for professional wedding photographer: how do you create online photo albums for your client?

[jie_li1]

Hi,

 

I am doing some reseach on online photo album service. My question

are:

a. when you finish shooting the wedding, do you create a password

secured web album for your client to view the photos?

b. how do you create these albums?

c. are there any services out there you can suggest?

 

Thanks a lot in advance!

Jie

[drew carson]

www.Printroom.com printroom has a consumer and a pro site the pro site requres a $99 yearly fee (the fee is waved for PPA members- i belive they are still offering this) hope it helps godd luck

[nick_w.]

I can't say enough good things about ExposureManager.com:

 

Only $9.99 a month for unlimited storage

 

Custom layouts

 

Easy customer interface

 

EZ Prints print service

 

And best of all, their technical support is amazing

[david_beal___richmond_hts.]

We tell wedding clients up front that we do not and will not post any shots on line. Even if a given site claims to be secure, there are plenty of hackers who can get to it. Some of them are not nice people.

[david_schilling___chicago_]

I use smug mug and will password protect the site if requested or desired. I also keep a private gallery for family/friends.

[kelvinphoto - arlington, t]

"We tell wedding clients up front that we do not and will not post any shots on line. Even if a given site claims to be secure, there are plenty of hackers who can get to it. Some of them are not nice people.

 

Only people afraid of internet that will say that, and only people don't know will a hacker hack their PC or steal their identity. Please if all hacker hack into a bank website, I think we not be banking online and PAYPAL or EBAY will be shutdown.

 

I've been surfing and hosting my own webserver for over 10 years now, and no hacker, virus, or trojans ever get into my PC. Please, please, please don't tell people lie or thing that you don't know.

[kelvinphoto - arlington, t]

Oh Jie, I forget. here is a nice free software for slide-show,etc.

 

http://jalbum.net/

[jie_li1]

Thanks for all of your input. They are very valuable for me. For a business point of view, how important is online album service to your business? And how this is used in your business process? Do they buy the photo they pick in these albums?

 

Thanks again!

Jie

[bill_clark___minnetonka_mi]

I use Pictage and like them. I create the wedding album with the software on their server. I had three wedding albums picked up this padt week alone at each of them were over 1.5k. I've got over a dozen more to do. Works for me.

[aaron_lee___minneapolis__m]

I've had nothing but positive response to posting my photos on collages.net

 

The guest just love the fact that they can see the wedding photos, where most people never see the professional images.

 

I'm looking for something that is better than collages.net. The interface for customers and the photographer is pretty good, but it lacks options. They also have many database problems (what do you expect from a product using MS SQL and .Net?)

 

I did table shots at the last wedding and a family decided they wanted to use their as a family portrait and ordered $60 in prints. Not bad.

 

~Aaron

[chris m., central florida]

Some brides won't hire you unless you offer online image review. It's a good selling point. Unless you are a photographer that offers a very unique stlye that's in demand, brides who are internet savvy are going to include online galleries as part of their shopping list. It's becoming an industry standard as far as I'm concerned.

 

I have never heard of a gallery being hacked. I expect my gallery hosting provider to have the necessary security measures in place to prevent all but the most determined efforts to alter content.

[craig bybee]

I have used Photoshop's Gallery function and use password protection on my website. Have never had a problem with hacking or any other misuse. My clients almost demand online photo and album previews.

[steve_caturan1]

Free open-source publishing platforms have become more sophisticated, providing individuals the means to create dynamic web sites, both for commercial purposes and/or personal use. It all depends and boils down to what�s important to you and how far you want to explore your options, in terms of financing (in certain setups), time & effort.

 

If you have hosting somewhere, inquire and have them look at http://codex.gallery2.org/index.php/Gallery2:Installation_Requirements to see if they can satisfy the requirements.

 

among the many FOSS (free open-source software) options out there, I recommend Gallery 2 - with it, you can create a central repository where individual users (a "client" for example) can be given access only to specific album(s) and even further refine specific permissions per item (a picture or video file) from within.

[aakash_shah]

"Aaron Lee - Minneapolis, MN , dec 31, 2005; 06:13 p.m.

I've had nothing but positive response to posting my photos on collages.net

The guest just love the fact that they can see the wedding photos, where most people never see the professional images.

 

I'm looking for something that is better than collages.net. The interface for customers and the photographer is pretty good, but it lacks options. They also have many database problems (what do you expect from a product using MS SQL and .Net?)

 

I did table shots at the last wedding and a family decided they wanted to use their as a family portrait and ordered $60 in prints. Not bad.

 

~Aaron"

 

Aaron:

Hi! I am currently considering switching to Collages.net from DigiLabs. What options does Collages.net lack? Also, what kinds of database problems did you experience? I am looking between Pictage and Collages, but so far Collages looks more appealing to me because of the cost and the fewer complaints I've heard about Collages.net (a lot of people appear to have had problems with Pictage).

 

Thanks,

AK