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Progress

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Reflective

October 19, 2009 in Progress by Danny | Comments

Sometimes it’s nice to reminisce…

  • When we started to rewrite Photojunction we named the master file “PJ Jr.” as a joke – that name still stands as our project name today… some 3 years later.
  • All the full time developers we started with for the rewrite, are still with us.
  • It took 3,000 development hours to get Remix to a stage where we could send it to other staff to have a look.  That would’ve taken one person a year and a half to complete on their own.
  • My personal favourite email… One of our beta testers emailed to tell us she considered PJ Remix to be a ‘metro’ bit of software. The developers were very excited as it’s a term not often used in the same sentence as ’software developers’ ;)

We’ve come a long, long way and there is still plenty to do, so I’ll stop blogging and get back to it.

Cheers, Danny

What we’re up to

September 30, 2009 in Progress by Danny | Comments

We recently released the lastest final version of Photojunction 1.30 which represents plenty of new features, work and changes.

You can read all about it here.

A couple of days ago we quietly released another final version of Photojunction 1.31, which doesn’t include any big changes, just lots of awesome little ones – and builds on version 1.30.

We’re happy with the progress we’ve made since the last final we released about 8 months ago, so now we’re going to focus on keeping things simple for you during the silly season.

Refinement will be our priority.

Cheers, Danny

A fair question (revisited)

July 2, 2009 in Progress, Soap Box by Ian | Comments

Johannes posted on Queensberry Connects to encourage people to upgrade to the new beta, and got this comment:

So what about all the quirky bugs, even in the latest version? Also running latest version of OS X. Used to work in the software industry, and this program is buggy!

Fair comment, although we may need to agree to differ ;)

Here’s our take on it (I also posted about reliability while Remix was still in beta).

Version 1.25 in PJ Support’s experience is very stable. The few bugs in it (no deal breakers) were fixed in v1.26 … which is a beta with heaps of new features … and inevitably, a few new bugs!

If you want stability, stick with the (latest) final version. It’ll be stable and pretty bug-free. But if you stick to finals there’s a bit of a dilemma: any bugs there are won’t be fixed for you until the next final comes out. Unless there are deal breakers of course.

If you want to play with the latest features go for the betas, expect a few bugs – and prompter bug fixes – and accept our heartfelt thanks for helping to make the program even better.

Here’s a real-world observation. There are a few good reasons why PJ may be buggier than some: small user base … very ambitious software … cross-platform … constant development … Which of these would you have us give up on?

I’m proud of what Team PJ have done, and we’re all very grateful to our users, who’ve helped them do it with their feedback and patience. Check out the release notes and look at what they’ve achieved.

Cheers, Ian

New feature leak 3: Proof Sheets

May 22, 2009 in Announcements, Progress by Danny | Comments

The last feature I’d like to tell you about before we release is one that we’ve revived from PJ Retro, only way better.

You’ll soon be able to use Photojunction to easily create proof sheets. There are heaps of different options and features to allow you customise them, but we’ve still tried to make them as simple and quick as possible to create – the simplest way takes only two clicks!

See you on the other side

Cheers, Danny

New feature leak 2: Import .psd

May 21, 2009 in Announcements, Progress by Danny | Comments

To simplify your workflow you’ll soon be able to import .psd files as both images and templates.

Why would you want to import a .psd image? Maybe you’d simply prefer to keep your files as PSDs, rather than JPGs or TIFs, which is all Remix has handled to date.

Or say you wanted to tweak an image after you’ve placed it on a layout… If it’s a .psd, even with multiple layers, you can open that image back up in Photoshop, edit and save it, and Photojunction will update the edited version of that file on the layout – just as it does with TIFs and JPGs now.

Photojunction will even preserve the layers of the .psd file when you export them as high-res!

You’ll also be able to import into Photojunction, all your album templates designed in or exported to Photoshop.

Another tomorrow…

Cheers, Danny

New feature leak 1: Text

May 20, 2009 in Announcements, Progress by Danny | Comments

Wow two weeks since our last post! That’s a bit embarrassing and we’re sorry :(

Hopefully you’ll let us off lightly though because we’ve been working hard on this next release…and it’s pretty epic.

So to distract you while we’re finishing off, I’m going to drip feed you some new features over the next few days.

Here’s the first:

It’s been a long time coming but Text is finally here! We’ve started off simple but we’ve got big plans, so we’re by no means done with it yet. In this release we’ve included colour, font and size options as well as all the normal alignment tools, so you can place text wherever you want on the layout. We’d love to know what you think.

I’ll post about another new feature tomorrow.

Cheers, Danny

PS there’ll be two pages of features and bug fixes in the release notes when we go live soon! Not long…

Remix 1.25 demo movie uploaded

March 16, 2009 in Announcements, Progress by Ian | Comments

Danny and Nigel have now finished a movie about the latest release (see below).

