecting from all the images on your monitor. In order to do this you must have Windows 7, 8, or 10 and the projector must be set up as a secondary monitor. Consult your Windows documentation for instructions on how to set this up. In the Sales Presentation screen, the Image Viewer portion of the window will be shown on the projector/second monitor and your monitor will display the thumbnail images.

  4. Image edits and settings you made on the Workflow hub will be displayed in the Sales Presentation. If necessary, use right-click or the toolbar to rotate, rate, colorize, and group the images. The screenshot below shows the other options available on the right-click tools menu. See the Digital Workflow Reference Guide for a complete list of features available in the Sales Presentation. Note: Any Perfectly Clear corrections or presets that were applied on the Workflow hub will NOT appear in the Sales Presentation when using the Trial Mode of the Perfectly Clear Plug-In. Find out more about Perfectly Clear on our website.

  5. Go through the images with your client and rate the images. Use the Image Viewer portion of the screen to rank images as not selected (red), undecided (yellow), or selected (green). You can use the arrow keys to move through the images and then use the number keys or the ranking buttons below the image to rank each image (1 for "selected/green," 2 for "yellow/undecided," and 3 for "not selected/red). The following tools may be useful when helping your client decide which images they want to order:

    • Organize - Click Image Groups in the Show group of the ribbon to display your image groups on the right portion of the screen and choose the group you want to view.

    • Compare - Use the Ctrl or Shift keys to select multiple images to view side-by-side in the Image Viewer. You can view up to 6 images at a time.

    • Zoom - In the Image Viewer, press the Ctrl key and left-click on the image to zoom in, or right-click to zoom out.

    • View Thumbnails - Click Image Viewer on the ribbon to remove the large image section and fill the screen with the thumbnails.

    • Magnify - Use the Magnifier tool on the ribbon to view the image at the actual size.

    • Crop - Click Crop on the ribbon to turn on the cropping tool. Use the drop-down list to choose a ratio, if desired. Click Save Crop (or use the S hotkey) to maintain the crop and hide the area outside of the crop box. Click Remove Crop (or R) to return to the original full image. Click Crop again to turn off the cropping tool.

    • View Actual Size - You can display an image in actual wall sizes by using a projector. Highlight the image you want to project in actual size and press the hot key you set up in Maintenance > Digital > Image Sizes. Remember, if you want to turn a horizontal image into a vertical one, or vice-versa, simply hold down the Shift key while making the hot-key selection and Spectra will invert the width and height for you automatically. For more information refer to the Image Sizes and the Workstation Preferences - Digital topics.

  6. When you're finished rating and editing the images, you are ready to record the client's order.

Recording a Client’s Order

  1. From within the Sales Presentation, click Order Info in the Show group on the toolbar.

  2. The order information will appear on the right portion of the screen. You'll see your price list with your Quick Picks listed at the top. See also: Setting up a Price List

  3. Choose Products and Images - Select the products and packages the client wants to order for each image. If you select a package that has multiple prints, find the image for each print and double-click on the image number field to assign the image to that print. You can also drag and drop a thumbnail image onto each line item on the order.

  4. Set Order Crop - When a client decides to order an image in a specific size, new crop settings should be applied to the image. These crop settings are called the "order crop" and may be different from your "display crop" and unique for each product/line item. To set the order crop for each product, first make sure you’ve set the print height and width in your price list. See Price List Reference for details about those item fields. Then on the order, select the line item you want to crop. Note: You must choose the line item from the order (not the image thumbnail) to set the order crop. Clicking a thumbnail will simply redraw the display crop. See Cropping Images for more information.

  5. Order Options - Click the Order Options arrow in the top-right corner to view additional order options:

    • View Order Detail - Open the invoice.

    • View Different Order - Open a different invoice from this session.

    • Create New Order - Create a new blank order.

    • Create New Payment - Create a new payment for this invoice. See also: Creating a Payment

    • Create New Payment Plan - Create a new payment plan for this invoice. See also: Payment Plans

    • Print, Preview & Export - View, print, or export the invoice and image detail.

    • Show Prices - Reveal the item prices on the screen. Note: Item prices are hidden by default. This is how you turn them on.

  6. Use the Order tabs at the bottom of the screen to view additional order information:

    • Item Detail - View item options, enhancements, notes, and pricing information (if you are displaying prices).

    • Notes - Record invoice level notes.

    • Summary - View the order subtotal, tax, discounts, and total.

  7. Save the Order - Click Save on the toolbar to save the invoice.

  8. Record a Payment - If the client has previously made a customer deposit, you will be prompted to apply it to the current invoice. Otherwise, you can click New Payment to record the client’s payment.

  9. Print Invoice and Image Detail Sheet - After recording the payment, click Print to print an invoice and image detail sheet for the client.

See Invoices and Payments for more information.
Once you've created the invoice, you should create a production order. See Production for more information on creating new production orders.

Sales Presentation Options

Image Colorization Presets

You can create your own custom colorization settings, such as black & white, sepia, or other tones and styles. Go to Maintenance > Digital > Image Colorizations. See also: Image Colorizations

Composites

    
NOTE: This feature is available in the Standard, Professional, and Enterprise versions of both Spectra and myStratus Desktop.

The Composite feature gives you tools to create custom composite templates and then drop images from your sessions into the templates, creating custom digital products for your customers. To find out how to create composite templates and use them in your sales presentations, see Designing Composite Templates and Using Composite Templates.

Rendering

    
NOTE: This feature is available in the Standard, Professional, and Enterprise versions of both Spectra and myStratus Desktop.

Rendering is the process the software uses to build new images from the changes you’ve made to the images in Spectra/myStratus. You may render out images for proofing or preview purposes – such as printing proofs or loading images up to a website – or you may render images from an order for printing. See also: Rendering Images


See also


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