Proof/Sell Photos Online with iPhotoshop

iPhotoshop is an all-in-one proofing system for professional wedding/portrait photographers who wish to proof and sell their digital photos online. The purpose of this product is to allow the photographer to maximise the number of photos they can sell, whilst providing a professional online presence of the quality you would expect of a large organisation.

Two main elements form the iPhotoshop system; the Photo Web Site and the iPhotoshop Manager. The diagram below shows a very simple overview of how the two elements work together to provide the photographer with complete online proofing/sales system.

Step 1: Import Photographs

Using the iPhotoshop Manager software installed on the photographers PC, the photographer imports photographs from any of the following sources:

• A folder on their PC such as My Documents, My Pictures, CD/DVD drive, network drive etc.
• A digital camera connected to the PC via a USB lead.
• A flatbed scanner connected to the PC via a USB/SCSI/Parrallel lead.
• A film scanner connected to the PC via a USB/SCSI/Parrallel lead.
• An internal/external card reader.

The list of digital photograph sources above is by no means comprehensive; iPhotoshop can import digital photos hundreds of different devices in all popular image formats including jpeg, raw, tiff, gif and png, to name but a few.

Film scanners are now a viable solution for capturing digital photos from film. If you are intending to develop photographs from the orginal film negatives instead of using digital photos captured from the film scanner, only a low quality buget film scanner would be required. iPhotoshop only requires digital photographs in the region of 400 pixels in width or height.

Step 2: Upload Photos

Having imported your chosen photos in to iPhotoshop Manager you can the add your photos on an Event, which is basically a photo album. Once the event details (unique reference, optional password, title, date, pricing, etc) have been entered all that is required is to click the Synchronise button and all the newly imported photos will be uploaded to your web site.

Step 3: Proof/Sell Photos Online

Assuming you have given your customers your web site address, event reference and event password (password can be optional), your customers can visit your web site and view/proof/purchase photographs online. The web site can be configured to take payments online using online payment services such as Pay Pal. Alternatively, the orders can be placed without payment, allowing the customer to pay prior to development of their photographs or at the time of collection. This choice is totally up to the photographer.

Step 4: Download New Orders

The photographer will be notified by both an alert message in iPhotoshop Manager and also an email message when a new order has been placed on their web site. To retrieve the order, all that the photographer is required to do is click the Synchronise button as the synchronise functionality built into iPhotoshop Manager downloads orders as well as uploading events and images. Once the new order has been downloaded it is up to the photographer to fufill the order, however iPhotoshop has a number of useful functions to aid the process.