ON Site Photo Viewing

I have searched to no avail, and I am hoping someone can point me in the right direction.

I am looking for a software package that will allow me to set up a small network on site (4-10 PCs) for viewing photos taken at the event to allow ordering on site.

Is there any package out there that will do this? I approached a photographer recently who was doing just this very thing. He too could not find a package that delivered and ultimately paid his brother to write a program for him. I asked if he was willing to license it out, and he refused interest. (Not sure why, I think he could make a mint selling it, but that's neither here nor there.)

I would love to be able to sit down at a network server, and simply drop jpgs into folders and have the folder system automatically populate the database being used by the viewing stations.

So, does anybody know of anything out there that will do this? Or does anyone have the knowledge to create this?

Thanks!

I am the best person to answer this but I will give it a go.

The only way I would know how to do this I think is if they are all on a network. If you have windows you can drop files in a "public" folder then customize your "Sharing" settings to allow the other computers to receive those files. I do this with my music between my laptop and Desktop.

EDIT: whoops sorry I just noticed you said ordering... disregard mine.

I know a guy who does this that simply leaves a pad of order forms at each viewing station. All of his photos are located on a server and all of the viewing stations use simple gallery software to browse through the photos. The customers then write the file name of the image they wish to purchase on the order form. Each customer brings the order form to him to pay. Its low tech, but cheap and effective.

lol....waste of money if he sold it to you.

Simple network, and a script which runs to pull photos off of the main system or just simply have a shared drive.

Event Photography Software?

All I use is Windows several PC's and a NAS server (Network Attached Server) with a shared folder.

I have 2 hubs linked together one inside the trailer one outside and three PC's outside to view images on.
2 PC's inside to do work and prints.
The NAS is also inside and on the network.

As soon as the images are ready they get tranferred to the NAS and are viewable from any PC on the network but only the machine inside have the permissions (ability in IT speak) to make any changes.

The outside PC's can only view they cannot delete or change or move the files.
If you have any friends in the networking field they can help you get it setup it's actually really easy if you know networking.

Anyway long story short what you are looking for is already built into the Windows Operating system.

P.S. make sure you are using XP Pro or higher level Vista OS' than "Home" or they will only let you network 5 pc's together.

it would be really easy to just make a webserver out of something like a mac mini that is the main device. load all the images in there and have a internal website made then you could hook up 1, 2 or 100 laptops to it and just pull up the webpage without having to configure anything on the systems besides the mini. you could probablly even use something like gallery from menalto i know they have all kinds of plug ins for buying pictures and what not

PhotosGuy wrote in post #9225678
Event Photography Software?

I used this software for a while. The functionality is great, but it ran too slow for our needs as we were attempting to load in thousands of photos per hour while people were browsing. The "server" machine just couldn't keep up and would slow down browsing to a crawl any time we loaded new images (which is pretty much constantly.

Here's the thing...
LAMP, WAMP and MAMP are free web server hosts that run on Linux, Windows and Mac systems respectively. It allows you to make any computer a temporary web server. Then, all you need is ANY software that dumps out a web gallery to save to the server computer's directory. With this, any computer with a web browser and a network connection will work as a browser for you.

We typically bring a small router with 4 ethernet connections + built in wifi as our network. One old Mac G4 running MAMP is our web server. One workhorse computer is our ingest/export machine (and printer system when we handle printing on-site). And then we have a few spare computers on hand wired or wireless connected to the network, with browsers configured so that the Mac G4's ip address is the home page. (the Mac G4 "server" is also used as a customer browser machine)

Customers just fill out paper forms with the photo numbers (shown below every thumbnail and "zoom" photo) to order photos on site.
Works great.

We use Photo Parata, it is fairly effcient at what it does. You really need a dedicated sever depending on your crowd size.
There is also 5 minute photo and subitophoto and as mention above EPS. We run 5 viewing stations and have two PC one is dedicated to injestion and the other is for fullfilment/processing​/printing.
We have a DNP DS80 dye sub printer that we do prints onsite with, this is a very fast reliable printer.
There are cheeper ways to do this as also mentioned above but none near as smooth or effecient.
Depending on the event these customers come quick and you really need to have the photos up for them to see and purchase or you will loose out on $$$$. You cant have to many view stations or take to many photos.
Hope this helps some.

I also use Photo Parata and I have only had 1 problem with it...( human error, someone accidentally closed the program on the server!), so basically it has served all of our needs. I can have photos up in front of parents within minutes of taking them. We run 1 server, and currently 3 viewing computers branched into 25 seperate viewing stations. We are doubling+a few.. this in a month, to a total of 55 viewing stations. Equipment, 1 homebuilt PC used as a server, 5 viewing computers, 1 router, 59 monitors (currently using 15"), a few miles of cables, 1 computer for QUICK editing ( IF NEEDED) and 4 printers (3 for pics, 4x6, 5x7 and 8x10 and one for printing customer reciepts). I am sure I forgot something here, but maybe this will help. Currently working on a full cart system, but for now, the customer filling out a paper order form works great.

added: I have to say a big thanks to Sam at Photo Parata for helping me out in the beginning when I had some computer problems. He replied to my text messages immediately and was on the phone within minutes, at 11:00pm at night the day before a huge event. Turns out the problem was MY hardware and he still helped me all the way until I had the system back up and running. Customer service was great!

Thanks for all of the input!! I am going to try the Windows shared folder / network idea. I am sourcing some small form factor PCs & monitors right now, and I expect I'll be able to be up and running before the end of January when I am shooting a two day gymnastics meet.

I'll definitely come back here and update this thread on what I'm doing and how it all worked out...

Eye fi card streaming to an FTP server which is accessed by exposure manager. Terminals on site would have the EM gallery up for ordering in real time. If you want to print on site then you simply set all the products as self fulfilment. Nice neat and simple.

Another thing I just thought of, the Santa photo booth at our local mall had a really slick terminal setup that looked like one of those kodak printing stations at wal Mart. After the photo is taken the family just walks over to the screen and orders what ever package they want. It is printed out in front of them. No idea what system it was but it looked custom with holiday themed interface and big user friendly buttons.

Their camera gear didn't look nearly as good. Small dslr of some sort with an on camera flash and a soft box attached to the on camera flash. That's all I could see. They had customers lined up like cattle.

aroundlsu... EM is awesome, I use them too. The problem is, I won't have Internet access. The system has to be self contained.

Paul,
I looked at Photo Parata, too. Come to find out, they are about 15 minutes from my house. WOO HOO! A local vendor. I'm going to download their trial and see how it goes.