To be honest, I didn’t feel that excited about v1.25 … until I saw the movie. The new features don’t sound that exciting in print, but I reckon the movie will wake you up to the possibilities. If you want to upgrade from Retro … store your files where you like … use Remix over a network … organise or use templates … there’s plenty here for you.


(make sure to click ‘full screen’ – bottom right hand corner – after the movie starts)

Of course if you’re not into movies you could read my notes I guess ;)

1. First introduced in the beta release v1.22, the “portable projects” feature means you can now easily move projects around between different computers, or use Remix across a network. Each project folder includes all the data Remix needs to work on a particular job, including the low-res proxies. We made a separate movie about this feature at the time of the last beta release.


2. You can now position apertures by entering coordinates: select an aperture or apertures, right
click and position them by entering a distance to the left, top, bottom or right of the layout.

3. You can now import Retro .PJF files (under the File menu). Take care: we have tested this thoroughly, but please let us know if you discover any problems. TWO KNOWN ISSUES: Retro’s lines are not supported by Remix; apertures rotated in Retro will need to be adjusted after importing into Remix.

4. The Open in Editor and PS Actions buttons now allow you to open and edit a cropped, resized duplicate of the original image so you can (eg) add vignettes.

5. You can now move templates from one collection to another by dragging and dropping.

6. Shift-dragging templates (which adds a group of apertures rather than the layout) no longer deletes the existing apertures on the layout.

7. So that Remix can more accurately reflect album suppliers’ requirements, the total number of layouts allowed in album now includes the total permissible flips and wings. Remix will warn you if you add more layouts, wings and/or flips than allowed, but not allow you to

9. Images can now be deleted from a Collection when reviewing full screen.

10. Asuka book exported layouts are now named correctly.

11. Images can now be double clicked on the album design window to view full them screen.

12. Selecting any QBY resources in Check For Updates will now download all available
QBY resources.

13. Vendors using the Supplier version only: Mat Cutter registration is now required to cut mats, and you can now add a new Studio in the Supplier Version.

14. Between them, v1.22 (beta) and 1.25 also include 40 bug fixes, which you can read about in the release notes.

Cheers, Ian

What should we do next?

March 16, 2009 in Announcements, G33K, Progress by Stephen | Comments

Well, we made Photojunction free … now what?

After yesterday’s new final we’re finalising the development schedule for the next few months.

It’s always been our goal to make Photojunction the software of choice for wedding and portrait photographers, and we really appreciate the support we get from the thousands of photographers who use it.

But we do also recognise that there are four areas where people struggle, or where we can see strong opportunities for improvement.

1, While most people fly through the set up procedure, some people struggle. Maybe it doesn’t work as they expect, and therefore the task looks a little overwhelming. Our goal is to make getting started really easy and straight forward.

2, Some people think of Photojunction as a tool for matted albums, and although it does a brilliant job of laying out digital albums we recognise that there are some cool things we could do to make it both more obvious and even more powerful.

3, Once the album is complete, some people get overwhelmed with “what next?” – how to export, how to order, how to FTP their files. This area will get an overhaul in the next few months to make it very simple and straight forward.

4, We anxiously want to retire Photojunction Retro but realise there is still functionality that Remix doesn’t have, eg the portrait and proof sheet modules.

So our question is, what next?

If you use other portrait sales software such as Pro Select what do you love about it? We want to bring this functionality forward from Retro … but only if it’s world class.

Are there things not on the list above that you think are more urgent?

If you prefer other template software, what is it that you think we could do better?

Again, thanks so much for your support so far. Tell your friends we’ve started a discussion here on Facebook about how to make Photojunction even better. We hope you’ll contribute, we’d love your opinion.

Cheers, Stephen

Doing what you love

June 30, 2008 in Progress by Ian | Comments

We like making new features almost as much as you like using them. And after working on the final release for so long it’s good to be working on new stuff again.

For instance, today we’ve…

- Vamped up our automated testing system.
- Prototyped a new feature (one that’s very heavily requested).
- Dreamed up a cool solution to a long standing “quirk”.
- Contacted new album companies.

I bet this is a bit like shooting pictures for you. I mean how much time per week do you really get behind a camera?

Cheers, Danny

Now that we’re final

June 27, 2008 in Progress by Ian | Comments

Yesterday we expressed our thanks to our beta testers. Today I’d like to talk about the future, and our plans. We’re not going to ease up now, so here are a couple of promises from Team PJ.

1. We will release at least two final versions each year for the foreseeable future. They’ll include ongoing feature enhancements and be free to you as part of your subscription.

2. If you want to stay involved, and we hope you do, beta releases will continue thick and fast just as they’ve done for the last year.

The idea is to speed up development as our user base grows, and we’re itchy to show you some of the cool stuff we have planned.

Warm regards, Danny

PS We haven’t forgot those suggestions of yours that haven’t been dealt with. Yet.

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