order form/proof sheet

johnlo · Jun 19, 2004

I recently started doing photography professionally... (ya, its going to be a full time job). i'm doing a family night at a church where ppl will be coming to me to have their pics taken either by themself or with a fmaily member or a love one. the thing is that they will not be buying the prints at that moment.. but instead I am planning to print them out a proof sheet/order forms with all the pricing and the images in low res thumbnails... and have them pick out wat they want. a order form. I have been trying to look for a software that will let me do this.... but unable to find one.. or maybe I just dont know where or wat to look for. Right now wat I am doing is created a template in HTML form.. and will manually add the images file name onto it and print it out that way... one problem i might run into will be time. would love a faster and easier way. any suggestion???

thanks.,

StvShoop · Jun 19, 2004

not totally sure what you're trying to do
are you printing from an html browser? i don't know how well that would work (never tried it before)... it depends on what browser you print from, and I'm skeptical about the print quality regardless. will the people be viewing the photos by internet, or are low-res prints the way you're selling the full quality ones?
using photoshop or even mspaint would be a more surefire way to get quality digital prints in some kind of template. HTML isn't generally easy to print; it's hard to tell where stuff will end up on the page.

johnlo · Jun 19, 2004

wat I want to do is print a order form... with their image I just took on that form - which contains pricing and method of payment information.. the image will be just good enough for the ppl to view and decide if they want it or not. reason i want to use HTML its because it would be much faster for me to change the file name... and since most of the other context are the same... except the sitting number.. which would be the file name of that image......

StvShoop · Jun 19, 2004

yeah, that way would be pretty effective/easy i guess. i predict that you'll have to fiddle around with it a bit to get it to print correctly on 8.5x11, but otherwise sounds like a good idea.
as for making the filename input stuff easier, i dunno. i do all my html in notepad. it seems like that's the type of operation that would be really easy to program into html editing software (probably it's out there somewhere) but i don't know which program that would be.

johnlo · Jun 20, 2004

yea, i did had to make some adjustment to make it all come out on one page. it wasnt too bad.

I really wish there's something even easier i can do..... i know they have software out there.... just have to look around for it.

fadingaway1986 · Jun 21, 2004

With my printer came lexmark photo centre software. In it you can choose to make a contact sheet.

My best suggestion would be to have a pile of forms pre-made - and just give them out to people as they are, and then print another sheet that has all the photos on it - & staple them together...

The contact sheet prints out with a small photo & the file name.

johnlo · Jun 22, 2004

fadingaway1986 said:
With my printer came lexmark photo centre software. In it you can choose to make a contact sheet.

My best suggestion would be to have a pile of forms pre-made - and just give them out to people as they are, and then print another sheet that has all the photos on it - & staple them together...

The contact sheet prints out with a small photo & the file name.

that would be a nice idea too.. but having it on one page would look even better.... this way when the client see their proofs, they also seeing the pricing and all the payment information.

fadingaway1986 · Jun 22, 2004

You could always print on the back? You need to consider how many photos each person would be getting - because order forms usually take up a fair amount of space - so would all the photos fit on the same page as the order form?

johnlo · Jun 22, 2004

I have that all planned out already. 2 pics.. on a 8.5x11 paper. images is about 2"x3".. 2 pose. all the pricing and payment method are all written out clearly and readable.. also have two smaller thumbnail images on the bottom of the page (about 1"x1"). created a layout how I want it to look...... maybe its time to read my own program. if only i know how. sigh!