LayerSpace Blog

Kodak bankrupt it's the end of an era

admin — Thu, 19 Jan 2012 10:49:57 +0000

I felt a twinge of sadness today on hearing the news that Kodak have filed for bankruptcy protection. Being a photographer of a certain age I began my career using Kodak products and spent many an hour loading dark slides with Ektachrome as well as Nikons with Tri-x. The sadness doesn’t come from feeling sorry for the company – that’s their fault and they had a good run for their (our) money – but from realising that the world has changed and photography will never be the same. Digital technology has arrived and is here to stay and I for one love it – the quality and instant results just cannot be ignored, but it has sentenced an entire industry and in some respects a way of life to the scrap heap in a very short space of time.

Just ten years ago I would buy a few hundred sheets of 5″ x 4″ film and a few boxes of Polaroid 54 and I’d be ready for a day’s shoot. At the end of the day there would be that nervous wait while the lab processed the first few sheets of film; did I remember to stop the lens down? Did the assistant load the film the right way round? Did the lab drop all the film in the bottom of the machine? Did the courier get knocked off his bike on the way back to the studio? All these things and more happened at some time or other and all these thoughts would be sitting at the back of my mind putting me off my post shoot beer with the art director. Then what a sense of relief when the film arrived back and all was well!

Now it is all so easy which admittedly means a lot less worrying but also it has made photography a less engaging pastime and in a sense removed the craft from the whole thing which is for me where the sadness lies.

Good luck Kodak in saving yourself – Fujifilm seem to be doing OK so take a leaf out of their book.
Regards
Andy Eaves

Merry Christmas!

admin — Thu, 22 Dec 2011 11:38:35 +0000

The team here at Layerspace would like to wish all our customers a very Merry Christmas and a Happy New Year.

New mobile site for all our customers

admin — Wed, 30 Nov 2011 12:45:34 +0000

Our elves have been beavering away and have come up with a new design for the mobile version of all our websites. Whilst the previous version worked on iPhones and iPads, it would not show on other mobile devices but that is now fixed, so your visitors will be able to see your website on any platform they choose.

The new design means that you can select one of our stylish Flash designs for your site and rest assured that the site will still be visible on devices which can’t show Flash movies such as the iPhone and iPad. The update has also fixed a gremlin which had crept in after the recent introduction of iOS 5 which was causing some people’s galleries not to be shown correctly.

We believe the design is one of the best available and it’s FREE to every customer so why not check out your site on a mobile device near you!

See how easily you can sell your photos online and set up online picture proofing

admin — Fri, 25 Mar 2011 10:57:53 +0000

Have you been wanting to sell your photos online but never found a simple, cost-effective solution?

Just imagine that your client is able to quickly and easily choose which photos of their wedding they want to order. Or imagine that anyone around the world can purchase one of your sweeping landscape shots at just a click of a button. Or maybe you have a big set of photographs for an ad campaign and you need the art director to choose their favourite.

LightBox from Layerspace offers all that. Here’s an introduction to the simplest and most effective photo selling solution online.

Sell direct to clients or the entire world

There are two different ways of using the LightBox to give you a choice over how you want to sell your photos.

The first creates an e-commerce website which opens up a selection of your photos for anyone in the world to buy. You specify the prices and what sizes are available and you can start selling through your own Paypal account in minutes.

The other system gives your clients a simple intuitive way to buy photos from you. They can view the photos from the event (for example, a wedding) and then order just the photos they want, with options to mark photos as favourites or add comments.

3 Simple Steps to Set Up Your Lightbox

LightBox is included with many of our photography website packages. Otherwise, you can add it as an option for just £5 a month. Then, it’s just 3 simple steps to set up online picture proofing and sell your prints online.

Online Picture Proofing for Clients

screen shot of online proofing

1. Create a new Space and add images
2. Set the Space to be a LightBox
3. Send the link to your client

Clients can then:
1. Select images by drag and drop
2. Add comments to each image and to the whole selection
3. Send the selection to you

Sell Prints Online with Paypal

screen shot of checkout window

1. Create a price list or lists
2. Set the Space to be a LightBox and enable selling
3. Choose the images you want to sell

Customers can then:
1. Click ‘BUY’ next to the image they like
2. Choose options and quantity from the price list options
3. Checkout via PayPal or by sending you an email

Try it out!

So now you have seen how you can sell your photos online in minutes, why not try out LightBox right now?

Verdana typeface enters MOMA

admin — Tue, 25 Jan 2011 10:30:00 +0000

Anyone interested in graphic design will be aware that the typeface Verdana has just been admitted into MOMA, the Museum of Modern Art in New York. (See this link)
Why is this relevant to you as Layerspace cutsomers you might well ask. Well, Verdana was specifically designed to be esepcially legible on computer screens, and it has long been a favourite of web designers as it gives a clean, easy on the eye feel to text. In fact you’re reading this in Verdana right now!

If you like Verdana you can use it as the default typeface on your LayerSpace website – just go to configure and then choose fonts and you can select Verdana from the drop down menu.
If it’s good enough for the Museum of Modern Art, then it’s good enough for me!

New feature! You can now hide an image gallery

admin — Mon, 12 Jul 2010 12:50:49 +0000

We have been busy beavering away on new features and we have added the facility to hide an image gallery and show it again by a single click of a button. This is in response to several requests from our customers. To access the facility, just click the image galleries tab, followed by hide or unhide.

We have also added an option to change the size of the image that is shown when choosing purchase options. The choice is for a thumbnail image or a full size image. This is in response to a customer’s comment that the large image could be saved to the desktop and used nefariously. To access this option, click the lightbox/passwords tab and change the image to show option in the centre column.

We strive constantly to improve our system and welcome feedbackk and suggestions from our customers, so if you have any requests or suggestions, please do not hesitate to contact us!