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Preview Gallery Instructions
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We highly recommend watching our instructional
videos in addition to reading these written instructions.
You can find
our Video Library at our Support Menu on our home page.
Note: Printing this page works best in landscape mode.
You must have a current
full install of the latest Presentation Gold
to
organize and upload your images to the Preview Gallery.
Email Issues
With the current fears associated with virus issues, if you use one of the "free" email
accounts, such as AOL, Yahoo, Google, and most other "NON Personal"
email addresses, emails from us may not arrive in your email account.
As a Professional business you should
have your own personal email address, such as
"joe@creativephotography.com". If you have your own website, contact
your web hosting company and set up an address to receive emails from
us. That does not mean you have to change or discard your current email
address that you have been using for years.
When you do set up a new email address to
use with our system, DO NOT forward those emails back to your current
email provider address, or the same thing will happen.
This email issue is not going away, and
is getting increasingly worse all the time. It is probably affecting you
now and you don't even know it. You don't know about the emails you are
not receiving.
Within 10 minutes of signing up for your account you should receive an email from us. If you don't receive
that email, contact us directly and we will discuss what you can do to
fix the problem. Contact us via our Tech Support form and we will respond ASAP. Tech Support
The following instructions apply to Presentation Gold, not
to the web side of the system. Where instructions apply to the web
side, they will be noted as such.
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Activating
your site
As soon as you click the Preview Gallery icon in
the tool bar you will automatically be connected to your Preview Gallery
Web Hosting site.
When you receive the email that your site is
activated, all you have to do is:
Type the username (in "User ID") and password (in "Password")
you received in the first email from us into the screen below,
that appears when you click the Preview Gallery Icon in
Presentation. Click "Retrieve".
Do that once and forget about it. You will automatically
be connected to your gallery each time you open the Preview Gallery Upload
Screen.
Prepare
your Main Page Slide Show
Be sure to take advantage
of the "Slide
Show" you can create on your main page. You must have a Presentation
Gold program installed to upload your "main page slide show".
Prepare and upload 6 different images for your main page
slide show. You will see this icon at the bottom of the 1st Upload
Screen:
Click the Slides button. The next screen
will appear:
The first time you open this screen there aren't any images to be
downloaded from your gallery. Once you upload your first set of
images for your main page slide show, the next time you open this
screen your images will download and populate the boxes.
When this screen is open you can select
new images to upload.
Click
a box and it will open a "browse" window.
Browse to your images and select them. You can rotate and
crop them right in this window. A great time savor.
Follow the instructions at the bottom left
of the Slides screen.
Right click an image and the crop box will
appear. Drag it to size, and release it. Then use the space bar to save
the crop, click the space bar again to remove the crop.
When
you are finished, "Upload" the
Main Page Slide Show Images.
We
emphasize "Main Page" slide
show because you can upload images to a slide show for each event you upload.
When you go to the image organizer to select images for your event, you
can select images for your "Web_Slide_Show". These 6
images will appear on the event page.
BTW...We do not charge you for
the images you use in your Event Slide Show.
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A few "do's and don'ts"....
1b-
Do not use any characters in image file names, folder names, category
names, event names, ect. Especially your original
image directory names. Use only "alpha" and numeric characters,
dash and underscores. NO / [
] \@#$ , . %&*().
Only use letters and numbers, and put an underscore if
you want to leave a space between words.
NOTE: do
not think because you were able to upload your images to
the Gallery that everything is "ok" even if you have incorrect image file
names. The "incorrection" will come back to haunt you
later.
Images should
only be named with letters and numbers, and not even letters (names)
unless absolutely necessary. Keep image and folder names short and concise.
Don't name your images with client names in them, or:
Joann's & Christopher's
Wedding 01293845.jpg.......make it....001.jpg
and so on. Keep the image names small!!!
We have
tried to "code out" some prohibited characters, but there is no
limit to the things that can cause problems on the web or in digital
image ordering systems.
3b-
You cannot add images, or change price groups to an event once the
event is online. Our system saves you an enormous amount of prep
time because it categorizes and resizes the images for you in your
computer. Events have to be uploaded in their entirety.
