In the simplest of terms: PhotoReflect uses online and software technology to allow you to publish, manage and sell your photography online.

The Windows-based software (downloaded during sign-up) catalogs your portfolio(s), photography and orders so that with a click of a button everything you configure on your desktop “speaks” to the technology online. PhotoReflect does not upload your photos, rather, the software creates web-ready versions, behind the scenes, so that your online website/storefront is optimized and very fast to use.

When your online customers purchase a photography item from you, you “approve” the order and then the online technology “talks back” to the software, collects the original images from your computer and sends the order to a lab for fulfillment.

The online technology controls how you choose to present yourself online as well as what photography products you want to sell and for how much (all of which are settings you determine). In addition to that, the online technology tells us and the credit card companies who to charge for what and where to ship the final product all while deducting all fulfillment fees. We pay you the profits of these transactions every two weeks.

(We think it’s pretty cool.)

Currently PhotoReflect uses Windows-based software to facilitate the creation and management of your online storefront. MAC Users have third-party options (called VM ware) that will allow you to incorporate a Windows operating system such as OS X and parallels, however, we do not support those applications. In the near future we plan to address the needs of MAC users and others with a completely online application. If you would like to be emailed when those services become available, please complete this (click here) online form (also, please keep in mind we will require you to respond to a follow up email to verify your interest).

With your porfolio(s) and photos uploaded, options selected, and prints and products configured and priced, no two PhotoReflect storefronts look alike. We do have some sample sites you can review though.

There are two types of online photography solutions; those that are for consumers like Shutterfly, and those that are designed for professional photographers like PhotoReflect. The biggest difference between these two types of photography solutions is who took the pictures and who is buying the pictures. If you are someone looking for an end-to-end online solution that allows you to publish and price your photography for profit, then you are in the right place.

Beyond that, there are other online photography solutions designed for photographers seeking a way to automate their online business. PhotoReflect is the only end-to-end and completely automated solution designed for all types of photographers and businesses. We talk about what makes us stand apart from our competition here.

It’s a pretty simple procedure. When you sign up for PhotoReflect you will first receive an email to verify your email address. We will use this email address to tell you when someone has placed an order so that you can submit it for fulfillment. In addition, we use email exclusively to communicate with you when it becomes necessary. After you have verified your email address you will receive a second email that will remind you of the login, password and storefront information you created during registration.

At this point there are wizards designed to walk you through the setup requirements like choosing and pricing a selection of online products and your subscription preferences. The last step of the setup wizard directs you to download the necessary software.

To use the software, you will be asked to familiarize yourself with a number of tutorials available to show you how to organize and upload your events for sale. If for any reason you need additional support during these initial stages, there are webinars scheduled to provide you personalized instruction.

There are three answers to this question. Please read this item carefully to avoid confusion:

If your address and customer base resides within North America, PhotoReflect will function without any issue and you can configure your site to price your photography and accept payment in U.S. Dollars, Canadian Dollars, Pound Sterling or Euro. Depending on the country you live in, you may receive payment via direct deposit or check. Your assigned account representative will be able to tell you how your payments will come to you.

If you reside outside of North America and you currently have a PhotoReflect account, your account will function as it normally has. You are required to use DARKROOM software and either fulfill all orders yourself or use a Labtricity enabled lab. Currently there is only one Labtricity-enabled lab outside of North America and they are based in the United Kingdom -- see the proservices tab in your software to learn more about Labtricity.

If you do not have an active account with PhotoReflect and you reside and sell your photography outside of North America, there, currently, is not a PhotoReflect service available to you … yet. We are currently devising a program that will better serve your type of organization and if you would like to sign up to be notified when this service becomes available, you are able to do so by clicking this link and then clicking the link “Is your country not listed?” There is also more information on that webpage.

There are three fees that are associated with your PhotoReflect account. The first of which is your subscription to PhotoReflect which is $9 a month. You will not be charged for your first month using our service (because we know you will love how simple and functional it is). Upon sign up, we will request you provide us with a credit card number so that your storefront and set up is not cancelled after your initial trial period. You can change this card information at any time.

Beyond the subscription cost, there are two transaction fees that occur whenever a purchase is made on your storefront. We recommend that you include these fees in your photography prices to ensure that you are profitable and that these fees do not affect you in any way. The first transaction fee is an e-commerce transaction charge. We charge this fee so we can manage your shopping functions. This fee begins at 15% of your sales volume (excluding shipping, sales tax and service fees). When your annual sales volume reaches $20,000, this percentage will decrease.

