When I work with clients on making their wedding album, big part of the process is for them to go through the images in their gallery and pick those they want to be included in the album.  Currently the process is very lame.  They have to copy/paste the image numbers into a text file which they later email me.

It would be a huge help if there was a way for my clients to just click some kind of a checkbox to select the image for the list of their favorites.  This list would then be emailed to me.

We have major improvements coming in this area. In the meantime have you tried using Collections? Your customers can create a free Visitors account, create a cllection and send you the link. You will then have the collection as a reference. Here are instructions you can provide your clients with:

Creating a Visitor's Collection:

1.    Navigate until you are looking at a photo page with the photograph you would like to add to new collection.
2.    Move your mouse over the image, a new menu will appear on the left side
3.    Select Add to Collection from the menu. A pop-up window will appear titled About Collections.
4.    Click Continue. You will be directed to a Registration/Login page.
5.    Under Registration select Continue
6.    Enter a user name, your e-mail address and a password. This information is necessary to create orders and will not be used in any other way.
7.    Click Continue. Once you have created your visitor account you can return to adding photos to your collection.
8.    Select Return to Photos and you will be directed back to the gallery
9.    Follow steps 1-3 until you have added all of the photos you would like.
10.    A confirmation message will appear each time you add a photo letting you know the operation succeeded. You can now click View in the confirmation meassage to view the collection.
11.    To send the collection to someone simply click Send Link at the top, right of the page. You can either cut and paste the link or select Open in Email use your default mail program.

Thanks for the response Laura. I have tried doing it this way and unfortunately it does not really work.  The selection they make is not a list of image names or numbers that I can further work.  And it makes it very difficult to weed out 140+ image numbers from their selection.  I really need just the image names or numbers.

Completely agree, Red.  I made the same request myself some time ago here:

http://forums.zenfolio.com/forums/t/1743.aspx

Dan

Well, another month and a half went by with no improvement in this area in sight.  Everytime I ask my clients to select images for me by cuting and pasting into a text file it makes my business look lame and unprofessional.  I like zenfolio for many reasons and have been a customer for a while now, but this just very well might be the thing that will make me leave.  Dont want to take the embarrassment from my clients.

Zenfolio, if you are reading this, please let us know the road map for this feature with an ETA for implementation.

not sure if this would work for you or not, but i allowed private comments on my wedding galleries and ask the b&g to add comments to the images they wanted for their albums.  unfortunately it didn't work well for me, none of the brides have done it yet.

The only problem in following these very good instructions is that between 8 & 9 you will note that the system just keeps creating a new quick collection for each picture to go into.

The new number 9 needs to read that they now have to open that first selected picture collection in edit view and then rename the collection.

Now when they click the option to add to a collection the name of the collection shows up.

What needs to happen is the system should prompt the client to name the collection then take them back to my gallery to continue picking.

(Here's a biggie!)

You could do away with the account creation by having a client name the collection and provide an email address to the photographer who owns the collection. Then the collection automatically shows up in my edit view so I can download all the pictures to my desktop and start creating their album. This way there is no error factor of copying incorrect file names. They picked them and you downloaded them so they are right.

Do you guys need more help? hire a few of us to design your system the way the majority of us work (from the sounds of the posts, I'm not alone here)

Vistaphotography

Laura:

We have major improvements coming in this area. In the meantime have you tried using Collections? Your customers can create a free Visitors account, create a cllection and send you the link. You will then have the collection as a reference. Here are instructions you can provide your clients with:

Creating a Visitor's Collection:

1.    Navigate until you are looking at a photo page with the photograph you would like to add to new collection.
2.    Move your mouse over the image, a new menu will appear on the left side
3.    Select Add to Collection from the menu. A pop-up window will appear titled About Collections.
4.    Click Continue. You will be directed to a Registration/Login page.
5.    Under Registration select Continue
6.    Enter a user name, your e-mail address and a password. This information is necessary to create orders and will not be used in any other way.
7.    Click Continue. Once you have created your visitor account you can return to adding photos to your collection.
8.    Select Return to Photos and you will be directed back to the gallery
9.    Follow steps 1-3 until you have added all of the photos you would like.
10.    A confirmation message will appear each time you add a photo letting you know the operation succeeded. You can now click View in the confirmation meassage to view the collection.
11.    To send the collection to someone simply click Send Link at the top, right of the page. You can either cut and paste the link or select Open in Email use your default mail program.

