Features missing for a Restoration & Retouching Business

[largelylivin]

I am back after taking several months off to focus on becoming a better retoucher. My intent was/is to implement a web site that suits a retouch/restoration business and provides an effective e-commerce capability. I immediately checked into several pre-requisite features that I couldn't uncover before and found that they haven't been addressed yet, at least I think not. I think that you guys have done a great job providing the features that would be neccessary for a photographers business model, at least as far as advertising and selling photographs goes. The business model, i.e. e-commerce process flow, for retouchers and restorers is different and, as I envision it, different features are required. Please tell me if I am wrong or if there are other, existing methods to work around these deficiencies. Here's a brief summary of what I think may be missing:

1. A web page template that allows for side by side posting of "Before" and "After" photos. I've checked the implementation of all of the 'restoration' sites on smugmug and they are all 'faking' it by using Journal with two sequential low-height photos. Also, ordering in galleys gets rearranged so that pairs of pictures will get separated. This doesn't seem like such a big deal, but I feel that the lack of an acceptable Before-After capability results in an unacceptable web prescience.

2. An option to (1) is 'a click here to see original' ability, that I have seen on some non-smugmug sites, that morphs between the before and after photos.

3. The ability for a prospective client to upload digital images to (a) receive a quote and (b) submit work to be done. This requires a private space allocation between the pro and the client. Clients would not like to see their submissions visible to the rest of the world. Emailing doesn't quite work becasue it isn't as intuitive as a browser capability and I have to give them my password.

4. The ability for the pro to post proofs for approval. It looks like this could be implementable now though I am not exactly sure how to go about it. Again a private, password protected space is needed.

5. The ability for clients to pay and download the finished digital work, along with the existing ability to order prints. Again, this looks to be almost there but I don't think the pay-before-download hook is usable as is.

I made a honest attempt to dig this stuff out by looking at other's site implementations and searching the forums, but I didn't find it.

So, did I miss something? do you concur? is it planned? Or, is this not within the scope of Smugmugs own vision?

[Andy]

Originally Posted by largelylivin

1. A web page template that allows for side by side posting of "Before" and "After" photos.

Easisly customizable. You can display your photos in any of the styles we support. Journal, for example, can also have a before/after animation:
see this tute for an example:
http://dgrin.smugmug.com/gallery/1075277

2. An option to (1) is 'a click here to see original' ability, that I have seen on some non-smugmug sites, that morphs between the before and after photos.

See above, and you can also have a link to the original if you prefer.

3. The ability for a prospective client to upload digital images to (a) receive a quote and (b) submit work to be done. This requires a private space allocation between the pro and the client. Clients would not like to see their submissions visible to the rest of the world. Emailing doesn't quite work becasue it isn't as intuitive as a browser capability and I have to give them my password.

Email the photo, using email upload, is one option. Or emailing straight to you.

4. The ability for the pro to post proofs for approval. It looks like this could be implementable now though I am not exactly sure how to go about it. Again a private, password protected space is needed.

Sure, it's there now. You can have a proof gallery private, and passworded for that one client.

5. The ability for clients to pay and download the finished digital work, along with the existing ability to order prints. Again, this looks to be almost there but I don't think the pay-before-download hook is usable as is.

Fully there, now. You can sell prints as well as digital downloads.
http://www.smugmug.com/prints/digital-downloads

Hope this helps!

[largelylivin]

Originally Posted by Andy

Easisly customizable. You can display your photos in any of the styles we support. Journal, for example, can also have a before/after animation:
see this tute for an example:
http://dgrin.smugmug.com/gallery/1075277

See above, and you can also have a link to the original if you prefer.

Thanks Andy. I looked at the link above and that is certainly the type of animation that I would like to use. Can you point me to a tutorial or otherwise tell me how to go about implementing this?

[largelylivin]

Originally Posted by Andy

Email the photo, using email upload, is one option. Or emailing straight to you.

Thanks Andy. I hope you understand that I really want to do something better than instructing the client to email me with the photo as an attachment.

Can I invoke the upload utility from HTML? If I have a Guest account, can the client email the upload using the Guest Password so that they can't gain access to my whole site. Then, can I invoke an Email from the HTML?

Maybe someone has already built this into their site so I can go look.

[Dna]

Originally Posted by largelylivin

Thanks Andy. I hope you understand that I really want to do something better than instructing the client to email me with the photo as an attachment.
Can I invoke the upload utility from HTML? If I have a Guest account, can the client email the upload using the Guest Password so that they can't gain access to my whole site. Then, can I invoke an Email from the HTML?
Maybe someone has already built this into their site so I can go look.

Yep, have the client email the photo to Smugmug via email upload function.
More here. http://www.smugmug.com/help/camera-phones

Dna

[Andy]

Originally Posted by largelylivin

Thanks Andy. I looked at the link above and that is certainly the type of animation that I would like to use. Can you point me to a tutorial or otherwise tell me how to go about implementing this?

Photoshop CS2 - make a query in "Finishing School" you'll have folks willing to show you the steps. I'm traveling in Europe right now so I can't do it at the moment.