The second transaction fee is 3% which is actually a charge from credit card companies in order to provide credit card processing services to you. As with the e-commerce fee, we encourage you to price your photography prints and products in a way that considers this amount so that your online customers pay this fee on your behalf.

If you own DARKROOM software you are able to publish to your PhotoReflect storefront in the “pro services” tab. DARKROOM is the photography industry’s most award winning and prevalent workflow software designed to help photographers manage, archive and manipulate their images for print. There are quite a few other perks to using DARKROOM if you are using it for your business and for publishing to PhotoReflect, many of which are described here.

DARKROOM software complements PhotoReflect. It is a one-time purchase that can be used in place of the PhotoReflect software you may or may not have downloaded during sign up. Regardless of your choice of publishing software, if you are currently paying a subscription fee to use PhotoReflect, you will be required to continue doing so.

The PhotoReflect software differs from DARKROOM in many ways. Specifically, the PhotoReflect software was built to function exclusively with your PhotoReflect account with no additional configuration or technical skill.

You need DARKROOM 8.91.1678 or newer to take advantage of the new PhotoReflect features. This software update is free to any Web edition user and any DARKROOM Core or Professional version 8.9 software owners.

The icons below represent the latest software downloads of your select edition (if you do not own the physical USB security key for the upgrade versions, these downloads will not work!).

	WEB EDITION		CORE 8.91.1678
	NEW CORE 9.0		PRO EDITION

Core edition 9.0 is the latest and greatest DARKROOM software product that incorporates a full suite of photo-editing tools, greenscreen, tethered and wireless capturing, proof printing to Windows printers and much more. Go to the DARKROOM website to learn more about the new DARKROOM Core.

If you need to upgrade your DARKROOM software because you are using version 8.8 or older or if you would like to upgrade your Core edition to version 9.0, you need to purchase an upgrade from DARKROOM and call a support representative at 888-508-3443 to activate your USB security key.

If you are looking for a discount on an upgrade or new purchase of your software, sign-in to your online dashboard's home page for any applicable special annoucements or sign up for our monthly newsletter.

Go the the 'Manager' tab in the software (which is also found online by logging in to PhotoReflect.com) and click: Account. Scroll down to the area that says 'Your Payment and Tax Information.' There is a field with your 'next estimated payment date.' The way we determine this date is based on how we calculate your online orders. Every two weeks your online orders are assessed and every two weeks you are paid for the orders during that span of time. Until you are up and running, however, there are two small stipulations:

1. Your very first direct deposit payment may take between 10 and 20 days. This timeframe allows us to verify and ensure consistent payment from that point forward. (If you have an account outside of North America, at this time, you will be paid by check. All other information still applies.)
   
2. If your two-week net income is less than $25 at the time of calculation, the amount will rollover to subsequent pay periods until you reach $25. Your PhotoReflect online dashboard keeps track of this for your review at any time.

Yes. Information can be found by going to the “Manager” tab and clicking the “Storefront” link. Scroll down to the area “Add PhotoReflect to your Website” or the Storefront Option “Use custom home link.” Please note, when transferring your home page URL, it will take approximately 24 hours for that attribute to take effect. Other features, such as embedding PhotoReflect tools on or into your current website will require intermediate-level understanding of HTML.

(Not really a 'frequently asked question' but...) We’re sorry to hear that you want to learn more about this topic but we won’t stop you. Go to the “Manager” tab in the software or login to PhotoReflect.com. Click “Account” and scroll down until you see a link that says: “Click here to cancel your storefront.” A prompt will guide you the rest of the way.

There are several ways for you to receive assistance:

• The PhotoReflect webinars are informative and interactive. There are sessions for beginners and more advanced users very often and they are completely free. Click here to see the current schedule.
  
• We have published a library of help tutorials that are designed to get you up and running on your own time. If you have a specific question, see the 'Help' tab of the software and click “help page index” near the bottom of that page. While the index will not answer your question directly, it should point you in the right direction.
  
• Your account representative emailed you within 48 hours of signing up for PhotoReflect, reply to that email.
  
• Email accounthelp(at)photoreflect(dot)com with your name, city, state and country and your dedicated account representative will be forwarded your message.
  
• Ask another PhotoReflect user on our Yahoo! Forum. You will have to be approved to enter the forum. Approval usually occurs within 48 hours.

