Rather than sending excel reports,  you could consider a client response gallery. The Turning Gate make a superb one - its $25 and very simple to configure

Its not any help for excel, but its loads easier for friends and more importantly for clients to buy / select images from you.

The Turning Gates' Client Response Gallery

and an example of it at work

As an alternative, I hope this may help.

Can Bridge really do an Excel file? Which options?

As promised Kevin, a gallery made up for you (link), I've tested it and made sure that there are many options shown.

Matthew from the Turning Gate has done an amazing job with this gallery, it is simple - even there are many options to play with, this time the link goes to the example they've created for the gallery rather than the shop, apologies there.

This is an example of the comment box that appears when you click on the comment button (bottom right on my gallery - I checked it twice!)

It takes a little while to set up a template to look as you'd want, ie my logo at the top is awful, but I want to chill, its almost 22:00 here in Cape Town.

Oh yes, you'd better see an example of the response that is emailed to you when the form at the bottom is filled in - sorry I got carried away

Images: in-training-project-MG-2888-edit-Edit, IMG_6125, _MG_5643-Edit, _MG_6410

 

Select-Count: 4

 

Gallery-Title: example

 

name: Hamish Niven

 

email:

 

Telephone: +.........

 

Comments: 4 photos please, as selected, please pay attention to the crop requests.

Can you also please add a little more saturation to the photos, and lastly please would you also upload them to facebook as my mum wants to print them and put them on the fridge.

 

 

Rating-5: _MG_5643-Edit,

 

Option_3: _MG_5643-Edit

 

Comment-on-image--_MG_5643-Edit: Please crop in a little more on the two racehorses at the front, I think I recognise the one on the right.

 

Rating-1: _MG_6410

 

Comment-on-image--_MG_6410: Please crop the jockeys face a little tighter

 

Rating-2: IMG_6125

 

Comment-on-image--IMG_6125: Is that really Pocket Power? One of South Africa's best racehorses?

If so, may we also have a high resolution print on canvas.

 

Rating-3: in-training-project-MG-2888-edit-Edit

 

Comment-on-image--in-training-project-MG-2888-edit-Edit: Cracking image.

please crop the photo, exactly where your hamish NIVEN logo is, so the photo is more square.

Thanks

 

Comment-on-image--_MG_8714: That jockey should have received a fine for crossing the line like that.

However please push in so we can see his expression a little more and can you please make the skies a little more blue.

 

--

Thank you for using FormToEmail Remote from http://FormToEmailRemote.com

 

So you can see,

top line - all the images selected, you simply copy / paste this list into Lightroom, no chance of TYP0s, they tick the photos they want

tells you how many images they selected - 4

their details if you need to contact them.

The main comment that was added to the form they filled in

one example

Rating-5: _MG_5643-Edit     the rating checked

Option_3: _MG_5643-Edit    option 3  was checked

Comment-on-image--_MG_5643-Edit: Please crop in a little more on the two racehorses at the front, I think I recognise the one on the right. this is the comment added for this photo.

For me it was the best $25 spent, no more emails back and forth "photo 1234 does not exist" or I edit 30 photos and I get back, "I'm sorry, I wanted 1234, not 1243, I must have made a typo, I have all the comments for each photo, I can call them if I want any clarification, for "dodgy" clients, I can watermark the photos so they can't use any from the gallery, or share them all on facebook....

Kevin, I hope this is a good alternative to making an excel spreadsheet.

Cheers

hamish NIVEN Photography

Kevin, you can do anything.

goto the forums from the link I sent you

The output website from LR is called Client Response, it was set up to be a gallery where clients pick photos they want from the contact sheet.

However, I often use it in a similar fashion as you are intimating

Hamish, that is getting better!

The upper right of the comment box should have an X to close it instead of a magnifier, no?

probably, you can pick the icons from a list.

Can I set up just a simple rate A,B,C,D? and comment box and that's it?  Would the software people help set that up?

 

You can do a simple A,B,C,D and a comment box, though I think it may default to 1,2,3,4,5.,

And then what happens, the receiver fills out bottom form and emails it back. And I can send that gallery to 2 or 3 people and see their uniqe takes?

Simply send the link to those who need to see the photos, and they can comment / check / pick / advise on the photos by way of reply.

You can do plenty with it.

As I said,  Matthew is great, he has got some great software for doing all sorts of things, but the Client Response is fabulous. He replies promptly on the forums and would help.

You do need your own domain, and know how to use FTP,

technobabble, it uses PHP for the form sending, however if - like me - your website is on a windows hosting ( I HATE MY DEVELOPER FOR USING THAT), you can use FormToEmailRemote - a free service to send the form to you - its a free service and again, all this is explained in the FAQ's and help offered on the forum.

If you do go down that route and buy it, I'll gladly help you with it - just PM rather than on here!

good luck

Hamish,

This service/product sounds really interesting. I am glad you took the trouble to describe it. Bears further research!

I currently use Zenfolio for client proofing (commercial photography) and the few jobs that require viewers to order prints. This would be an alternative tool to post pictures for which trhere is some necessary post-shoot interaction. I have been happy with Zenfolio but alternatives with a different slant are valuable.

Greetings from another faraway place, Hawaii.

jonathan7007

Kevin,

I was not suggesting Zenfolio for *your* need. I was commenting back to Hamish on that service he suggested. I see how my sentence could be misinterpreted. Excel exports are pretty cool, too, for a range of needs. But Zenfolio isn't eally just websites. It is designed for client interaction. It has added social tools that allow all your clients to act together as a group, sharing choices and opinions within Zenfolio and leaving comments for each other and the photographer. Zenfolio *does* respond to any questions I raise within one to two hours, which I think is impressive.

I went with Zenfolio because I didn't want to build a site myself.

A lot of my "Galleries" are password protected. I can control whether the clients can or cannot download... and if they do, how big a file they can have. Batch watermarking available. Zenfolio branding can be removed.

Just some thoughts to use as comparison info.

jonathan7007