TRICKS I'VE LEARNED Digital Designs are not only a current wave or trend, it is predicted to be the wave of the future. I am glad I discovered this concept four years ago and adapted it to my water feature business. I started constructing waterfalls in 1982 and have since designed and built over 1,900 in southern California. All my designs were sketched by hand and I am by no means an artist. My clients really were not sure from my sketches what they were going to end up with. Now, however, with digital virtual designs, there is never any question. I spent over two years using Microsoft's Digital Image Suite program to cut images of rocks, portions of falls, ponds, plants, fish, turtles etc. from close to 10,000 photos and created a digital library to pull from. Now I can literally create thousands of different water features from these images. I placed some of my virtual designs on our website and one day, one of my old clients and friend called me. She exclaimed, "I just saw my cat Mittens sitting on a rock of a waterfall staring down at some fish in a pond and it is not my pond, how is that possible? Where did you take that picture? She was completely flabbergasted! Goes to show how realistic Digital designs are. Microsoft's program is only one of many programs. I also own Photoshop and Illustrator, but both programs have a large learning curve and for the average person are very costly. Digital Image Suite is only around $100 and fairly easy to master.

In creating a pond design digitally, you first need a digital photo of the area (Mega pixels minimum) Next, load it into your digital imaging program. Now you are ready. Many graphic or photo software programs will let you manipulate an object. For example, each individual object that is dragged to the work space is surrounded by a "bounding" box with nodes on the sides and corners on the box. By clicking on a corner node and holding down the mouse, you can drag the corner to make the object larger or smaller. By clicking on the side node you can make the object in the box fatter or taller. With this feature alone you can totally disguise any object, be it a rock or plant, by changing its dimensions. Just by dragging a rock to the work space, copying and pasting it several times, you can change the shape of each copy of the original object. Not only can you make the rock wider, taller, flatter, larger, or smaller, you can also warp the shape, change the color, shade it or tint it. So with only a handful of rocks on the work space, you could create a veritable rock quarry! By dragging the nodes in a section of pond water, you can make the water fit any size pond by stretching or narrowing it.

Need a couple more weirs in your waterfalls? A few more plants in the pond? A cat, a tree, a rock, bench, gazebo, bridge, stream? Just click and drag & paste, it's that simple. Right after seeing the virtual photograph of his back yard, a homeowner exclaimed, "Let's do it". Not, how much will it cost, just "Let's do it". Another client joked, "Wow, this is so beautiful, I think instead of you building the waterfall, I'll just have this enlarged and paste it over our living room window!"

I want to encourage you to add digital design to your business. You will not just impress your clients, they will know exactly what they are going to end up with. Did I mention increased revenue?

Not only do I charge $350 per pond design photo, I recently increased my construction prices by 30 percent. And since implementing digital pond designs in my bids, my closing ratio on signed contracts has soared from 60% to 80%. Eight out of ten proposals/contracts come back signed with a deposit check enclosed. Not to mention an additional $350 value added, for a digital pond design. Let's face it: people like to see what they are getting before they hand over their hard earned money.

SOME TECHNICALITIES If you are considering adding digital designing to your business, make sure you invest in a good digital camera - at least 5 megapixels. The one I use is the Fuji S2 Pro SLR. It is 12.1 Mb or over 12 million pixels per inch (4,256 x 2,848). Also, your computer needs to be able to handle the software with the proper amount of Ram, and the appropriate size processor and hard drive. If you are using a Windows system, the minimum that you should have is Windows 98, ME, 2000 or XP. To work with most digital imaging software programs, your computer should have a 500 mHz or higher processor, 128 Mb of Ram or higher. I have 851 mHz and 640 mb of Ram. Your hard drive space should be at least 250 Mb (mine is 120 Gb, however I work with video also), super VGA monitor (800 x 600), 16 bit color or better.

MAKING THE SALE If you are a contractor or pond builder, constructing ponds and waterfalls for a living, you must ask yourself, "Do I want to increase my income by 15 to 20 percent?" If the answer is yes, then you need to start providing your clients with a digital pond design. When I meet with my client for the first time to survey their yard, I ask several important questions: 1. Where do you spend most of your time when you are inside the house? Ninety percent of the time the answer is, the living room. 2. Where do you spend most of your time when you are outside? That answer is usually the patio. By establishing these facts up front, you can explain that the waterfall and pond location needs to be nearby the place where they spend the majority of their time. For example, outside the living room window or slider and near the patio. If their waterfall and pond are located in the back corner of their property, the only time they will enjoy it is if they make an effort to go out to where it is. Once these issues are settled you now know where to take the picture. It is best to do a pond design in the place where it will end up being built. The next step is to explain that I take a digital picture of the area and create a virtual photo of the proposed waterfall and pond. I then explain that if they decide to go ahead with the project we will deduct the entire $350 from the proposal. This is an incentive for them to go with you to get back their money. If they do not accept your proposal you still made $350, which more than pays for the time spent.

You will rarely receive a "no" when your prospective client is deciding what to do. In addition, I mention to the client that if they decide to get other bids, they will have the photo which will allow them to compare apples to apples when getting the other bids. The best part is they see their finished water feature actually in their back yard.

A virtual photo of a digital pond design is to a waterfall and pond builder what a movie preview trailer is to the motion picture industry. While visiting the Macintosh dealer in San Diego, I was asked to observe the quality of the Power Mac's processor. The Apple representative played a trailer from the movie "Winged Migration." This clip was designed to play on the average Windows screen in a 3" x 3" window. He played it on the Power Mac's 30" screen at full screen size. The result of this single visual presentation was my response: "I'll take it," not "How much?" When your client sees an award winning masterpiece in their own yard, more than likely they will say yes. Please note that my sales success rate of more than 80 percent is not solely the result of using virtual photos. I have been designing and constructing waterfalls and ponds for over twenty five years, with over 1,900 projects completed.

However, it is obvious that this innovation can greatly enhance the success of any business, no matter how young.

It would not be fair, after telling you all the great benefits of digital design, for you to have nowhere to get the waterfall and pond images. The truth of the matter is, after sharing with you about the various digital software programs, I went on line to find waterfall and pond related images. To my surprise I could not find any. So I have decided to work on making mine available to the public. It is not available yet. Try your luck on the net and see if you can find any. If you do, please let me know. If you cannot find any, get in touch with me and mention you read my article on EzineArticles.com and I will give you a very special rate. My heart is to share my 25 years of experience with others. Please read my other informative articles on the topics of Water Feature Construction found on EzineArticles.com

Waterfalls and ponds are becoming a common addition to current landscape designs, with the projected future trends being even more promising. The digital age is upon us and we have the perfect product to utilize this technology. So get ready to give your computer a tune-up and let's get started!