The PhotoReflect Pro Lab is dedicated to quality, service, consistency and, most importantly, you. We use the latest, most state-of-the-art digital photographic printers and printing presses and just because you may not have used our lab before does not mean we have not been around, behind the scenes, proving our dedication since our company was founded in 1999.

Every print and product sold on PhotoReflect is hand-color corrected to ensure perfection on the medium it is printed on, be it a small or large print, gallery canvas or coffee mug.

• We us Kodak Professional Endura Papers and print directly on and physically stretch canvas (we do not “melt” a print-product on to the canvas).
  
• Our prints are guaranteed to last 100 years. We will replace any print that fails to last (due to quality).
  
• If we did something wrong, even if it is minor, we will replace that item.
  

Our machines are operational between 8:30 and 5:30pm Central time (U.S.). During the holiday season we extend weekday and weekend business hours to accommodate the influx of orders. When you submit an order to the lab through PhotoReflect the item will be fulfilled within 72 business hours (usually much sooner). The item(s) are then drop-shipped to your online customers directly.

Photo gifts, greeting cards, and prints are shipped separately to (a) ensure timely delivery and (b) protect the items from unusual packaging.

Yes. PhotoReflect has leveraged a relationship with DARKROOM, the photography industry’s leading workflow software. If you own DARKROOM Core or Pro editions, you can enable your PhotoReflect orders to print directly to your Windows-printers or dye-sublimation printers. Learn more about DARKROOM on our website here or by visiting www.DarkroomSoftware.com.

All of your online customer’s orders are charged by credit card and by PhotoReflect. We cannot personalize this charge item on their credit card statement. If you are contacted by a customer about a charge from PhotoReflect you should simply ask if they made a purchase of their photography. If, after this conversation, you suspect their credit card was used fraudulently you should advise them to call their credit card company immediately.

If your online customer has made a purchase and contacted you before you sent the order to the lab you are able to easily cancel the order within the software (simply follow the prompts within the 'Orders' tab). If you have already sent the order to the lab there is a very short window of time after that transaction in which the lab has put the order in the production queue. You are able to contact us (during normal U.S. business hours) to cancel the order. We will make every effort to be accommodating but if the item(s) has been in the production queue for longer than 8 hours it will be very difficult to intercept the order. Our phone number is 866-554-2344.

Please know, your customer will not be able to cancel an order by contacting us. All order queries must be made by you; either by your supplying your username and photoreflect URL over the phone or by email to support@photoreflect.com from the email address on record for your PhotoReflect account.

If your customer would like to return their order it is up to you on how you would like to handle the issue as every photographer should have their own policy regarding this matter. You are paid for the purchase made by the online customer minus the wholesale cost of fulfillment and a maximum of 18% in fees. It is up to you to reimburse the client the revenue paid to you (minus the fees), the entire amount, or not at all.

You are able to issue 100% refunds to your customers from your account manager (by signing in online or clicking the Manager tab in the software). To do this you will click the “orders” tab in the manager, and seek out the specific order number. If the order can be found and it has been within 90 days of the purchase date, there is a “refund order” button available on the order review page. When clicked, our systems will apply a credit to the credit card used for the original purchase. You, the photographer, are responsible for the wholesale cost of fulfillment and the 18% of fees if you issue a 100% credit card refund regardless of the reason behind the client refund.

Why 90 days? The major credit card companies have policies that limit the period of time after the date of a transaction during which a refund can be processed through automated systems. We must comply with those policies. If you need to issue a refund for an order over 90 days old, please do so using your own business systems and policies by, for example, issuing the customer a refund check or offering them a credit that can be applied to future purchases from you.

Why do we keep the transaction and fulfillment cost? There are a number of reasons we cannot refund purchases without ramification. For one, our part of the transaction agreement was completed (your images were displayed, the credit card transaction was completed, and the product was delivered) as detailed in our User Agreement with you. Secondly, the 3% transactional charge, print materials, ink, and the shipping charge are not amounts we keep, rather, third parties collect them for services rendered regardless if the item was refunded or returned.

If you fulfilled the item yourself, there is little we can do in this matter. If the PhotoReflect Pro Lab was incorrect or sent something that was damaged during shipping, you should contact us and we will rectify the issue to your satisfaction.

Your customer will not be able to report an incident to PhotoReflect by contacting us directly -- as their changes could impact your revenue (therefore, we will ask them to call you to report the issue). You will need to have your username and URL available to report an issue by phone or you will need to email support@photoreflect.com from the email address we have on record for your account. Our phone number is 866-554-2344.