Need event printing help

[syuan]

I have a birthday party coming up in a couple of weeks where the client request on the spot portrait of guest and the birthday girl (91 yo) and 4x6 prints for guest pick up before they leave the banquet hall. If anyone has experience with printing images on location, please share your advise as to what is the best, fastest, and easiest way to set up for printing. Is there a way I can automate photoshop to print from a folder when new pictures comes in? does photoshop do batch printing or I need 3rd party software for that? I have a canon i900 printer. Thanks for your input!

[S-Man]

Sorry nobody's replied. On-site printing is usually a tall measure if you're the only photog in the place. You need like one or two assistants.
Canon has a Direct Print button, I've never used it, but I think this is what it's for. I don't know if a D3 would work with that.
I don't know about using photoshop for that either. Bridge, maybe.
Check out this thread for other suggestions: http://www.texasphotoforum.com/forum...d.php?t=103927

[syuan]

Thanks, Sam, for the link. I guess not that many people are doing the on location photobooth...

Originally Posted by S-Man

Sorry nobody's replied. On-site printing is usually a tall measure if you're the only photog in the place. You need like one or two assistants.
Canon has a Direct Print button, I've never used it, but I think this is what it's for. I don't know if a D3 would work with that.
I don't know about using photoshop for that either. Bridge, maybe.
Check out this thread for other suggestions: http://www.texasphotoforum.com/forum...d.php?t=103927

[Scott...yer crazy]

Warning...low tech way my wife and I do this.

My wife and I shoot a bowling fundraising event for our Rodeo Committee every year. Last night was the 6th year we have done the event, and probably went the smoothest.

I shot the teams with my D80 and had 6 SD cards. My wife and another volunteer had a Kodak ESP5 and a Lexmark 3 in one that could print directly from the SD cards. I would shoot about 5 lanes/teams then take the SD card to them for printing while I shot 5 or so more lanes/teams. We totaled 40 teams and about 85 4X6 prints in about 1.5 hours.

[syuan]

Thanks, Scott, for your feedback. do you print directly from SD card by passing the computer/photoshop? That sounds much simpler and I might try that. The only thing is that need to get my self a printer that can print directly from CF/SD card with built in printing software.

Originally Posted by Scott...yer crazy

Warning...low tech way my wife and I do this.

My wife and I shoot a bowling fundraising event for our Rodeo Committee every year. Last night was the 6th year we have done the event, and probably went the smoothest.

I shot the teams with my D80 and had 6 SD cards. My wife and another volunteer had a Kodak ESP5 and a Lexmark 3 in one that could print directly from the SD cards. I would shoot about 5 lanes/teams then take the SD card to them for printing while I shot 5 or so more lanes/teams. We totaled 40 teams and about 85 4X6 prints in about 1.5 hours.

[Scott...yer crazy]

Yes Sam, at this event we printed directly from the printers that would read the SD cards. I did have to buy and borrow some "older" SD cards because the printers would not recognize my faster cards LOL.

We did have two laptops there in case we needed to use them, and with the Kodak ESP 5 we did need to use one laptop only to view and select the number of prints. On our Lexmark it has a SMALL monitor, so we could select the pictures and number of each to print using the menu and monitor on the printer.

If you are going to buy something, we liked our friends Kodak better than our older Lexmark. It printed twice as fast. We are now looking into the Kodak ESP7 web page claims 4X6 in 30 seconds. Our older Lexmark was more like 75 seconds LOL, But you probably have a printer brand in mind that you like. :)

As far as the quality of the prints......for this event where we are donating our services, paper, and all costs, we were happy with what these two printers provided. We had positive feedback from participants too.

[Scott A]

So there are a number of different ways to do this. Are you going to take candid photos and float from table to table or are you going to set up lights and shoot posed images with a back drop? Or both...?

We shoot a number of large of events and print onsite. We set up lights and a backdrop and tether the camera to a laptop with Digital Darkroom to process the photos and print in small batches as the evening goes on. I then float during downtime with another camera and capture candids and snaps that I provide on a disk later to the event organizer. You will need at least two people to work this. Also, what printer do you plan on using? Have you looked into what you are going to deliver the prints in?

Let me know if you would like to discuss in more detail.

Cheers!
Scott

[ldelacruz]

With photoshop you can setup an action to resize to 4X6, sharpen, then print. I just had a conversation with Slickshooter from this site about this same question.

[syuan]

I'm looking into portable printer. definitely check out the ESP7 you suggested. Thanks for the tips!

Originally Posted by Scott...yer crazy

Yes Sam, at this event we printed directly from the printers that would read the SD cards. I did have to buy and borrow some "older" SD cards because the printers would not recognize my faster cards LOL.

We did have two laptops there in case we needed to use them, and with the Kodak ESP 5 we did need to use one laptop only to view and select the number of prints. On our Lexmark it has a SMALL monitor, so we could select the pictures and number of each to print using the menu and monitor on the printer.

