Proofing software

[ThomasOwenM]

I'll take anywhere between 700 and 1200 photos in a shoot. Of course it makes no sense to process anywhere near all those. I'll throw out all the obvious outtakes and then show the rest to the client as proofs and then charge based on how many photos are to be processed. For now I've been showing them in ZoomBrowser EX on my PC. However, if the client is from out of town, it would be great to have a simple way to put the proofs up on a web page so that the person can choose which ones she wants.

It would be great to have a program that will take each RAW image and then convert it to a small quick'n'dirty jpeg and put the words "proof" on it. I could choose the size in pixels. In other words, if I specified that the largest side of the picture should be 600 pixels, the jpegs would be made to 400x600. Or if I made the largest side 500, the images would be 500x333. The program would convert from RAW (or occasionally grab the original jpeg), shrink the image, put "proof" on the it, and then generate a web page of all the proofs.

I figure I'll choose one or two photos to fully process so that I educate the customer on the difference between an image that "pops" and is fully enhanced versus a quick'n'dirty proof.

Does anyone use or know of some software that does this? My background is in computer programming. If I need to, I'm capable of writing such a thing. However, if someone has already created one, it would make more sense for me to pay a reasonable fee to get that. Maybe I'll even get lucky and one will be available for free.

I've already written a program that takes processed jpegs and auto-creates web pages with them. I could therefore get by with a proofing program that just does the RAW to jpeg proofing, but doesn't make the web page.

My computer is a Windows XP PC.

[DDCSD]

Lightroom does all of that other than putting the watermark across the center of it. It can export an HTML of Flash web gallery directly to your server. You can put a small watermark on the bottom corner of the image though.

[tim]

Photographers shopping cart - lets you sell prints too. Takes jpeg files as an input. Read my wedding workflow, stick in the wedding forum, culling and at least basic PP in advance makes a lot of sense for many workflows.

[NickJushchyshyn]

For me, lightroom tends to be too slow for fast-proofing and exporting loads of photos

Photomechanic or BreezeBrowser.
Both have free trials.

Like you, I a have a programming background and I use Photomechanic, in addition to exporting photos, it can export text files based on your own templates (such as database insert commands) using the photos exported to build code for you.
Fun stuff.

[sevillafox]

http://www.photoshoptools.ca/ProofMaker.html

[aram535]

I agree with the Lightoom choice. I actually used PrimoPDF and print out the sheets to a PDF file and send the PDF file to the client. The can either email me back the img numbers or usually they print them, circle what they want and make notes in the margins about what PP they would like on it -- they usually UPS or Fedex it back to me.

The only other thing I've done is a phone or video conference where we share a desktop (Webex) and I share out my Lightroom screen (I usually export out their catalog so its just their photos that they see).