Introducing a new and completely interactive album proofing solution: Album Parrot.
When I was contacted by Magnus at Album Parrot to see if I wanted to try out this new system I checked it out and noticed one very unique difference from what I have seen with my other clients’ proofing substitution based sites. The ability to drag and drop gallery images onto your proof… and add a note WITH it. In fact, the ability to drag and drop a note anywhere on your layout itself was a cool feature.
HAPPYFISH has always worked with our clients OWN proofing preferences – whether it be Project Lightroom, Banti, Album Exposure… and so on. Our clients have their own systems, own preferences, own branding and such. We adapt and send whatever our clients prefer and need. By default, we ALWAYS send a PDF proof via email as it’s fast, easy and emailable. Easy for grandparents, easy for everyone. While it is fine to just type a quick email back with desired changes… I have had a few fancy clients send to their photographers marked up PDFs with ‘comment’ tags on top of images. It IS handy for sure I can tell you – and easier to read and faster to implement when you see notes right at the region in question.
I have swayed away from subscription proofing normally simply because of the extra steps but mostly, because of my desire to not put forth our own HAPPYFISH branding. We are the invisible helpers in this industry and are happy in the background…. your clients do not need to know who designed their albums … keeping YOU in charge. For HAPPYFISH I appreciate being able to put my clients’ own logos on that page so I can stay invisble. Not only that, but the website name doesn’t divulge that it is www.happyfish.com either – which is good!
That being said, Album Parrot I am testing out and providing Magnus helpful feedback because a) he’s a fantastically nice person… and b) I think the unique features are worth playing with. I’ve already given him a few comments, and amazingly, I see one implemented already!!
Here are some cool things to note about Album Parrot:
Drag and drop conversation notes right on the photo in question. It puts the photo desired as a thumbnail with the image name along with your note. Additional conversations can be added below. You can see below the layout a scrollable gallery of available photographs below so your client can see what else there is. I have found it advantageous to only upload LOW RES jpegs for this section for obvious reasons.
Gallery jpegs can be either uploaded locally or from sources such as ZenFolio, Shootproof or SmugMug.
This gallery can be CLOSED. See the little arrow on the bottom left? That’s where you can open and close this feature.
A simple three step process – and you can change your branding colors. One tip – if you change the spread color you might have a harder time locating the arrow button and stuff…. so play with it. I like my spread color say, dark gray because if it’s white you can’t really see that page layout edges. Like this:
You can create apps for your mobile devices.
Branding – when you send out your album proof, you can attach your own logo with it. They’ll receive an email with the link that they can click on to view – along with a personal note from you with the password. Views are tracked as well.
Album Parrot is offering HAPPYFISH fans a special 25% OFF of your first 6 month subscription.
PROMOCODE: happyfish
Try a free limited trial today by signing up FREE with no credit card number required.
HAVE FUN!
