Once you’ve wrapped up a client’s photo shoot, you need to get the photos approved so you can move forward with the editing phase.
Traditionally, photo proofing involved sending an email containing all the images to your client and having them send back a list of the ones they like and want to finalize for editing.
The problem with this is that it takes a lot of time and effort. You have to go back and forth with your client over email to finalize photos. And, if the client wants some changes or accidentally included a few extra photos, they’ll have to send you another email with the new selections.
Instead of using traditional photo proofing methods, you can use an online photo proofing system to better communicate with your clients and speed up the photo proofing workflow. This way, clients can approve the photos they want faster.
In this article, we’ll show you how you can use an online photo proofing tool, picu, as a wedding photographer to enhance your business practices.
Why you might want to use online photo proofing?
Online photo proofing on your website is far more advanced than traditional photo proofing. One of the main reasons why is because you eliminate the need to send emails back and forth to clients. Instead, you can send the client a link to a nice gallery where she can select and approve images, and you get the selection in one final email.
As a result, it speeds up workflows and enhances the experience clients have with your wedding photography business. This way you can cater to even more clients and focus on growing your business.
Here are the main benefits of using online photo proofing as a wedding photographer:
Easy management
Compared to regular photoshoots, wedding photoshoots usually involve taking and editing a large number of images.
With online photo proofing, you can upload all images from a wedding event and send the link to the proofing gallery to your clients, where they can select the ones they like.
Enhanced customer experience
One of the best parts about setting up online photo proofing on your photography website is the enhanced customer experience it helps you offer.
Clients will have a much easier time selecting and finalizing images from their photoshoot, without having to send lists of images back and forth and without worrying about entering the correct image filenames.
With a traditional proofing process, if your client mistakenly sent you the wrong image names, you’d have to go back and edit the right ones again, costing you time and effort due to a simple human error. With online photo proofing, you don’t have to worry about that because your clients simply have to click and select the images they want.
Quicker sales
Using an online photo proofing system, your turnaround time will be much faster as you can quickly send clients all the pictures and edit the final images once they’re done selecting them.
As a result, it reduces the need for revisions and decreases the time taken to proof your work. And you can quickly move on to shooting images for other clients and grow your business.
Use your own selection process
It’s always a good idea to have photo proofing set up under your own domain with your own logo and branding. This way you can showcase your brand in your proofing workflow and it looks far more professional than using, say, a Dropbox gallery or another external service.
Depending on your website, and the type of photography you do, online photo proofing can be beneficial for you. Wedding photographers, for instance, can use online photo proofing to quickly move a lot of images from the approval phase to the post-production phase.
This way, it’s possible for wedding photographers to cater to clients quickly and generate more revenue for their business.
How to set up online photo proofing in WordPress using picu
If you set up online photo proofing on your own, self-hosted wedding photography website rather than an external SaaS tool like Dropbox, you’ll have more control over your images and where they are stored, and running it on your own domain helps to strengthen your brand.
Note: picu also works with WordPress.com websites with a Business plan.
Step #1. Install and activate the picu plugin
The first thing you need to do is get the picu plugin and install it on your WordPress site. To install the plugin, navigate to Plugins → Add New from the WordPress admin panel.
Search for picu in the Search bar on the top right and then click the Install Now button to install picu – WordPress Photo Proofing Gallery on your Website. After it finished installing, click the Activate button to activate the plugin.
Step #2. Create a wedding album
After installing the picu plugin on your WordPress site, you will see a new picu menu item in the WordPress admin panel on the left.
Head over to picu → Settings to choose how your wedding albums will be displayed on the front-end. Using the Theme section, you can choose either the dark or light theme for your collections.
Similarly, you can edit the sender’s email address using the Email Settings section. Simply add your email in the From Email: text field and the name of the sender in the From Name: text field. Once you’re done, click on the Save changes button to continue.
Note: Please make sure to send your emails from the same URL as your website, as this will make it less likely to end up in spam.
Now, you can start creating a wedding album on your WordPress site using picu. To do this, navigate to picu → New Collection to create a new collection. Give your collection a suitable title.
Click on the Upload/Edit Images button to add images to your collection. Next, click on the Select Files button to select and upload images to your gallery. Once you’re done, click on the Insert Images button.
With the images added to your collection, all that’s left to do is set the Client Email: text field under the Share Options meta box. Enter your message using the Message: text field and click on the Send to Client button.
Hint: With picu Pro, you can add multiple addresses and send the same collection to more than one client at once.
Step #3: Send the gallery to your client for proofing
You can directly send the gallery to your client by email, or share the link to the gallery manually with them any other way.
Clients can select their favorite images and add a message to send back to you within a few clicks. With picu Pro, they can even add comments and set markers on individual images to request specific changes during the post-production process.
Once the client approves their work, the photographer will receive an email notification, including a link back to the WordPress admin. From there, the photographer can view the images that were selected, and copy a list of the filenames to use inside Lightroom or their editor of choice.
This reduces the chances of wrong images being approved due to human error, and will get you post-processing in no time.
Set up online photo proofing as a wedding photographer
Using online photo proofing as a wedding photographer is a great way to manage photo proofing workflows for your business. It not only makes your brand look more professional but also saves you the hassle of going back and forth with your client on email during the photo proofing process.
Having a quick photo proofing system can help you finalize images quicker and send them back to your clients. This eventually will lead to quicker turnaround times, increased sales, and a better client experience. As a result, you can free up more time to attract new clients and grow your bottom line.
Ready to start using online photo proofing on your wedding photography website? Get picu today!