Inkjet & Digital Printing
myPhotopipe.com Introduces FolioPrints(TM), All New Silver Halide Prints With Embedded Digital Effects
Friday 25. January 2008 - myPhotopipe.com, Inc. (OTC Pink Sheets: MPPC), a web-based online provider of digital photo processing and related services, today announced the national availability of its new FolioPrints(TM) photographic prints. FolioPrints are silver halide prints produced on Fuji Crystal Archive paper. They contain a digitally embedded border and a digitally activated caption box. FolioPrints may be ordered in 304 print sizes and finishes at www.myphotopipe.com.
“It’s certainly not your grandmother’s 4×6 print,” said L. Douglas Keeney, Chief Executive Officer of myPhotopipe.com, Inc. Keeney was admiring a sample of his company’s new snapshot-sized 4×6 FolioPrint, a print that contains a digitally embedded matte border and a digitally activated caption. “People can’t believe this is a 4×6 print that costs only 19 cents, but it is. All I had to do was activate the caption and the border, and they automatically became part of my print. Two clicks and it’s a work of art.”
myPhotopipe.com is one of a new breed of web-based companies brashly but successfully competing in the digital photo processing business. And they are doing it by offering more, not less.
“In the absence of value, price becomes an issue and on the snapshot level innovation has been almost zero,” noted Keeney. “So, in the big box stores it’s all about price. Not so in the high end. Serious photographers are all about quality, color management, choices, artistic options. Their cameras are loaded with imaging controls and their computers have color management tools. They’re involved in the entire process. Little wonder, then, that they want more out of their prints.”
With sales up 46% and industry revenues of $7 billion, demand for prints from digital cameras keeps online photo processors like myPhotopipe.com busy. CEO Keeney and President Pete Casabonne morphed a sleepy, high-end film processor in the metro Atlanta area into one of the hottest online digital processors in the nation. Their secret? A single-minded focus on photographic prints. “Once you have a digital image, its easy to become a put-your-photo-anywhere type of company, but we don’t think people are buying $5,000 cameras to put photos on mouse pads,” said Casabonne. “In fact, we see the opposite. Our photographers want to ‘wow’ their customers. That’s why we developed FolioPrints, which allow photographers to do more with their digital photos and generate more revenue for their studios. Best of all, they don’t need any training or any photo editing tools. It’s all in the print.”
The drug store days of roll film have been replaced by a process of selecting a digital image and dragging it into a box or a rectangle that represents a 4×6 or 8×10 print. The digital image is then sent to an online processor via readily available high-speed Internet connections. With a computer and high-speed Internet access, it is easy to see why the volume of prints ordered online is up 112% over the past year.
Which is why Keeney and Casabonne turned their attention to the print itself. “We cater to professional and serious amateur photographers. Their business is all about selling prints, and that got us to think about the print itself. Why not make the print itself more versatile?”
Thus was born FolioPrints with Embedded Digital Effects (EDE), which represent a palette of digital options buried inside the photo template. “You can activate a text box and give your print a very handsome caption,” said Casabonne, a 29-year industry veteran. “You can select a border and instantly have a matted look. Or, do nothing and you’ll have a standard edge-to-edge borderless print. It’s up to you. Just activate the effect you want, or not. The choice is yours. And you don’t need any extra tools to get it done.”
myPhotopipe.com soft-launched FolioPrints with Embedded Digital Effects just days before Christmas. Within a week, more than 20% of all orders were for the new product. “Today,” says Casabonne, “all of our prints are available in FolioPrints and they don’t cost a penny more than our borderless prints. The choice is up to the photographer, and helping the photographer do more is what we’re all about.”