If you are going to buy something, we liked our friends Kodak better than our older Lexmark. It printed twice as fast. We are now looking into the Kodak ESP7 web page claims 4X6 in 30 seconds. Our older Lexmark was more like 75 seconds LOL, But you probably have a printer brand in mind that you like. :)

As far as the quality of the prints......for this event where we are donating our services, paper, and all costs, we were happy with what these two printers provided. We had positive feedback from participants too.

syuan added 16 Minutes and 24 Seconds later...Double Post Merged Below

Thanks, Scott, for sharing your experience. I do have an old canon i9000D that print weird,off-the-wall color pictures from time to time (maybe dirty print head?), so I need a backup printer just in case. I'm gonna look into Kodak model as well as Canon Pixma mini320. I am trying to budget it under $150 with portability and good print quality in mind.

I will be setting up a backdrop, two sb800 with umbrella to do 'posed' shot that will be printed while guests have dinner. No candid shots for print requestd by the client. I don't have darkroom express, nor software to shoot tethered. I'll probably bring extra memory cards and swap them out frequently to do small batch printing.

I just need to find a way to automate the pp and batch printing instead of manually print one image at a time. I don't think cs4 ps or lightroom can do batch printing. Need to do some research on that...If you an shed more light in this area, that would be a tremendous help. Thanks

Originally Posted by Scott A

So there are a number of different ways to do this. Are you going to take candid photos and float from table to table or are you going to set up lights and shoot posed images with a back drop? Or both...?

We shoot a number of large of events and print onsite. We set up lights and a backdrop and tether the camera to a laptop with Digital Darkroom to process the photos and print in small batches as the evening goes on. I then float during downtime with another camera and capture candids and snaps that I provide on a disk later to the event organizer. You will need at least two people to work this. Also, what printer do you plan on using? Have you looked into what you are going to deliver the prints in?

Let me know if you would like to discuss in more detail.

Cheers!
Scott

syuan added 18 Minutes and 6 Seconds later...Double Post Merged Below

Lonnie, can you program photoshop actionto do batch printing? that would be wonderful if I can get that working!

Originally Posted by ldelacruz

With photoshop you can setup an action to resize to 4X6, sharpen, then print. I just had a conversation with Slickshooter from this site about this same question.

[gregt1310]

Originally Posted by syuan

I'm looking into portable printer. definitely check out the ESP7 you suggested. Thanks for the tips!


I just need to find a way to automate the pp and batch printing instead of manually print one image at a time. I don't think cs4 ps or lightroom can do batch printing. Need to do some research on that...If you an shed more light in this area, that would be a tremendous help. Thanks


Lonnie, can you program photoshop actionto do batch printing? that would be wonderful if I can get that working!

You can record an action in Photoshop that will handle the post processing and printing for you. Then go to Bridge, select the images, and go to
Tools --> Photoshop --> Batch and run the action that you just created.

Hope this helps.

[SpeedRacerSlots]

If you search the Buy/Sell section here.... there is someone selling some dye-sub printers for 4x6 & 5x7 work. Quick, efficient and nicer looking prints that inkjet (IMHO).

[syuan]

I will definitely give that a try. thanks, Greg!

Originally Posted by gregt1310

You can record an action in Photoshop that will handle the post processing and printing for you. Then go to Bridge, select the images, and go to
Tools --> Photoshop --> Batch and run the action that you just created.

Hope this helps.

[ldelacruz]

Check with Slickshooter but I think you can. There is also a way to create an action as a droplet then drag an entire folder of photos to the droplet and it will run the action on all the photos.

Originally Posted by syuan

I'm looking into portable printer. definitely check out the ESP7 you suggested. Thanks for the tips!



syuan added 16 Minutes and 24 Seconds later...Double Post Merged Below

Thanks, Scott, for sharing your experience. I do have an old canon i9000D that print weird,off-the-wall color pictures from time to time (maybe dirty print head?), so I need a backup printer just in case. I'm gonna look into Kodak model as well as Canon Pixma mini320. I am trying to budget it under $150 with portability and good print quality in mind.

I will be setting up a backdrop, two sb800 with umbrella to do 'posed' shot that will be printed while guests have dinner. No candid shots for print requestd by the client. I don't have darkroom express, nor software to shoot tethered. I'll probably bring extra memory cards and swap them out frequently to do small batch printing.

I just need to find a way to automate the pp and batch printing instead of manually print one image at a time. I don't think cs4 ps or lightroom can do batch printing. Need to do some research on that...If you an shed more light in this area, that would be a tremendous help. Thanks




syuan added 18 Minutes and 6 Seconds later...Double Post Merged Below

Lonnie, can you program photoshop actionto do batch printing? that would be wonderful if I can get that working!