Author Topic: Saving proof sheets for email  (Read 4019 times)

Offline David Cooper

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Saving proof sheets for email
« on: March 13, 2008, 04:33:37 PM »
Hi, I'm trialling Photo Mechanic and it is super fast but I need one feature which I can't find in the manual. My workflow is: Shoot, download, sort, make proof sheet, email proof sheet to lab for printing, deliver to customer. Is PM able to make a proof sheet that I can save and email to the lab? I am presently doing this (slowly) using Bridge.
Thanks in advance.

Offline Kirk Baker

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Re: Saving proof sheets for email
« Reply #1 on: March 13, 2008, 04:46:22 PM »
David,

Hi, I'm trialling Photo Mechanic and it is super fast but I need one feature which I can't find in the manual. My workflow is: Shoot, download, sort, make proof sheet, email proof sheet to lab for printing, deliver to customer. Is PM able to make a proof sheet that I can save and email to the lab? I am presently doing this (slowly) using Bridge.

What format is the proof sheet file?  What OS are you running?  If PDF is OK, and you have Mac OS X, you can print to a PDF and send that.  If you're on Windows, you would need a PDF printer driver (there are many, and some are free.)

-Kirk


Offline David Cooper

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Re: Saving proof sheets for email
« Reply #2 on: March 13, 2008, 05:34:31 PM »
Running OSX 10.4.1. I want to send low res jpg's to lab (A4, about 700kb). Using PM print command I've just found out I can send to printer, then preview, then save that as a jpeg. Small problem here, the preview is a pdf (which I'm not very familiar with) and will only save one page even though all the pages are shown in the draw at right of the pdf viewer. I can't select more than one page to save.
Flow is:
command P
Print (from PM printer box once parameters set)
Preview (which shows in pdf form. Printer is Epson 2400)
Save as (jpeg then destination folder and quality)
Enter
It will only save one page at a time and does so at a peculiar size. I need to save all the pages at A4.
Thanks for getting back so quickly, hope I'm making sense.

Offline Kirk Baker

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Re: Saving proof sheets for email
« Reply #3 on: March 13, 2008, 05:45:08 PM »
Running OSX 10.4.1. I want to send low res jpg's to lab (A4, about 700kb). Using PM print command I've just found out I can send to printer, then preview, then save that as a jpeg. Small problem here, the preview is a pdf (which I'm not very familiar with) and will only save one page even though all the pages are shown in the draw at right of the pdf viewer. I can't select more than one page to save.
Flow is:
command P
Print (from PM printer box once parameters set)
Preview (which shows in pdf form. Printer is Epson 2400)
Save as (jpeg then destination folder and quality)
Enter
It will only save one page at a time and does so at a peculiar size. I need to save all the pages at A4.
Thanks for getting back so quickly, hope I'm making sense.

You're making sense.  If you can't send PDFs to the lab (you might check to see if they would accept them) then I don't currently have a solution for you.  Generating proofs and contact sheets to JPEG/TIFF is on my list of things to implement for version 4.6 which is currently in development.  I cannot promise that this new feature will definitely make it into version 4.6 however.

-Kirk


Offline David Cooper

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Re: Saving proof sheets for email
« Reply #4 on: March 13, 2008, 06:24:14 PM »
PDF's are too big, I'm sending about 300/day at busiest time and broadband in NZ is very slow.
Thanks for your incredibly quick replies but I might wait till PM has this or a similar facility.
David.

Offline WimWenner

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Re: Saving proof sheets for email
« Reply #5 on: March 14, 2008, 10:38:20 AM »
Have you tried to print to a Low Res-driver already, using Adobe Distiller? We manage to combine ± 200 images (DNG's, each about 13 mb) to a PDF-file of less than 10 MB.

Offline ballethoo

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Re: Saving proof sheets for email
« Reply #6 on: March 17, 2008, 04:37:36 AM »
I have a solution for you that will work in OSX.

1.  In Photo Mechanic, select the photos you want on your contact sheets.  Choose PRINT.

2.  In the Photo Mechanic print dialog box, set your parameters (# rows, columns, etc.).

3.  Hit the PRINT button.

4.  In the print dialog box for your printer, click the PDF button on the lower right side of the window.  Choose the option that says "Save PDF to iPhoto."  But it won't save a PDF of each page to iPhoto - it WILL save a  JPEG to iPhoto of each page!

5.  The next dialog will ask you to choose a folder in iPhoto in which to save them.  Once you've got them in your iPhoto library, you can copy or move them to your desktop and do what you want - open them in Photoshop, change the file name, whatever.

CAUTION:  In the dialog box that asks you what folder to use to store the images, there is a box that is automatically checked that asks if you want to delete the images from the original source once they have been moved.  Uncheck it.  I don't know what happens if you leave it checked - I have not tested that yet.

I tested this with a set of photos that ended up in 2 rows and 2 columns on letter-size paper - 3 sheets in all.  Resulting size was about 420 kb per sheet at a resolution of 200.

Not to steal Kirk's line but "I hope this helps."

Peter Garick
« Last Edit: March 17, 2008, 05:04:29 AM by ballethoo »