What are you guys using to show clients proofs?

First time showing proofs, I have a few hundred for each look but plan to delete the blurry/out of focus ones. Still, it's a lot of photos. What service should I be using? Of course if its free thats even better. Should I first export them all from lightroom as low res? If so what res is recommended?

If possible I would like a service that allows ratings so I can see which ones the client gave 5 stars to to keep. Thanks.

As to "free", umm, well...

But where are you located?

Online. I use Jalbum to put the pics up and they purchase what they want right from the Jalbum program so basically everything is cropped and worked on, so they are not proofs per say. On Jalbum I put the sizes and the cost of each size and they order what they want, the order goes thru paypal and paypal sends me an email with who made the purchase, their address, etc and how much they paid. But they do not need a paypal account to order, just a credit or bank card.
About 95% of the time I never see the couple or anyone affiliated with the wedding after it is over with. Everything else is done thru email and online.

Someone recently recommended the Proofbuddy plugin for Wordpress. I haven't used it... plan to give it a shot though.

How many shots are required for the finished product ? I would be reducing to a max of 2-3 versions of each shot.

I export at 900px long and use zenfolio, but I suppose flickr would work.

Christopher Steven b wrote in post #16532302
How many shots are required for the finished product ? I would be reducing to a max of 2-3 versions of each shot.

I export at 900px long and use zenfolio, but I suppose flickr would work.

As to proofs, well, sure, if you're happy with zenfolio, sure, use it! Flickr does good as well! If you want clients to order to print, well, I figure you need a "Pro" account!

I would pretty much limit photos to the top 30-50 max (out of hundreds). If you can't make a solid visual statement in that many images you might want to think about taking a class or finding a different passion to pursue.

Just a suggestion. Limit your proofs to the very very best of all of the shots. That is a LOT of stuff for a customer to look over and decide on and having too much to choose from can actually reduce your sales.

Okay great tips everyone thanks.

The client was there during the shoot so she definitely knows how many pictures there are. Do I still limit the proofs? Whats my explanation if they ask where the rest of the shots are?

Yes. Tell them the multiple shots is simply to rule out blinks, motion blur, camera movement, and to vary the exposure. In the end, you are under no obligation whatsoever to provide every shot to a customer - unless you specifically been contracted to provide just that. Never, ever, let anyone see your crap.

There are plenty of batch-renaming programs out there and the ability is built into many image editing programs as well. Separate all of the best from the rest, place the rest in a separate folder just in case you need raw material for retouching. Then rename all the rest in numerical order so that there are no missing numbers in between. Then there won't be any "missing" shots.