Proofing

[Lute]

For those who have their businesses up, how do you proof your images to your portrait clients? CD? Proofing books? Web galleries? I'm curious to see the creative answers!

If you don't have clients/just shooting as a hobby you can answer too. I'm not judging anyone here

I low-res (watermarked with logo, and with "proofing purposes only - not for reproduction") CD then work from there with albums/file/print choices. I still think clients copy them... Sneaky.

[lonni]

I do mostly commercial work, stuff for catalugues etc and use proof books mostly, in person, i find i get better sales. With repeat customers i trust i send a DVD of low res with an order form.

[Biomech]

It varies but generally online galleries, usb sticks or my tablet PC. All low res and watermarked.

[NicoleScraps]

I am looking into adding a photo cart with client gallery to my website for this purpose, but as of right now, I use a free web gallery. Very low res (about 600px on the longest side) and watermarked. I had been using contact sheets for proofing but the photos were too small to really see.

[Jim Bryant]

Web galleries.

[Niresangwa]

I don't proof, and don't let clients select their images themselves.

[lonni]

I have a friend that does it all on her ipad, she reckons its great, they do the ordering on it by ticking boxes from a menu for each image, and emails to the client with an invoice straight away and they dont have to print proofs, only have to have a small watermark, and their is no danger of the client using the images. I am pretty sure she can accept payments straight away by card too. I thought thay wa pretty nifty.

[Biomech]

I don't proof, and don't let clients select their images themselves.

Not at all? Say I shoot a wedding with 1500 images. I'll chop out the shit and do some flash PP on the top 300, then offer low res watermarked proofs of those for the client to choose their favourite 100 which I then do the full PP on.

[Niresangwa]

Originally Posted by Biomech

Not at all? Say I shoot a wedding with 1500 images. I'll chop out the shit and do some flash PP on the top 300, then offer low res watermarked proofs of those for the client to choose their favourite 100 which I then do the full PP on.

Nope, not at all. They're made aware that they're hiring my decisions along with everything else.

They get a minimum of 150 fully PP'd images, (usually about 200 though) then a roughly equal number of extras that are only PPd in LR. For weddings that is, and between my assistant and I we ally produce around 1000 shots. 48 hours from end of the wedding to having posted the slideshow and zenfolio ordering gallery... usually by wednesday after I"ve done the extras, I'm done with the project...

Portraits are 30 out of usually 100 or so, again, they get no choice, just the finished product.

I do offer to re-do conversions, but havent had anyone request this or even quibble about the process.

[Tzetsin]

I think Niresangwa is really on the right track with this. Normal people have no idea what a "good" photograph is and generally just look at what they themselves look like and never consider other important elements of a shot or set.

If you give a bride the choice of shots, out of 300 pics 299 of them will be of her. If you give the same choice to the groom 299 of them will be of the brides maids, to the mother in law, 299 of their side of the family and to the other, their side. 10 years from now they'll all look at those pics and really have no sense of the event other than from the point of view of the person who chose the set. You really need to have an outside professional perspective to get a well rounded overview of shots that cover all the important aspects that tell the story of the day.

And on a more professional stand point, I'd rather that the really crappy shot that the chooser for some reason absolutely had to have not get out with "my" professional name on it.