Studio software · New York
Where’s the signed contract for the 2019 Alvarez wedding?
In most studios the honest answer is a filing cabinet, someone’s inbox, or an old database on one computer in the office. Retina keeps every client, contract, invoice and email in one place — and we move your old system over for you.
Client record
Alvarez · Chen
Since 2019
4 events
- Inquiry to the studio’s addressFiled
- Contract signed — on a phoneSigned
- Deposit · $2,500Paid
- Wedding · 2 photographers, 1 videoShot
- Album orderedDelivered
- Inquiry from Sofia AlvarezReturning
Right now, it lives in four places.
The old database
On one computer in the office, and only works when somebody is sitting at it.
Somebody’s inbox
Which is fine until they’re on vacation, or they leave.
A filing cabinet
Signed contracts on paper, filed by whoever was in that day.
A spreadsheet
Who’s shooting Saturday, last updated on Tuesday.
Retina is one place for all four — the one that still knows the family when they come back four years later for the next wedding.
What’s in it
Built for studios with a team — weddings, mitzvahs, portraits, schools, corporate work. Just as useful if it’s only you.
- Every client
- Every client, event and conversation, in one place you can search. When a family comes back for the next one, their history is already there.
- Inquiries
- Mail sent to your studio’s published address becomes an inquiry on its own — nothing to copy across, nothing sitting in an inbox over the weekend.
- Contracts
- Drawn from your own templates. Clients sign in the browser, on their phone, and the signed copy is kept exactly as it was signed.
- Invoices & payments
- Deposits and balance schedules, with a link the client can pay by card.
- Crew & equipment
- Book photographers, assistants and gear without double-booking any of them, and send each person their call sheet.
- Your Outlook
- Works with Microsoft 365. Mail and calendar stay in your own Outlook, filed against the right client as they arrive.
- On the day
- The whole studio on a phone, for the crew who are out shooting.
- Yours to keep
- Download a complete copy of your studio’s records whenever you like. Leaving should never be a hostage negotiation.
We move your old system over. You don’t retype a thing.
Retina was built alongside an established New York studio, moving its archive off an aging database. That same import is the one we run for you.
01
Send us an export
Whatever your current system can produce — spreadsheets, a database export, a folder of files. If you’re not sure how to get one out, we’ll walk you through it.
02
We map it and bring it in
Clients, events, inquiries, invoices and staff, each matched to the right place. By us, not by you.
03
You check it first
Look through it side by side with the old system. Nothing switches over until you’re satisfied it’s all there.
Your clients’ records, treated that way.
- Walled off
- Each studio’s records are separated from every other studio’s in the database itself — not just hidden on the screen.
- Two-step sign-in
- Every login can require a code from a phone, as well as the password.
- Backed up daily
- And you can download your own complete copy at any time.
Fifteen minutes, on your own workflow.
Tell us a little about your studio. Nate, who built Retina, will write back personally to find a time.
We’re bringing on a small number of New York studios this season.