4b-
You must remove any password protection from your event BEFORE
deleting the event from the gallery.
5b-
When you receive an order from the Gallery, look for the payment
type. If no payment type is listed, it is possible your client did
not proceed to the payment page and pay for the order. Contact them
for payment.
6b- If you need to open
the Gallery Upload Module to delete and event or do an inventory,
you must have at least one image open in the thumbnail bar.
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Preparing
prices for your events
1c- Open the View/Preferences screen, then click Items/Prices.
2c- Select a Config File for your lab if they are
one of our Lab Partners. If you are not using one of our Lab Partners to
process your lab orders, you can still use Presentation to prepare and organize
your images for uploading to Preview Gallery, and you can use the email
order that you receive from the web to create your lab order manually,
and send it to your lab the way you normally do.
If
you are using ourNetwork Labs to process your work, you
can use the "order.dat." file that is attached
to the email to open your order in Presentation, crop, color
correct, and retouch, then
send it off to the lab. If you use Presentation to process
your orders, you will never have to search for ordered images-,
the orders open in Presentation
and the ordered images appear. Then you can FTP your order
directly out of Presentation, to your lab. A real time savor.
3c- If
you are not using one of our Lab Partners, contact us
for a "Default.cfg"
config file.
4c- You can decide what sizes to offer your clients
by checking and unchecking the boxes next to the sizes in the Price Schedule screen. To set a price, click on the size itself and enter a price.
5c- You
can make different "Price Groups" by
typing a Price Group name into the box to the left of the add button and
clicking "Add". When you are finished creating a Price/Size
group you will be prompted to save it as a new Config File. Give
it any name you like and save it.
6c- When you upload you images to your
Gallery
later you will have an opportunity to select any Price Group you created.
7c- For
orders created in Presentation itself you can set the sales
tax here. For web orders, you set the sales tax in the "Back
Office " of Preview Gallery.
8c- The
other 2 boxes, "Quantities for each
Order Dropdown", and "Number of Package Buttons" are
for Presentation Program settings, and do not apply to web hosting
settings.
When
you make any changes to the sizes or prices in this screen, be
sure to click "Save" (the config
file) when you are finished.
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Preparing your images for
uploading
1d- Open an image directory in Presentation.
Use File Open, or click the first icon on the tool bar
and select an image directory.
2d- Open the Image Organizer
3d- Create your Image Categories
Images only load to the web if placed in the Image
Organizer. You can select any category, or create a category of your
choice.
To make a new category, click the + button.
Type in the new category name and click OK. It will be added to the
list. To remove a category- select it and click the X.
Then click Ok to delete the category.
| Event Photographers:
If you do events, such
as sports events, dances, etc., you should NOT separate the
individuals, or, classes, or teams as individual events. We have
found that customers will "cross over" events and try and place
orders from different event they, or their children are entered.
When they do this, the system can't locate the images for the
orders because the event names are different.
How to upload these kinds of events:
Place ALL of the images from the event in ONE
folder. Call it "Lincoln High School". Then in the Organizer
Screen on the top right you will find a box with category names.
Click the Blue + button and enter the name of the "Team" or if
the situation applies the name of the child. |
Drag your images from the Thumb Bar up
to the Images Organizer Bar.
You can remove images from the Organizer Bar with
the standard "Delete" key.
You can load images into multiple categories and later
the Presentation programs will upload all the categories to the web at once.
You can load all the images in one category if you choose.
Use a category like Portraits, or Wedding Images....
You can drag images from left to right
on the Image Organizer and they will stay in the order you placed
them when they appear on the web. This is just one of the unique features
of Preview Gallery.
You must select 6 images from each event to be displayed
in a Web_Slide_Show on each client's event page. Another great feature.
BTW: the total images used count, does not reflect the images in the
slide show. We do not charge you for the images in the Slide Shows.
NOTE: do not use the feature in Presentation to create Black and White
or Sepia images and then upload those image to the gallery. Your clients
can click any image while viewing them on the gallery and see them in
Black and White. Sepia is just not an option at this time.
