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|| SportsShooter.com: Member Message Board
Writing photo gallery software
Brian Shirk, Photographer
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McCall | ID | US | Posted: 1:50 PM on 12.01.06 |
->> Hi everyone -
I've been trying for a while now to find a good way to sell photos from events that I've shot (ie, the local paper calls me to shoot a football game and people want pictures of their kids, etc), and I haven't had much luck finding anything that really fits into my workflow... So I've decided to write my own software to run it, and I figured that if I'm going to write it anyway, I might as well make some extra on the side by selling it.
So here's the question: What features would everyone want?
Here's the current list:
It integrates with Photo Mechanic, Lightroom, Aperture, etc, using IPTC/XMP/EXIF info to allow you to pass one info to clients (so that they can sort by ratings, tags, comments, etc)... Maybe even having things set up as a tree - so that you could have something like McCall vs Homedale -> pregame/first/second/third/fourth/postgame... Also something to mark significant shots (touchdowns, first kiss, etc) for indexing.
Once you've done all your initial sorting/marking-up, you hit a couple of buttons and it automagically uploads everything to your site via FTp and links it into a list of events.
All the ordering is automated, possibly to the point of payment (accepting credit cards or paypal, etc) - though the payment stuff tends to vary widely based on the user (I've worked with TrustCommerce before, though it was years ago)
After ordering, you get an e-mail and then click a couple more buttons to have it organize the order (by the client's name, print sizes + specifications, etc), placing client's comments in the IPTC info.
Then (this part is largely questionable whether it's worth the effort) it could automatically open everything up in Photoshop for you so that you just crop and close each image and the next pops up for you (with the client's comments).
Any other ideas/comments?
Thanks! |
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Brian Shirk, Photographer
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McCall | ID | US | Posted: 1:56 PM on 12.01.06 |
| ->> Clarification: To accept credit card payments, you have to go through a third party, such as TrustCommerce or Google, who interfaces with VISA/Mastercard/etc... They charge a certain fee for each transaction or a percentage of the transaction's amount... There are a lot of options there, so it's hard to say that the company that works today would still be using the same interface in a few years.... Input on this would be greatly appreciated. |
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Landon Finch, Photographer
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Colorado Springs | CO | USA | Posted: 7:07 PM on 12.01.06 |
->> You may want to look at this:
http://www.eostemplate.com/eos/index.html
I use it for virtually all my portrait clients. It has almost everything I'd want. It does take some html/javascript experience, but it great once set up.
And Nikon users can use it too ;-) |
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Landon Finch, Photographer
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Colorado Springs | CO | USA | Posted: 7:10 PM on 12.01.06 |
->> One more thing...
The best thing about it is that I don't have to give a cut to some service like Printroom/Photoreflect/etc. |
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Brian Jackson, Photographer, Photo Editor
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San Carlos | CA | USA | Posted: 7:29 PM on 12.01.06 |
->> You mean something like this very ugly website? :-D
http://www.action-image.net/ |
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Clark Brooks, Photo Editor, Photographer
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Brian Shirk, Photographer
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McCall | ID | US | Posted: 3:13 PM on 12.02.06 |
->> I'm actually looking to write the software from scratch - as of yet, I haven't seen anything that would work *REALLY WELL*; it seems that everything available is just on the order of 'a is less bad than b' or 'it works well enough' - it should be something that is *GOOD* to work with and complements the way we actually work.
So I'm looking for input on it - i.e. what would be your greatest dream for something along those lines? What features do you see in other programs/sites that are lacking?
The idea is that it should fit into what you're already doing to the point where you just have to click a single button to do *everything* and however much later it would notify you that someone has placed an order and make it as easy/quick as possible to do all the necessary editing/ordering of prints or cd's. |
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Drew Broadley, Photographer
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Wellington | NZ | New Zealand | Posted: 3:06 AM on 12.03.06 |
| ->> www.freelancephotography.co.nz - feel free to use my site for any ideas. |
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Brian Jackson, Photographer, Photo Editor
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San Carlos | CA | USA | Posted: 3:07 PM on 12.05.06 |
->> That's why I wrote Action Image. Wasn't anything out there that did it all in 1 package. I didn't want to string together 4-5 products to build a workflow. It works pretty much the way I would want an image sorter/renamer/IPTC keyword tagger/gallery creation software to work :)
It was designed to run through hundreds of photos in minutes to create the galleries. Rotating (before auto-rotate from cameras), minor color corrections, renaming, deleting the really horrible photos, base IPTC insertion, and then inserting in to a database You can 'tag' photos with IPTC keywords, and then pull those out for further editing.
When I shoot a game, tournament, wedding, or any event, it's the first program I use to run through the photos. I'm going to want a gallery eventually, so why not create it as I'm running through sorting the photos? Plus it renames them with a preconfigured naming convention, and stores them in my multi-sub directory structure.
The big problem with "something that is *GOOD* to work with and complements the way we actually work. " is that that definition is different for differnt folks depending on what they are shooting. A wedding photographer and a newspaper photographer submitting in the field have completly different workflows. I don't know if there is 1 app that will work perfectly for each of those types of shooters; different deadlines, looking for different things. |
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