 

A - lightbox - feature would accomplish this with ease.  They - lightboxes - are available in several stand alone photo software programs?  The client creates a lightbox and it is there for the photographer to work with.  Not understanding what the problem is. 

Pam

f 3.2 images

The problem that in my case I don't have enough income coming in to justify a studio so being able to have my clients pick all their shots  that they want in an easy manner that makes sense is the goal.

Most of my clients work (both parents or the young newlywed couple) so getting together with them is sometimes difficult. I do offer to go to their home and bring a laptop then going through 400-500 pictures. But if I can give a client a gallery that is easy to pick and choose all their favorites in a method that makes sense then I win and they win.

I'm assuming you mean lightroom/Apreture when you say a lightbox program and I do use LR for my displays.

To be short here we just want it to be so simple that anyone who jumps in can pick their favs and then send them to me...

I must add that I was wrong above.. if the client creates the quick collection as long as they don't keep adding to a new quick collection they will put it into the same collection. I find it helps to have them quickly rename it.

I just talked my client through it and once they sent me the link to their 84 pictures I had to create a collection from their collection so I could then download the selected pictures to my system and I don't have to wonder if I got all the right pictures.. As it was I had to go back and reclick on all the 84 pictures since I had 83 until I found the one I had missed...

So that is why I'm looking for a simpler system...  I don't make tons of money to have a studio and have my clients come to me...

We realize that collections is not exactly the right tool for the job. Collections were not designed to be lightboxes, we are simply suggesting to use them as a workaround until we provide a better solution. After the upcoming release, which focuses on layouts and customizations, we will be working on client/photographer workflow improvements. It is too early to discuss the exact timeframe.

Hi Jeff,

I understand about the financial aspect of software.  My studio is outside or my kitchen and I have not sold any images.

The lightbox that I was referring to is an application (I don't know what you would actually call it) that allows your clients to look through a gallery select the ones you want and you can review it later.  Almost all stock agencies have them.  For a good insight into how they work you could check out Corbis or Getty - open an account (they're free) and use the lightbox to see how it works. 

Good Luck, Pam

dubh:

not sure if this would work for you or not, but i allowed private comments on my wedding galleries and ask the b&g to add comments to the images they wanted for their albums.  unfortunately it didn't work well for me, none of the brides have done it yet.

This does work for me, but not for albums. I do some family photography, and ask people to use private comments for the images they want to be edited and. So they can even describe what kind of editing they want for a particular image. Works great so far.

Well I will say while not perfect, I can make it work. The customer makes a collection of their favorite pictures that they want in an album. I usually tell them between 50-70 pictures and then I have them send me a link to the collection and I open it up.

Next I click on each picture adding their fav into this new collection of mine. This the important part since you can't download the full size images unless you have created the collection. (you can't download the clients collection but once you make a new collection off of theirs...

You can now download your newly created collection and you have all their favs at full size for inclusion into an album and you know you didn't make a mistake with wrong filenames because it came straight from the customer.

This is why I wouldn't want to give them hundreds of pictures to put into an album... it would take forever. Also the download will take quite a while...

This is my work flow such as it is.. At least until the nice folks at ZenF create a new procedure for us to work with...

Vitas

I am faced with a real life scenario.  Please tell me what to do?  My client selected 375 and created her own gallery.  I need help getting the list of filenames/imagenames!  Please assist.

Val 

Here's what you can do:

• I assume that your client created a collection from your images.
• Open the gallery that contains the photos that were added to that collection
• Transfer file names into titles (select all photos, click Edit in the Title and Description section of the toolbox, select the checkbox to copy file names into titles)
• View the collection created by your client - file names will be displayed on photo pages.
• You can also ask your client to enable showing titles on the gallery page - this is done in the Customize Visitor View -> Page Options -> Thumbnails. This will show you all file names on one page, when you view client's collection. If your client feels comfortable providing you with the password to the account, you can even do it yourself by logging into the account and changing the settings for this collection.

I completely understand that this is not an elegant solution, and it still involves manual step of getting the file names from the page, but the next release will greatly simplify this task.