Improvements to Sharing on Facebook

Two improvements:
1. When the bride opens a link from your email she will see preview of photos before copying them to her Facebook:

2. Each photo that was shared on Facebook now has a link to purchase print of that photo:

Clicking that link takes visitors to your Fotrel gallery where they can purchase the print. Prices match the package that you have selected for that gallery.

New payment method: PayPal

Fotrel now supports PayPal as a payment method.

Here's how it works:
1. User selects photos, as usual:

2. There is a big shiny 'Checkout with PayPal' button on the order page:

3. Clicking this button takes user to PayPal website where he can make the payment:
4. Once payment is completed user returns back to Fotrel gallery where he can see order confirmation:

How to set up PayPal

1. Log in to Fotrel backend, open Settings, then Payment Methods. Click PayPal.
You need to collect 3 pieces of information: API username, API password and signature.

2. Open PayPal website, go to My Account, then Profile. Click My selling tools there:

3. Open API Access:


4. On the next page, click a link to request API credentials:

5. Select 'Request API signature' option:

6. Finally copy API username, API password and signature to Fotrel.

Credit Card Payments through Westpac

If you are with Westpac bank you can now accept automatic credit card payments in Fotrel. Here's how it works:

1. Your client makes an order on your Fotrel gallery. He or she enters credit card number.
2. Payment gets processed by Westpac. You receive money on your merchant bank account.

You would need to sign up for Westpac hosted website payments, also known as PayWay Net. Setting everything up is a rather complicated process so contact us if you want to go ahead with this option.

Welcome Andrew Harrison

I’m happy to announce that Andrew Harrison has joined Fotrel. Andrew is the owner of Passion8 Photography studio. As a long-time user of Fotrel gallery Andrew understands well how to use it to get maximum benefits. Andrew will help to promote Fotrel among fellow photographers.

New hosting: ServerBeach

Fotrel server has been migrated to ServerBeach hosting.

Now it has two processors instead of one and much more memory. This means better performance and faster page loads.

New prices

Starting from May 2011 price for using Fotrel has changed.

Before: no charge if you made less than $95 in sales; $95 otherwise.

Now: $9 if you made less than $100 in sale; $85 otherwise.

If you are existing Fotrel client you can keep using it under old plan for 6 months.

New release: bug fixes, Christmas edition

New Fotrel release brings few bug fixes:

• Fixed extracting photo number from file name. -1 and -2 in the end are now ignored. For example, IMG0803-1.jpg now becomes 803, not 1.
• Facebook uploads now can be resumed if interrupted.
• Fixed an issue with vertical photos losing orientation on Mac.
  
  
• Fixed a bug that could sometimes prevent decrypting credit card on Mac.
• Added studio name to From field for emails that automatically get sent to customers.
• Number on top of the photo page is now photo number. It was sequence number before (e.g. photo 11 out of 100) and it was extremely confusing. A lot of my clients told me about this and finally I got around to fix this.

Merry Christmas and Happy New Year! See you next year.