This is a quote from a baseball player who was asked how he was able to continually hit over 400, in spite of the fact that he was the smallest player on the team. Though he wasn’t strong enough to hit a home run ball, he could poke hit after hit into the outfield where the defending players weren’t.

The idea here is that you’re not going to make money or happy clients by just sticking to the basics and selling what everyone else is. You have to provide people with unique, professional products. Your clients can get 4” x 6” prints from their own cameras at the local drugstore. So, they may place a low value on what they see as a 25¢ commodity. (How many customers object when you charge them $10 to $15 for a 4” x 6” or 5” x 7” reprint?)

But, if 15 - 25 4” x 6” images are artfully displayed on a beautiful montage enlargement that personalizes a life event, clients will be happy to fork over as much as $150. You’re giving them a work of art to display in their homes; not a commodity.

Your goal as a professional photographer is to provide quality image input…and use our capabilities to give you a profitable output that’s perceived as a value by your customers.

A 16” x 20” or 20” x 30” is often viewed by photographers as a difficult and expensive enlargement to produce. But, with our ROES service it takes you the same sixty seconds of work to crop, place and order a 20 by 30 as when you’re ordering a 4 by 6. Our price for a 16” x 20” is just $15; for a 20” x 30” only $20.

You can easily charge for $100 - $150 or more for your big enlargements.That’s not a bad mark-up for a minute’s work, especially if you’ve already taken the picture!

A montage is a grouping of smaller photographs on a single sheet. ROES has an easy-to-use montage creation tool.

To use this tool you simply go to any Design Your Own print size and click on the Pager icon. Then, click on the Montage icon. You’ll be prompted to indicate the number of pictures across and the number down. Once you’ve defined your design the nodes will open in your layout window. Nodes can be resized using the edit tool and you can use the right mouse button to delete, add or copy nodes. Add a text node and you have a fully customized product, personalized with type.

The good news here is that once you’ve designed a montage you can save it to use time and again. So, your subsequent orders can be completed in minutes.

Montage prints are perfect for kids’ sports and life events, such as significant birthdays and anniversaries. We even see a market for a photographer to do memorial montages for display in funeral homes.

A collage is similar to a montage, except that the prints are graphically laid out rather than being arranged in rows. You’ll use the Design Your Own mode with Pager and draw in your picture and text nodes. You can add effects like strokes and drop shadows. Convert the background to a Black & White at a lowered opacity for an artistic effect. Then, save your design to use for future sales.

Once again you have a product that is not readily available to consumers. Collages and montage prints are easy sells once people have seen them. Most important, they bring in big dollars.

Do you want to see how easy theses profitable products are to produce? Just click Montages or Collages for our illustrated “How To’s.”

What pretty young woman (or handsome young man) hasn’t considered the possibility of becoming a successful model?

Her first step is to get a good picture portfolio. That’s where you come in. With fill-in flash and good technique you can produce glamour shots as good as any agency photographer.

In order to enter the modeling business a new model must have comp cards (5.5" x 8.5" two-sided cards) a portfolio of different poses and, if planning to do some acting, 8" x 10" head shots.

We can help! Our laboratory's comp cards and head shots are made on real photographic paper...not the laser copies generally provided to models by print shops. So, your comp cards and head shots will be significantly better than anything on the market. Please click these links to learn more about comp cards and head shots.

The standard print size for a model portfolio book is 9” x 12”, which we can provide you with through ROES. Portfolio books with slip-in pages are available at most art supply stores.

It's amazing how many traditional families are willing to let it all hang out. Many studios are taking tasteful family maternity portraits of pregnant mothers surrounded by their loving husbands and children…with a basketball sized belly in full view. The pregnancy experience has become one of the most beautiful memories of their lives. Create sensitive portraits and you’ll profit from both your sitting fees and the big enlargements your clients will buy from you to display in their homes.

Boudoir photography, done tastefully, is also a big seller. Newlyweds, singles and even the occasional grandmother want to get sensual portraits as a keepsake or to share with a loved one. With Victoria’s Secret models wiggling in skimpy lingerie on TV, it is becoming much more acceptable for women to pose for portraits in revealing garments…or none at all.

Depending on your attitudes you may also want to take portraits of couples or individuals with alternate life styles. This is potentially a huge market.

There’s big money in school and league sports photography. However, this is also a very competitive area where individual photographers may be up against very entrenched studios, which have contracts with the organizations. We’d recommend going to an SPAA (Sports Photographers Association of America, http://www.pmai.org/index.cfm/ci_id/35203.htm) educational seminar if you want to enter this arena on a large scale.

On a free-lance basis there is nothing stopping you from taking action pictures of young people engaged in sport, dance or other activities and incorporating those pictures into collages and montages. You can also approach your church or other organizations you belong to where you can start with smaller groups and provide them with package prints, enlargements and individual family portraits.

There are all kinds of corporate and organizational events that just beg to be photographed. These could include corporate picnics and “bonus” trips that major corporations give to high sales performers. Organizations spend a bundle on providing these yearly events. Why not give them opportunity to have the event photographed by a professional?

You can use our magazine proofs with the image ID numbers turned off in “options” to create memorable albums of 6 up pictures. Your images can be easily edited and sequenced in the thumbnails screen. Then, you just drag, drop and crop each image into the book. You can have borders or bevels on your pictures and choose from a wide range of background colors. The cover can be customized with text, with a central photo a nice background photo for an artistic effect.

We spiral-bind all the pages together for a beautiful, completed album of candid photographs.

Pricing is on a single print basis on our iPrints Professional site. But, we can give you multiple print discounts when many books are ordered of the same images. Just call us at (800) 327-1776.

Your photographic talents don’t end with pictures you shoot for clients. You probably take a wide variety of pictures. We’d guess you have a lot of vacation shots that are far better than those taken by average folks. Why not make them into enlargements and sell those enlargements as decorator art?

Order an enlargement of a scenic, church or famous site. Then, matte and number it as one of a series and that print becomes a collectable work of art. You can earn good money for pictures you took for your personal enjoyment.

Our ROES system can help. First, ROES allows you crop to each image to perfection. Then, you can record the image information on the back of your print. Since we save your images you can re-order exact copies of your enlargements at any time.

Your customers won’t find enlargements on Kodak Metallic paper at the local Walmart. This is strictly a professional product. From your perspective it is as easy to order a Metallic enlargement as one on matte paper. (Just change to the Metallic catalog.)

So, differentiate yourself and your photography with prints on this magnificent paper.

The most beautiful diamond jewelry would look “cheap” if it was displayed in a plain, plastic case. You can add value to your enlargements by delivering them framed (passing on the costs to your clients.)

Try to establish a relationship with a local framer where you can get good prices and beautiful framing.