How do you deliver your work?
There are several options nowadays and I normally use DropBox because I believe it’s the one that makes your client’s life the easiest.
My DropBox folder has two main subfolders:
Folder 1 called ‘Delivery’, where I save al the delivered work, each project in its own subfolder.
Folder 2 called ‘My Stuff’, where I save my own personal and business related files (not images though) for easy access from anywhere and for backup. I will not discuss this folder at the moment.
Delivery Folder
Each project is named according to the rule YYYY-MM-DD PROJECT_NAME and it normally consists of a few subfolders, depending on the project type. For example:
2019-03-28 Restaurant A
2019-03-28 Restaurant A Unedited (all lowers images with watermark)
2019-03-28 Restaurant A Finalized
2019-03-28 Restaurant A Finalized JPEG HiRes (subfolder with finalized JPEG high res)
2019-03-28 Restaurant A Finalized JPEG LoRes (subfolder with finalized JPEG low res)
2019-03-28 Restaurant A Finalized PSD or TIFF (Subfolder with finalized PSD or TIFF)
The client will get a link to the 2019-03-28 Restaurant A folder and will be able to download the entire folder onto their computer. DropBox allows you to make comments to the images without even being a DropBox user, so the client can easily comment and mark which images they would like me to retouch, for example.
The naming of the folders according to the Swedish date format (YYYY-MM-DD) helps me to keep everything organized by date, which works best for me. In fact, even all my images are named according to YYYY-MM-DD PROJECT_NAME. If I were to use the US (MM-DD-YYYY) or the Italian (DD-MM-YYYY) date format, I would not get the files in a chronological order.
Potential Huge Issue
What if you’re dealing with a big company that has very strict policies when it comes to external websites? They might not be allowed to access DropBox or any other file delivery method, such as Wetransfer. There’s really no way around it (that I know of). If the policies are that strict, you of course won’t even have the option to deliver a flash drive, because they will not be allowed to plug it into their machines.
I’ve been able to solve this problem by using their own ftp server, in case they have one.
If worse comes to worst, they are going to need to use their private computer to access the DropBox folder. It’s not ideal, but it might be the only way around it.
Lastly
Always make sure to remind your client to download AND backup all of the images so that they are not dependent on you any longer after delivery. And you can delete the folders at some point.
Thoughts? Please share your experience with the community by commenting down below. If you enjoyed this information, please share it on your own channels.
Thank You and Happy Shooting!