The
problem is this... When you create a B&W or Sepia image in Presentation the
image is renamed with a [B] or a [S]. The brackets around the B and the
S cause problems in the "Web Based" ordering system. We
are looking into a solution, you will be informed when
we solve the problem.
4d- Click the Preview Gallery icon.
5d- The Preview Gallery Order Process Screen 1
appears
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In
line #1- the name of the current Image Directory appears.
In
Line #2- Type in the name you would like have appear on
the event web page.
In
Line #3- Select an existing Event Type, such as Wedding,
or create your own Event titles like Portrait, Dance
Recital, etc. When you create an Event Group and add
an Event, the Event title Group will appear on your main
Event page in the Gallery. The Event Group name will
not appear on the page if
there are no Events in the category.
In
Box #4- Move the Categories you want to have appear on
the web to the box to the right. You can use the Up and
Down arrows to move the categories into the position you would like
them to appear on the Client's Event
page.
6d- The Preview Gallery Order Process Screen 2
appears.
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7d- In the top line you see the name
of your event.
8d- In the box you see the events
that are currently on the Preview Gallery.
You can click an event in the list and see the "details" of the
event.
9d- The X allows
you to delete any events from the Gallery. When the event has been successfully
deleted a message will appear telling you the process was completed.
Click the button next to the X and you can do an inventory of your Gallery Events.
10d- In Processing Options:
A-
you can choose a type style for your displayed Wedding Album
Cover
B-
you can print the Proof on your large display images. Click "Apply
Overlay"
C-
you can password protect your event by clicking the "Privacy" button.
11d- Process and Upload your images.
During this process your images are rotated, cropped, color corrected, resized
and dropped into the category folders. Presentation accomplishes all of these
processes at once, saving you hours of wasted time preparing your images as
required by the other web hosting services. You can continue to use Presentation
or any other program while your images are being processed.
When the image "Processing" is completed, the images will
begin the upload process automatically.
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Upload an Album
After you create an album in Presentation,
you can upload the layout to your Gallery.
Simply
design your album, open your Gallery Upload System, enter
a title, you may want to create a new category like "Albums",
then check the "Album" check box at the bottom right
of the first upload screen, go to the next screen and upload the
album.
Your
clients can review the album, you can make changes and "re-upload the new design" for
their approval.
Yes, you can password protect album design
uploads.
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Password Protection
1e- create an event and upload it to your Gallery. You cannot password
protect an event until it is uploaded to the Gallery.
2e-
in Preview Gallery (screen 2) click the "Privacy" button.
3e-
you will be brought back on the web to your Web Office. Enter your
username and password for Preview Gallery.
4e-
the screen below will appear.
5e-
click the arrow to the right of the "Current
Folder" window. Select the event you want to Password Protect. Click "Change
Folder". The new folder name will appear in the "Current Folder" field.
NOTE: it
is important for you to be sure you selected event you
want to protect, and then click "Change Folder" to
be sure you are protecting the event and NOT the entire Gallery.
If you find you accidentally protected
the entire Gallery, don't panic, just go back to the Protection
page and remove the Password Protection.
6e-
click the "Restrict access to the following users".
7e-
in the "AuthName Banner" box
you can create a name to be displayed on the Password Screen
that people see when they click an event. You can always come back
here and change
anything you did, so don't worry about doing it all correctly
the first time.
This is a screen capture of the place on the page you go to to
password protect an event.
8e-
in the table above you enter a "username".
Type in the password twice and you are set. For a portrait session you
might use the clients first name for the username and the last name for
the password. For a wedding, the clients last names. Bride
in the username, Groom in the password. Just suggestions. You will
create a system
that works for you.
9e-
click the "Save Data" button at the bottom of the screen and you are
finished.
Go online and see if your Password Protection
was successful.
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Viewing and Ordering on the
Gallery
The
Gallery operation is very simple. Clients get there by typing
in the URL address you give them after you create and
event. What you may want to keep in mind is that if you create
an event name like Jeff and Jill. the URL has to read
Jeff_and_Jill. Be sure to put the underscores between
the words. No "&" sign.
