Taking and printing photos at an event

[ajax_andy]

I've been asked to take some photos at an event (set up a stall and take pics of the attendees with a minor celebrity). The idea is that the people pay for the pic, have it taken and then receive the photo later on that night.

What would be the best way to do this? Would I just store all the pictures on my memory card, take them all, then transfer them to a laptop and open each one in photoshop and print them off? Or is there a way of doing batch prints with or without the need for photoshop?

I'm a bit stumped so any advice would be greatly appreciated!

[Rentham]

If you have Lightroom you can shoot tethered and do your entire workflow in the LR modules. Capture, quick RAW adjustment, print.

[ishootRAW]

Originally Posted by Rentham

If you have Lightroom you can shoot tethered and do your entire workflow in the LR modules. Capture, quick RAW adjustment, print.

+1. Thats what I usually do.

What time would the people pick the photos up. And would you be taking the photos all day, or just a set time? In the past, I've taken the photos, loaded them on a laptop, RAW processed, put them on a flash drive. And had the guy at the local lab (he a friend of mine) rush them. In truth, sometimes this is faster then printing them on an inkjet. Especially if the you want High quality.

[ajax_andy]

Originally Posted by ishootRAW

+1. Thats what I usually do.

What time would the people pick the photos up. And would you be taking the photos all day, or just a set time? In the past, I've taken the photos, loaded them on a laptop, RAW processed, put them on a flash drive. And had the guy at the local lab (he a friend of mine) rush them. In truth, sometimes this is faster then printing them on an inkjet. Especially if the you want High quality.

Thanks for the suggestions... I dont have lightroom unfortunately just CS5.

Just at a set time... probably looking at doing 50 photo's roughly then a couple of hours later the people would pick them up.

I guess if I get the lighting right and use a grey card to ensure correct WB I could always shoot in JPEG and RAW then I have the option to just print without converting to JPEG, but have a back up of the RAW in case I need to change anything?

I'm not sure how to shoot tethered?

[Hill Country Hack]

I was the customer for one of these type events. The set up was an assembly line. My guess was about 100 folks wanting to have picture taken. First spot was to fill out demographic information (name, address with email), then snap goes the picture. I went home and three days later I got an email saying the picture was ready. Went online to my image and selected the size print I wanted. Prices were graduated by size of print requested. Few days later I had my print.

Would it be nicer to have the image same day? That is a personal decision to be made by the buyer.

From a business standpoint I would hate to lose income because folks do not want to wait a few days for images. So the reccomendation of shooting tethered and having assistant editing and printing so customers could come back in an hour for images to take home makes a lot of sense to me.

One snag from the photorgrapher's point of view were many of the customers were using their own point and shoots, cell phone cameras etc. I'm sure very few of those bought images. Consider the angle and queue of customers to deter that practice.