Yimage.net - An Online Photographic Marketplace

For professional photographers, the selling of photographs to image buyers frequently involves interactions with an intermediary agent before any work can be bought. While business has been done in this fashion for a while, this type of relationship is not as efficient or cost-effective as it could be for both parties.

By harnessing the incredible powers of the Internet, Yimage.net has created a digital marketplace for photographers and image buyers. Yimage.net invites its member photographers to display and sell their images online, and provides image buyers with the opportunity to contact the photographers directly about purchasing copies of their work. By placing their portfolios online, photographers get the maximum, worldwide exposure they need to sell their work. In addition, Yimage.net and its photographers guarantee image buyers consistently high-quality photographs on the site, ensuring that neither time nor money is wasted.

Focusing on the Needs of a Professional Photographic Marketplace

At Yimage.net, the individuals behind the cameras are just as important as the pictures themselves. Yimage.net wanted each of its member photographers to be given their own Web sites within Yimage.net. Through the individual sites, photographers could then update their portfolios as needed and maintain their own Yimage.net photo archives as well, providing image buyers with the latest, most innovative and creative work available. In the spirit of the highest standards of professional photography, the Yimage.net team also wanted the associated photographers to be the ones who ensure the quality of the site’s content.

Yimage.net also needed the ability to create thumbnails on the site. In addition to searching by photographer, the Yimage.net team wanted image buyers to be able to search the site by image category as well as by image country. Through visual representations, thumbnails provide one of the most essential, influential search functions for image buyers.

A Picture-Perfect 4D Solution

Running on 4D Server v6.7 and Wintel NT, the site currently houses the portfolios of almost 150 photographers, with images ranging anywhere from fashion, art, and architecture to sports, business, and nature. This diverse set of photographs is met with just as diverse a set of users, something that prompted Yimage.net to first and foremost find a reliable, cross-platform database solution. In the beginning, Yimage.net examined various cross-platform solutions, including 4D, Filemaker, and SuperCard, but ultimately chose 4D. According to Evert Albers, Interface Designer for Yimage.net, "We decided to go with 4D Server, mainly because of the server speed, and the ability to synchronize clients with the server more easily. In addition, it had the desired specifications that we needed, along with a solid reputation and room for future possibilities." Yimage.net also needed a reliable solution that would enable all of their users to export their photos from their personal archives to their online portfolios on Yimage.net. To accomplish this, the site provides photographers with downloadable software called Yimport, a 4D-based client application that enables members to constantly update their portfolios and archives. In addition to providing the ability to update photographic work, Yimport also allows photographers to keep a personal archiving system for their photos. All a member needs to maintain their portfolio and archive are a computer, a scanner, and an Internet connection. By simply scanning a photograph and using Yimport, photographers can send and update photographs to their Web sites located on Yimage.net. This process has proven to be quite user-friendly as well. For Hans Molenkamp, a Yimage.net member specializing in aerial photography, his online presence has helped him organize his portfolio with a sense of efficiency and organization that he’s never experienced before. "The archiving and updating capabilities of Yimage.net are fantastic," notes Molenkamp. "The features work well, you are given a clear overview of what has been done, and I’ve also become more committed to bringing order to my photo archive, something that photographers are not always good at." In addition, with an importing/uploading time of less than five minutes for multiple images, Yimport provides photographers with the quickest route to getting their portfolios online and getting their photographs sold.

In addition to supporting Yimport, which is absolutely essential to the functioning of the site, 4D v6.7 also provides Yimage.net with the ability to create a thumbnail search option. Through the CREATE THUMBNAIL command, thumbnails can be returned from any source picture, enabling picture previews within multimedia software and Web sites. Yimage.net also provides users with the ability to use the thumbnails for mailing images to other people through e-mail. Albers notes that the thumbnail search and mail options not only add fun and function to the site, but their implementation within HTML was also cost-effective. "The option to find or select photographers by thumbnail is a lot more fun than finding photographers textually," notes Albers. "Another recently added option was our "Mail this image to a friend" option. Since were able to develop these options from within HTML and without the help of programmers, this helped to extend our flexibility and saved us money as well."

Another notable feature of Yimage.net is the almost complete separation between code and artwork. With the help of Inventive Systems, an information systems development company that specializes in 4D-based applications, Yimage.net was created as a 4D Server and 4D Web Extension application. According to Paul Hanraets of Inventive Systems, the separation between code and design proves to be extremely beneficial. "Yimage.net offers an almost 100% separation between graphic design and software development enabling both designers and software developers to do their own work independently without limiting each other," explains Hanraets. "The designers can build the artwork for the site in regular HTML and using only a very limited number of handlers incorporated into their pages to connect art work to software. If they want to change functionality, within certain limits, they can do so by slightly altering HTML code and links, without changing the 4D code."

Yimage.net is changing the way photographers and image buyers do business, making it more efficient and productive for everyone involved. 4D Server v6.7 provides the solid foundation for Yimage.net’s successful, reliable Internet presence, and with an increasing number of member photographers and image buyers, the features and functionality developed with 4D will continue to make Yimage.net a leader in online photographic marketplaces.

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