When
you go on line to see how your event uploaded, take a look
at the URL for the event. Then you will see how to
do it. You will give your clients the complete web address: www.previewgallery,com/studioname/eventname,
like this:
www.previewgallery.com/parkphotography/jeff_and_jill
That address will get them to their images.
If you have your own website you can place
a link there and have your clients start at your site and click to get
to the Gallery.
You may choose to give everyone the Gallery
address and your studio name (username in the system) like this:
www.previewgallery.com/parkphotography
When they arrive at your main page they
can click the event category drop downs and find their event.
Once there, it flows very easily. Click
an even name, click a category, click a thumbnail, order prints, check
out. There are 3 payment options available for you to offer your clients.
They can enter their credit card number and it will be sent to you with the
order. This option is for those of you who have your own credit card processing
terminal accounts.
They can pay by PayPal. We have a link in
the back office that links to PayPal. You can set up an account from there.
We don't require you to use PayPal. We have investigate many other credit
card processors and found PayPal to be the easiest solution. If you find
one you prefer to use, contact customer support and we will see if we can
implement it into our system.
And
we offer a "Call the Photographer
with your payment" option. This works quite well when there
are complimentary pictures included in the order.
You set the options yourself in your Admin
Page in the Preview Gallery back office (on the web side).
There
are many other features available to you. We now have a separate "Studio Information" page
you can use to add information to your site. You can set
the colors of your
site. There are a few pre-set themes.
We
suggest you create a quick site, go through the entire process
of organizing and uploading your images, then go back
and "tweak" the site.
Multi Pose Package Ordering System
1- Open the Preferences Screen in Presentation
Gold. Go to the Items/Prices screen.
2- Under the "Add New Items" box, select
components and quantities for your package.
"Wallets" will not allow multiple
pose ordering. All Wallets must be of one pose.
NOTE: Do not make
any changes to the items as they are listed in the "Description" box.
They must
be left in the exact format as they are entered.
3- Enter the Quantity of Prints you want to order, then
select the size of the print.
4- Click the Blue > arrow to add the Component to
the Component Box.
5- Name the Package.
6- Click the blue +.
7- Check the "Box" in the Web Package column to activate
your MultiPrint Package.
Continue the process to add more packages.
8- To remove a package you created, select the package and
click the Red X.
9- Save your Config File with a new name.
10- Upload your images to your Preview Gallery. Be sure to
select the new Price Group Config File you created.
Ordering Packages from Preview Gallery
1- Go to an event that has the new Multiple Pose
Packages included in the Price Group Config File.
2- View the images as you normally would.
3- Select an image to order.
4- Select the Multiple Pose Package you created.
This box will appear:
5- Simply click the "Arrow" in the box to add the
selected pose to the size you want to order. Continue to click the arrows for
the sizes of the prints you want from that pose, or go back and select other
categories and order poses from additional images.
6- Order Color or Black and White.
Other features:
You can hide the package so it does not use up
all of the screen while ordering additional items.
Customers can order more than one of the same
"Package".
Packages can be deleted from the order.
Processing an order in Presentation Gold.
Orders are processed as usual. Nothing has
changed in the ordering part of the system. There is something to take note of in
the invoice created within the Presentation Gold program. It will reflect the
individual prints prices for each print ordered, not the package price.
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Receiving an
Order
The new version of Presentation
Gold 1.1 versions incorporate the new eXpress Order System. That new
system "retrieves" the customers order from the Preview Gallery
every 2 minutes and places them in a new folder that will be create
the first time an order arrives in your computer. The new folder is
called ...Web Orders. When a web order arrives, you will be notified
by a message that will pop up on your screen alerting you to it's
arrival. Simply open the order as you would any other order you
created.
NOTE: Web Orders will only
be retrieved from images that you uploaded to your Preview Gallery
after you installed the V6.1 program. Older orders will still arrive
only be email.
Old Versions: You
will also receive an email from your customer when an order
is placed. The body of the email will contain the
order in written text form. If you do not have prices in your
config file, the email will not contain the quantities ordered. Do
not panic. Just open the order in Presentation Gold, go to the
invoice, and all the information will be there for the order.
