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HIGH POINT - It takes more than a fresh coat of paint to sell an old house in today's brutal market. A seller needs an edge - like a digital entertainment system that shouts this house can change the buyer's life.

Likewise, the owners of traditional furniture photography studios won't make it on photos alone anymore. So they are using digital photo technology to extend the utility of their work, the scope of their services and their reach in the worldwide furniture industry.

It's a way of keeping hundreds of workers on the job in the Triad, and adapting an old industry to a new world that runs on knowledge and technology.

"You've got to be very important to the people you do business with," said Richard Bennington, chairman of the department of home furnishings and design at High Point University . "It's going to be really important to keep the customers you've got and hope they don't go out of business."

That's because the furniture industry is under challenges it has never faced. The economic crisis, bad home sales, and consumers more interested in big-screen TVs than couches to watch them from, have forced furniture makers to look for new ways to do business.

High Point and the Triad are a major East Coast photography center because of all the furniture makers based here. Set up with large stages, these studios house hundreds of photographers and technical workers all focused on making the perfect furnishings photo.

But they face the same problems their customers are facing - and the studios are using their creativity and technology to attract new business and help their clients to survive.

Inside one such company, Tribuzio Hilliard Studio in High Point, heavy lifting and hangarlike studio bays share space with quiet computer designers who labor in semi-darkness creating brochures, catalogs and Web sites.

Ten years ago, a furniture company would deliver a sample to Tribuzio's offices, where it would be placed in an elaborate set built exactly to local construction codes and photographed in a perfectly lit setting.

Tribuzio would hand over the photos. Job done.

Now, competition for business is rising, furniture sales are dropping, but so are prices for digital equipment. Companies such as Tribuzio Hilliard can do now what only an advertising agency could pull off just a few years ago.

When David A. Christenson took over as the company's chief creative officer a few years ago, the company had 150 customers with uncertain futures.

Christenson, who worked more than 25 years for such catalog companies as Spiegel in New York , knew how to repackage photography as a better sales tool.

"We sell the art of marketing," he said. "The concept is if you are getting more services from us for the same investment, we want to give you more value."

Now, a client might choose any combination of services - computers, designers, efficient digital printing presses and all the software that goes with them - that can produce:

l Marketing literature, from catalogs to brochures.

l Logos, brand concepts, ideas to tie a collection together in the mind of the retailer buying the furniture.

l Some forms of digital imaging, such as using stock photography as a backdrop for lines of carpet.

l Web sites that connect customers with furniture makers.

While some clients have left the company, said Christenson, "we have gained back as many clients plus, to the point we're on (budget) for the year."

None of it works, however, if the photography company isn't creative, he said. So it tries to keep its staff of 75 workers busy - and employed - through the slow patches.

"In our business you can't cut your way to profit," Christenson said.

On a recent October day, when the studio was still busy photographing furniture introduced at the recent market, workers, carpenters and photographers built sets and took pictures. The sets produce visual whiplash: picture a sleek nighttime penthouse across the aisle from a sunny Southern kitchen.

Work varies from shooting a simple chair to setting up a room used to show off products that Lowe's will use in its many newspaper circulars.

It's like a movie studio without actors. The company operates a massive prop room with lamps, vases, screens and hundreds of other items to make fake rooms seem homey. They must be constantly culled and updated to fashion.

Carpenters, lighting technicians and photographers lend a busy, theatrical flair to the bays that often smell of fresh-cut lumber.

But it's all about business - showing off a sofa or a bureau in the best way possible for a manufacturer, retailer or importer.

And now that the industry is global, that includes helping companies communicate across cultures.

Tribuzio Hilliard has created a Web site in Chinese characters to show it is versatile in that area.

"There are a growing number of Chinese manufacturers who do not market in the United States and would be interested in doing that," Christenson said.

The company used an outside translator but, as Christenson said, every advancement brings with it higher expectations from customers.

One person called up, Christenson said, and said, "Can I speak to your Chinese-speaking person or department?"

Contact Richard M. Barron at 373-7371 or richard.barron@news-record.com