Contact Sheet for clients to view photos?

I am still new to doing family beach portraits and need advice on how to present photos for client to view. My problem is that when I do a shoot, I provide a CD with an average of 30 photos for a set price. But I will shoot an average of 100 shots. After I go thru the photos and delete the ones that I know are bad, I still end up with alot more then 30 photos. Instead of using Photoshop on maybe 50-75 photos, someone showed me how to make contact sheets with PS. Tonight I made contact sheets/using levels and saved as jpeg using Image Option of 9, to get a sample for the family to view. Then i emailed the contact sheet for family to make their picks. I figure this cuts down on gas and time and touching up all the pics. It was late but the family said the photos were clear and they would view all of them in the morning.The contact sheets do blur when enlarging too much, but i am worried about making contact sheet to maximum quality/12 because of sending such a large file to open and also curious if someone had the right software, could they at least print quality small prints from a high quality contact sheet. Sorry if that sounds dumb but I am curious.

Anyway, is this a good way to present samples for client to view? Any help, tips and advice would be appreciated.Thanks in advance..john

You can add a watermark accross each image in the sheet that say "Proof copy" or something like that. Make it transparent enough so as not to ruin the ability to accuaretly judge the image but opaque enough to be obvious.
Ted

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http://photobucket.com/albums/y260/tdkd13/

Thanks Ted. I need to learn how to insert a watermark also. Can it be done to all the photos while doing a contact sheet or does each photo have to be done individually?

I still need advice on some ways to present photos for client to view without cleaning up every photo that I want client to view. I did another shoot this evening and there was a 'TERRIBLE TWO' year old and I took a heck of alot more pics because all he would do is cry or frown when Mom wanted him to smile with rest of family. So this time I have about 125 pics. I deleted about 30 of them, but would like family to see the rest and pick 30 from those, but again....should i spend hours cleaning up about 90 pics? How do some of you guys/girls do it?

I am still new to doing family beach portraits and need advice on how to present photos for client to view. My problem is that when I do a shoot, I provide a CD with an average of 30 photos for a set price. But I will shoot an average of 100 shots. After I go thru the photos and delete the ones that I know are bad, I still end up with alot more then 30 photos. Instead of using Photoshop on maybe 50-75 photos, someone showed me how to make contact sheets with PS. Tonight I made contact sheets/using levels and saved as jpeg using Image Option of 9, to get a sample for the family to view. Then i emailed the contact sheet for family to make their picks. I figure this cuts down on gas and time and touching up all the pics. It was late but the family said the photos were clear and they would view all of them in the morning.The contact sheets do blur when enlarging too much, but i am worried about making contact sheet to maximum quality/12 because of sending such a large file to open and also curious if someone had the right software, could they at least print quality small prints from a high quality contact sheet. Sorry if that sounds dumb but I am curious.

Anyway, is this a good way to present samples for client to view? Any help, tips and advice would be appreciated.Thanks in advance..john

tdkd13 said:

You can add a watermark accross each image in the sheet that say
"Proof copy" or something like that. Make it transparent enough so
as not to ruin the ability to accuaretly judge the image but opaque
enough to be obvious.
Ted

--
http://photobucket.com/albums/y260/tdkd13/

Click to expand...

sending them contact sheets is a good way of letting the client choose, and you shouldn't worry too much about the jpeg quality. it's the resolution that counts. send them the contact sheets in 72 dpi, and if you put 16 or 20 images on one sheet, they're that small, i doubt anyone could seriously use them off the sheet, no matter how good they are with photoshop ;-)

in regards to corrections for the entire project, i wouldn't do it with the finished sheet, but batch correct the originals at first. i made a standard-action in photoshop, with levels, curves and saturation. i don't know which camera you use, but for my d70, i find that auto levels, then reducing the blue midtones to 0,95, and a slight increase in contrast with curves is what most of them need. with an action like that, you could also automatically put a watermark on them (though i don't think that's necessary because of the resolution/size-issue mentioned above).

cheers

--
'born naked, helpless and inarticulate i eventually overcame these obstacles
to become the person i am today.'

I use thumbnailer to mass produce smaller images with watermarks or lettering across the middle of the image. Very cool program! Leaves the original image intact.

You can find it here.

http://www.smalleranimals.com/index.htm
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John