The email will contain an "Order.dat" file attachment. Save the
attachment to the folder called "Web Orders". The attachment
is the order file.
Then, open Presentation and use the Open
Order feature. Browse to the new Web Order folder you created and
select the Order.dat file- your order will open. Once opened, an order
folder will be created in C:/Presentation Orders. That is where you will
go to re-open the order in the future.
If
you plan on using Presentation to create orders as a
regular part of your workflow- we strongly suggest you
read
the instructions on our web site. Presentation are very powerful
programs and can save you many hour of production time.
When you open your order in Presentation,
go to the crop screen- you will be able to see what was ordered and the
quantities.
You can crop, color correct, and open the
images in Photoshop for retouching and enhancements. Save the image in
Photoshop and it will be ready to be sent to the lab with your order.
eXpress Order Instructions
eXpress Order is a feature of Preview Gallery. Photographers who are
looking for a total order fulfillment service that takes
client orders from the web and ships direct to the client
without the photographers intervention, would use eXpress Order.
Creating an eXpress Order
1- Upload you event to
Preview Gallery as you normally would.
2- After the event is
uploaded and the event name appears in the inventory box,
right click the event name.
3- If you created
categories, you can designate individual categories in the
event to be "marked" for eXpress Order handling.
4- Click the entire
event name if you want the entire event designated for eXpress Order
In the example above,
the ceremony is marked for eXpress Order handling. You can
change the status by simply clicking on it again and
changing the option.
5- After marking your
events and categories, you need to click the "Upload eXpess Order changes" button. 
Your orders are now
ready for eXpress Order handling.
Receiving
order from the web
1- Our original order
system used email to receive orders from the web. we will
continue to send emails as a "double check" in the system,
but we have a new system in place.
2- Now we retrieve the
orders from the web. Our software monitors your web order
folder on line and retrieves orders as they are placed by
your clients.
3- If a "standard"
order is retrieved:
3a- This icon will
appear in the system tray on the bottom left side of your
computer: 
3b- This message will
appear when you open your Presentation Gold program, or
will appear if the program is already open:
3c- A third icon will
appear on your toolbar next to your "Open Orders" icon: 
4- Click the new icon,
open the order and process it as you would any other
Presentation Gold order.
5- If an eXpress Order arrives:
5a- You will see this
icon in the system tool tray:
5b- That is all that
you will see. Your images will be retrieved, and order
folder will be created, the order will be sent to the lab
and you won't touch anything. Like magic!!!
General Information
1- If possible, only
upload images from one computer in your studio. If you use
multiple computers the orders created on the web will only
be retrieved to the computer that uploaded them.
2- Do not move the
images off the computer to other locations, or change the
drives where they were located when you uploaded. DON'T
PANIC if you move your images, you hard drive crashes and
you have to install a new one and the "address" changes.
2a- The order logs the
address of the computer in the data file. We record the
"Name" of your computer. If you install a new computer or
a new hard drive, just rename it the same name it was
before.
2- If you create an
event and designate different categories with and without eXpress Order, any order from
the web that contains images for both eXpress and standard orders will be handled as standard orders.
3- You can change the
status of a category or event from eXpress to standard or vise versa at anytime.
4- If you have a power
failure, or if you turn your computer off at night,
the system will store your orders on the web until you
start your computer again.
5- If you have a system
failure while orders are on your computer before they can
be sent to the lab, they will resume sending as soon as
you reboot.
Install Current Version of
Presentation Gold
eXpress Order requires the
installation of our latest program version 6.1. Click here
Uninstall the current version, install and register the
new one. If you are installing Presentation Gold for the
first time, you will need a Config File from your lab.
Contact your lab for details.
Generally speaking,
your orders are very safe. We have backups on the web.
When you store your images at an off site server you run
exactly the same risks you have in your own computer. In
our case, we have all of your orders stored online and we
can send them to you at anytime.
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Preview Gallery Album Images
Selection Tool
This
is a tool for clients to use to select images for their "Albums". It
is NOT an album design tool for them to layout and design albums.
1f-
if you are an existing Gallery Subscriber:
a. Go to your Back Office, go to your Web Page Editor/Preview
Gallery Homepage.
b. You need to "build the page" again. Just scroll to
the bottom of the page and click the Build Web Site button.
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2f- New Subscribers and existing subscribers who have
re-built their Homepage
a. Go to your Back Office, go to your Web Page Editor/
Homepage, scroll to the bottom of the page
c. You will see a link called "bride-login.php", click
it
d. You will be brought to a "linking" page that will
tell you to click the link to be brought to the Album selection
feature, click the link.
e. This is the next screen you will see:
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f. On the left side you will see the events you selected
to use the Album Selection tool.
g. For a Bride to use this tool YOU must create a username and password for
her to log in to the Album Selection page.
h.
The Album selection system requires a username and password
to enter the system. If you password protect your event,
you must add a special username and password just for
the bride to login to the Album Selection feature (this
special username and password should be after the general
username and password that you would give to others for
simple access to see the event picture).
Then, when you setup the Bride Login, use the same special
username and password that you already setup for just the
bride. (see example below)
i.
In the "Bride's Event ID" box browse to
your Bride's Event Name. When you click the dropdown arrow
all of your events will appear. Select the event you want
to use.
j.
Click "AddLogin".
k. Notify your Bride that the Album Selection System
is active and supply her with the username and password.
What does the Bride have to do to use the system?
1g- Your Bride enters the Gallery just as they did before.
Once they select a category in an their event, they will be brought to
the thumbnail page, as before.
There
is a new "link" in the top right corner
of the thumbnail page: "bride login". They click it
and the password screen appears. They enter their information
and they are brought
to this screen:
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2g- The instructions are there but here is
a review. The Bride can create an Album with any name. Bride Album, My
Album, Sheila (her name) Album, etc...
3g.
They can create albums for themselves and their parents. The parents
can open the albums in their own computers and make their own
selections.
At this time all the album orders are grouped
together when the Bride sends you the album selections. In our studio we
don't allow the clients to submit partial orders, so this system works
for us. But after discussing it with other photographers we realized that
the not all studios have the same workflow.
We
are working on an upgrade that will allow the clients to "select" the
album to send you. That way, if the parents albums are
not ready, you can begin work on the Bride's album.
4g When the Bride is ready to "check out" they click the button and
they are brought to a simple screen that allows them to enter their
name and phone info.
How do you work with an Album
Selections order?
5g-
The order arrives exactly like a regular order from the web. You
open the order in Presentation Gold. This system will not
work with Preview ProLab or Presentation Deluxe.
6g When you open the order, open the Album Designer Module, open the
Image Organizer.
7g Look through the categories in the Image Organizer List. You will
see the categories the Bride created in CAPS.
Also,
you should contact the Bride, let her know you received
the order, confirm her categories, and discuss
any details she feels would make her album "special". Remember...the
personal touch.
8g You are ready to design her album. Her selections are in the Image
Organizer bar, and all of her images are below in the thumbnail bar.
When designing a custom album, you made need to add or change images
to make it flow better. Since all of her images are right there in
the thumbnail bar, the process is made easier.
9g Parent Album orders. If your Bride sent the Parent Album orders,
open the crop screen. Open the Image Organizer, select one of the
Parent Albums. Select "all" of the images in the Organizer. Select a
quantity of "1" from the size/quantity list. Click Order.
You have now ordered 1 5x7 (or whatever
size you sold the client) of each image.
Order the other Parent Albums and crop
the ordered images. When you are finished, send the order to the lab.
If you are using Presentation Gold, you
can go to the Proof Sheet printer and print separate proof sheets for
each album to speed up assembly later.
You can't modify an already uploaded
event- you can't add images, remove images, or change the Prices.
Unlike other web hosting services that take you hours of prep and
upload time, but allow you to do these things- we save you hours
of time, but each event is a complete event. Modifying and event
and re-uploading only takes a few minutes.
You
can't include an "Album
Cover" in an individual image upload. Album Covers
are for Album uploads only.
Please contact us by email, include
a phone number, we do call back if we can't answer a question in
an email: http://www.presentationgold.com/techsupport.htm
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