Client Proofing Workflow with picu

“12-image contact sheet of fashion model posing near Tidal Basin with Washington Monument in background. Taken for Garfinckel’s advertisements for *Vogue* magazine.” Photographer: Tony Frissell between 1943 and 1949 – Client proofing has come a long way since then, from printed contact sheets to USB-sticks and CDs to digital/online galleries

With picu, we set out to make the client proofing process for photographers and their clients as easy as possible.

Client proofing is the selection process a photographer goes through with clients after a photo shoot, when the client selects which images should be post-processed.

Quite often, this process is a bit of a mess, which we realized during our work with several photography clients as well as our own work in the photography business.

How does picu help in that regard?

As a WordPress plugin, it lives exactly where you manage your website, inside your WP-Admin. The plugin can be found on the WordPress.org repository for free. You can download and install it, just like any other plugin.

picu can be installed for free, right from the WordPress plugin repository

After installation and activation you get a new menu item „picu“. From there you can create new collections and upload the images you’d like to send to your client.

After installation you are greeted with a welcome screen that shows you the first steps to get started with picu

Images can be uploaded just like you’re used to, with the default WP uploader

When all images are uploaded, a click on “Insert gallery” adds them to the collection

Your clients email can be entered directly inside the collection edit screen

You can also set a password to protect your collection

After the images are uploaded you can either copy the link to the collection and send it manually or enter the email address of your client to send a nicely formatted HTML email.

The client gets a nicely formatted HTML email with the link to the collection and all the information

When clicking on the link, the client gets taken to a very simple gallery overview, with controls to select and filter images and then finally approve the collection.

After a click on the link, the client gets to a nice and very simple online gallery with all the controls for the selection process

Client selection in the collection overview

The client can also filter to display only selected images, to finalize his/her selection

A click on “Send Selection” approves the selected images and sends an email back to the photographer

As soon as the client approves the collection, the photographer gets notified via email and can directly copy/paste the list of filenames into Lightroom or his/her image editor of choice to start post processing immediately.

Copy & paste the filenames into Lightroom to filter the selected images

To enhance the functionality, we provide several add-ons that can be purchased in our store. Brand & Customize lets you upload an use your own logo and adjust colors and typography to match your branding. Selection Options lets you define how many images a client needs to select to be able to approve a collection. And with the Import add-on you can upload your files through FTP and then import from from your web server, which is faster – especially if you have huge amounts of images.

Extend the functionality with our premium add-ons

Also, we are constantly developing picu as well as the add-ons and are actively looking for your feedback. Please give it a try and let us know what you think. We’d love to hear from you!

Check out picu in action in this short introduction screencast:

Thanks a lot to Blupace Photography for letting us use their images throughout this article.

Feedback? Questions? Send us an email.