Do you print some or all of your work in house? You can now print directly from Spectra/myStratus to any printer that has a Windows driver! The new Printing Workflow features create a comprehensive and robust print/production cycle.

Your printing workflow begins with an order (invoice or production order). Each item on the order is processed according to the render profile you've assigned to it in your price list. The rendering process creates the final output images and sends them to the appropriate printer (or hotfolder).

The components of the printing workflow include:

We've created a flowchart that gives a great overview of how the printing workflow is structured and shows how all the pieces fit together. Take a look at the links below to learn more.

+ Printing Workflow Flowchart
+ Setting up the Printing Workflow

We've made it easier to set up and manage your render profiles by improving and relocating the maintenance screen. You'll now find it in Digital section of the Maintenance menu. We've also included presets for the most common rendering scenarios – just tell us what you want to do and we'll make most of the choices for you!

+ More about render profiles

The cropping tool has been completely redesigned! Instead of drawing a crop box on top of your image, you now move and zoom the image within the crop boundaries. The new cropping tool has it's own set of tools and hot keys that make it easy to quickly crop all the image in session. You can also include guidelines for consistent cropping (optional).

+ More about cropping images

If you use green screen (chroma key) photography in your studio, you can now prepare these images right from Spectra/myStratus (along with a third-party Photoshop plugin), creating PNG images with a transparent background. You can also use the Digital Template Builder to create many different backgrounds to layer with your images.

The Retouch tool on the Workflow ribbon has a new option to Edit Chroma Key Image. This will create a PNG from the hi-res file and open it in Photoshop so you can remove the background with your Photoshop plug-in. Save the image as a PNG with transparency and the new preview will have a transparent background, ready to be layered over the special backgrounds you've created.

+ More about green screen

The Composite Template Builder has been renamed as the Digital Template Builder. The usage has expanded from just creating composite templates to also creating print layouts (sheets), and backgrounds (for chroma key images).

There are several other enhancements, including:

+ More about the Digital Template Builder

Promotional Items - New!

Also added to myStratus Web app.

We've added a brand new item type to the price list – Promotional Items.

Use this new item type to create a variety of promotions, including percentage and dollar discounts, free items, and even loyalty rewards! Each promotional item can include usage limits, spending thresholds, and other qualifying criteria.

When you choose Promotional Item as the item type, a new tab will be available for you to set up the details of the promotion.

That's not all! This new item type includes the coupon number and reporting features you need to use Groupon™ and other third-party coupon sellers.

+ More about promotional items
+ FAQ - Using Third-Party Coupons

Price List Enhancements

Also added to myStratus Web app.

We've added some new price list features and made some changes to the layout of the price list item form.

+ More about the price list

Trigger enhancements include:

+ More about triggers

You can now easily copy an invoice! Just open the invoice and choose Copy Invoice on the File menu. You can link the new invoice to the same session or to a different session/client.

In addition, you can also choose to Relink an Invoice to a different session or simply to the client.

+ More about copying an invoice
+ More about relinking an invoice

A new Production tab has been added to session types. This tab contains several options to automatically create preproduction orders based on the date a session is first saved, the session status, or criteria in a filter. Go to Maintenance > Session > Session Types and open a session type to see these new options.

+ More about preproduction orders

Use myStratus to create forms for your clients to fill out online! Create questionnaires, contracts, contact information forms, feedback forms, and more!

Web form features include:

TIP! If you're not using web forms, the Web Forms tab can be hidden on both your clients and your sessions. Choose that setting on the Clients and Sessions tabs in Company Preferences.

+ More about web forms

We've added a new Default Session Status option for sessions booked online. Sessions booked online will automatically have this status. Set this up for each online session type in Maintenance > Session > Session Types.

+ More about online booking

A new user security setting is available to Limit Access from Allowed IP Addresses Only for individual users.

This setting is located on the Account tab in Maintenance > General > Users. If checked, the user would be able to use the Stratus Web app ONLY if they're coming from an authorized IP address, maintained in Preferences > Firewall Preferences. Basically, you can use this setting to prevent a user from using the web to access your data from home, but still allow them to use it at your studio.

+ More about user security

We are continuing to increase the functionality of the myStratus Web app! In addition to keeping the web app up-to-date by including many of the new 2016 features, we're also adding existing features that were previously found only in the desktop app. Recent additions include: