Céroce's Blog

Apple introduced the Mac App Store by the end of 2010. PortraiMatic is available on Apple's Store since February and we knew that it would quickly become our main selling channel. Today, 90% of our sales are made through the Mac App Store.

We kept selling PortraiMatic on our web site because computers under Mac OS 10.5 do not run the Mac App Store application. But really, selling on our web site is a hassle, for accounting reasons and difficulties people meet to unlock the software. So we decided that we would only sell on the Mac App Store by now.

If you bought PortraiMatic on ceroce.com, don't worry: we will keep on proposing a "trial version" which you can unlock using your unlock key, and so you will still be able to get updates. For the moment, the compatibility with Mac OS 10.5 is maintained.

As some users signaled me, the current version (2.0.2) of PortraiMatic is not compatible with Lion (OS 10.7). There are at least two issues:

• Saving a sheet to a JPEG file does not work
• When a new portrait is created, the previews of the sheets show black portraits, and so does the printed sheet. Quitting PortraiMatic and relaunching it allows the previews to be correct and to print again.

I'm working on these issues and I hope I can provide a new version quickly. Stay tuned.

A new release of PortraiMatic was published yesterday. Let us see what is new:

Changes in the creation of portraits

Creating a portrait is now more straight:

• either drag a picture file anywhere in the window
• or click one of these two icons:

The one of the left shows the file picker. The one of the right shows the window to take snapshots using the webcam.

Mac App Store

This version was essentially a chance to prepare PortraiMatic to be sent on the Mac App Store; the application has been submitted to Apple and will be available after it's been validated — within a week if all goes well.

The Mac App Store is really good news for users: it makes buying, installing, uninstalling et updating the application much easier. There is no unlocking mechanism needed either.

Céroce earns less on each copy sold on the Mac App Store, as Apple takes a 30% commission when our current payment system takes about 15%. That being said, we hope to gain visibility, and accounting should be easier.

We intend to continue selling PortraiMatic through our web site, so users under Mac OS 10.5 can still use it, and so potential clients can try it before buying.

The version of PortraiMatic was released yesterday. Let's see what's new.

Aesthetic improvements

Here is the new main window:

The driving idea was that the application should integrate better with Mac OS 10.6. I hope you're convinced by the result.

Resizable window

In previous versions, for reasons of development time, the main window used to have a fixed size. It is now resizable so it can be deployed on the whole screen.

This allowed to increase slightly the maximum value for the portrait's zoom (from x2 to x2.5): this value is a compromise with the length of the bar so the slider remains easy to handle with a mouse or a trackpad. A wider window allows for a longer bar, hence a greater zoom factor.

Free upgrade

We have decided that upgrading from version 1 to version 2 would be free. You trusted our small company during the past year and we wanted to thank you.

Coming next

Passing from version 1 to version 2 with so few changes might seem pompous. In fact, PortraiMatic is going to evolve within the next year, by integrating the features you asked us.

Several users asked us if they would be eligible for a free update to PortraiMatic 2.0 if they bought PortraiMatic 1.x now. The answer is YES.

We have not decided all the details of the updating process yet (cost, who will be eligible, etc.), but we will tell you when PortraiMatic 2.0 is released (in a few weeks).

I was very reluctant to add the possibility of shooting photos using the webcam in PortraiMatic. However, version 1.4 did introduce this feature, which I included for two reasons. The first one is that, since version 1.0, a lot of users asked me to. The second one is I thought it was more selling if someone could test PortraiMatic quickly, without needing to improvise a photo session, and then have to connect the camera to the computer.

I was very reluctant because there is no way you can get quality portraits out of the iSight:

• the iSight has only a definition of 640 x 480 pixels.

480 pixels on a portrait with a (standard) height of 45 mm corresponds to a resolution of 480 dots/(45 mm/25.4) = 271 dots per inch. It's not that awful, but it's not optimal either, since you will have to rescale the photograph, and the resolution will be even lower.

• the iSight provides very noisy pictures in low-light conditions

• the iSight has a strong tendency to overexpose. Overexposed pictures can not get corrected afterwards.

• shooting pictures with a computer is hard.

You have to hold your 3 kg laptop in front of your face, and then press the Return key. It's way easier when someone else shoots you with a camera.

• and finally, the most important, the iSight is equipped with a wide angle lens, which exaggerates the traits of your face.

In conclusion: Shoot pictures with a camera. Really.

I have not polled my customers but I guess that the two main reasons why they buy PortraiMatic are the price of photo sheets in a photo booth and the convenience. However, I created PortraiMatic with a different motivation in mind.

My bad experience with photo booths

When I had to make a new id card for myself, I shot passport portraits using a photo booth of the most popular company in France. The result was OK, not more: lighting was good, but the resolution of the photo was too low: aliasing could clearly be seen. More, I was in a hurry when I came in, walking very fast: my cheeks had a rosy shade.

However, the more disturbing was the experience: the face had to fit in a template displayed onto the screen. Because I'm tall enough and the stool was already at its lower height, I had to act the tortoise, putting my head in and out between my shoulders until my face was aligned. On two occasions, the machine told me that the photo was not framed correctly and I had to shoot it again, but within a three-attempts limit (because other client might be waiting outside). The four portrait sheet finally cost me four euros.

Unfortunately, my photos did not suit; I should have taken my glasses off, which frame was too thick. I had to shoot the photos again, but this time in a urge. I was at a mall, and there was a photo lab, well equipped for this purpose. However, there was no one at the counter, and the sheet was at the expensive price of eight euros. After a 5 minute wait, I decided to enter the automatic photo booth that was just in front.

The machine — from a company I didn't know — was of an older generation. It was less picky about the portrait frame, but I only had two attempts. Finally, portraits were ugly: the photo was under-exposed, lighting was greenish, and on top of that, a wide angle lens was used, which made my nose and forehead look huge. This is the picture that is shown on my ID card: I have to cope with it for ten years.

DIY

After that episode, as I am an amateur photographeur, I asked my fiancée to shot my portrait. After more than two hours spent on Photoshop to understand how this dawn software works and do savant calculations of resolution, sizes in millimetres and size in pixels, I finally had a sheet of photos. Once it was printed, I was pretty happy with the result. (I would state later that my face did not really fit the official template).

PortraiMatic is born from these bad experiences

This brings the two principles that conducted the design of PortraiMatic

1. the quality of portraits must be irreproachable. This is the reason why PortraiMatic manages colour profiles of JPEG files, and why you are warned when the resolution of the photo is too low.
2. the application must be quick and easy to use. This is the reason why PortraiMatic automatically selects your country and does not bother you with strange notions like margins or position of the eyes.

These two principles sometimes force me to make choices: I'd rather make PortraiMatic so simple that some users will not like it, than not follow either of these two principles.

A new page to write us appeared on our web site.

We used to show our e-mail address, but only a few people would write us. We hope that we'll receive a lot of your remarks, suggestions of improvements, opinions, questions. You don't even have to leave your e-mail address, so don't think twice.

As a consequence, we put an end to the questionnaire that you could (optionally) fill once you have bought PortraiMatic. Thanks again to the ones who took the time to fill it. Most of your suggestions will make their way sooner or later in PortraiMatic. Keep on sending suggestions: they help us establishing priorities in the development of the application and give us some ideas. You directly benefit from it.

A new version of PortraiMatic was released yesterday. Let's see what's new.

Custom Formats

You may now define your own portrait formats:

This is only a first step, I'll probably improve it some day.

Changes in the Registration process

Until now, registering a license worked as follows: the user received an XML file carrying the .PortraiMaticLicense extension; PortraiMatic declares it is capable of opening this type of files, so the Finder ought open them with PortraiMatic and no other. Double-clicking the file should be enough for PortraiMatic to read the file and to validate the license.

However, certain users running Mac OS 10.6.2 faced a bug of the Finder: it does not associate the license file with PortraiMatic but with some other random application (Safari, MSN Messenger, iChat…). I adopted the same mechanism than Écoute which seems elegant to me. The registration procedure now consists in dragging the license file to the Preferences window. Please note, however, that the old procedure still works for most users. To be true, I never managed to reproduce the bug on my own computer.

And that's all for this time. The next version will be more ambitious and should come sooner.

P.S.: I realised that Automatic Updating was not enabled by default in previous versions: I advise you to change this setting in the Preferences pane, and update PortraiMatic this manner (which is the easiest).

PortraiMatic currently includes the formats of passport photographs of 19 countries. Why only nineteen ? Because, for a format to be integrated, I need to find a link to official guidelines that are really, well, official. That is, national guidelines that are found on a governmental site, not obsolete ones, found on the obscure web site of a hermit photographer.

And that is the difficult task. Some countries don't seem to propose such a document on line (Portugal, for example). Finding these sites gets even more difficult when countries use an alphabet that I can't read (Arab, Asian, Greek, Cyrillic…).

By the way, to my great surprise, PortraiMatic sells in countries that are not managed ! For instance, I have clients in Russia or Hungary. In conclusion: to get the format of your country included in PortraiMatic, send me the link to the national guidelines, and I promise the format will get incorporated quickly.