Indexing School Portraits

[karenmorelandphotography]

<p>I am preparing for my first 800-student portraits job this fall and am trying to get some suggestions for indexing all the kids or if I even need to. I've done group sports portraits in the past with up to 250 kids and my method has been to make up name slates (printed page the kid holds up with their name, team name, etc.). Then I've been able to match up the kids' orders with their picture during editing. However, with the sports pictures, packages have always been purchased up front, so that was the only way to do it. My school portraits will be my first proofing job.<br>

I will be using Miller's Lab for my printed proof order envelopes, so the kids will each have their photo on their order form. Initially, I would think it wouldn't matter if I had their faces and names matched up because once the order forms are returned to me, the parents will be writing their names on the orders and there are image numbers printed right on each proof (Miller's system). From the image number on the proof system, I would think I wouldn't even need to do name slates, but I just don't want to run through 800 kids without name slates and then find out that I need to somehow identify someone in a way other than their image number.<br>

The school will be giving me a roster beforehand showing the students' names, their teachers, their grades, etc., and whatever information I request, as needed. I should also mention that this will be 6th, 7th, and 8th grade and we will be shooting each class on separate days, therefore I will use 3 different memory cards to help sort out the grades. But of course there will also be different classes within each grade (different teachers, etc.), so I would think there would need to be some sort of further indexing on my end. I can't just take 300 proofs back & say "Here's the 6th grade, good luck sorting". I know it takes extra time to take name slate pictures before each actual portrait shot (and extra cost/time to print them all out or hand write them), but I just want to get some advice from someone who has done this before and I'm not finding much when I search online since so many of these portrait companies are large corporations. Please help! </p>

[Rick Helmke]

<p>I've done individuals of classes up to about 95 people and just used the slate/name idea on oneof each image. Keeps it simple. I suspect if you are doing all of these in one school you won't have much trouble be able to find someone to help you id some of the faces if you have some slip through. There are usually a few faculty/staff embers who seem to know every child.<br>

<br />Rick H.</p>

[karenmorelandphotography]

Thank you, Rick. Are you suggesting that I just skip name slates then and ask someone if I have a question on who someone is? I hope to involve staff as little as possible plus it cuts down on the time I'd have to wait to hear back if I did have to contact someone about a student, so maybe for this reason it would be better for me to just do the name slates so that I can resolve any issues independently.

[michaelmowery]

<p>You should contact Millers as they would be able to help you. They are the ones who will put the packages together so they should have some sort of software that you will use during the shoot to get things organized. If they don't have there own free software they will recommend the industries standard school software that does all that you want it to do. Slates are things of the past. printing out barcodes and scanning them is whats done today but you need the software.</p>

[karenmorelandphotography]

Thank you, Michael.

Miller's does have ROES software that I have downloaded. It allows you to import a spreadsheet with all of the kids info on it (like what the school will be providing me from the rosters). Then when I receive the kids' order forms back I just pull up the kids names and match it up with the image file number on their printed proof orders forms and place their order for the package they want. Miller's packages it all in an envelope and prints their name and grade, teacher, etc. on it so that is great! I think the only part I would be missing name slates would be when I initially place the order for all the proof envelopes. I won't be able to separate them all out because there will only be kids faces and image file numbers on them. So I would be turning in all the proofs to the school unorganized. Is that acceptable? True, I can place 3 separate proof envelope orders dividing them by grade at least since we'll be shooting each grade on a separate day and I will use separate memory cards, but that still leaves me turning in almost 300 proof envelopes for each grade that the school has to sort out. Maybe that's the school's responsibility anyway and they're used to that, it just feels disorganized on my part. The only thing I could do to intervene would be to then get the proof envelopes from Miller's and manually go through each grade and look back to see who is in what grade by their name slate pix and divide them up into classes that way, but that is a HUGE extra step for me! So again, I may need to find out what the industry standard is when these companies return the proofs to the school.

[michaelmowery]

<p>I am not talking about Roes. You need to contact Millers School division department. There is special software you use on the shoot with your laptop and a bar code reader. You don't need to do anything but scan the barcode then take the picture. When you are done with the shoot you push a button in the software and it sorts everything out for you.</p>

[karenmorelandphotography]

Ok, thanks, Michael. I will look into that.