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Suggestions on what media to use to delivery pictures and videos to clients

Fly Addie Fly

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Hi Everyone,
I am looking for suggestions on the best ways to delivery photos and videos to clients. Email of course would be ideal but the files are too large to just email. I thought about buying thumb drives but that can become expensive in the long run. Also, considering the price of the service is important for me since all I've done for the past four months is spend money on my drone business.
 
You have lots of options depending on what you want the final product to be.

DropBox is probably the easiest but it's a bit "clunky".
I've used HighTail for a few years and it's simple yet looks a pinch more refined than DropBox
I'm currently using HDPhotohub for all Real Estate photo/video delivery because it allows me to create a custom Website for each listing and provides flyers, Social Media Content, and teaser videos for each listing for VERY cheap.

I used thumbdrives for a few years but electronic delivery is much better and doesn't "get lost" like a thumbdrive can.
 
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I use google drive, then share the finished product with the client. What software are you using for post?
Adobe
I use google drive, then share the finished product with the client. What software are you using for post?
Hey Perry, I am using Adobe Premier Pro, not too user friendly. What software do you prefer to edit with?
 
Google Business Tools are very easy to use, free, and many small businesses use them.

When I onboard a new client, I create a shared folder for them on Google Drive. I also share my company Google Cal and my Contacts vCard. Once they have these:

1. New jobs, they just send me a Cal invite with the date/time/location/info. If I'm available I accept, if not propose new time. Job=Booked.
2. I create a sub-folder in their Google Drive folder for the location and upload all docs and images to it when done. Send them an email or text letting them know.
3. Generate an Invoice with PayPal Business and send it to them. They can (and usually do) pay with a credit card. Processing costs and fees are figured into my pricing structure.

About 80% of my business is done this way. Quick, easy, simple.

I use Lightroom for Post images and Final Cut Pro for video. (I'm all Apple)
 
Google Business Tools are very easy to use, free, and many small businesses use them.

When I onboard a new client, I create a shared folder for them on Google Drive. I also share my company Google Cal and my Contacts vCard. Once they have these:

1. New jobs, they just send me a Cal invite with the date/time/location/info. If I'm available I accept, if not propose new time. Job=Booked.
2. I create a sub-folder in their Google Drive folder for the location and upload all docs and images to it when done. Send them an email or text letting them know.
3. Generate an Invoice with PayPal Business and send it to them. They can (and usually do) pay with a credit card. Processing costs and fees are figured into my pricing structure.

About 80% of my business is done this way. Quick, easy, simple.

I use Lightroom for Post images and Final Cut Pro for video. (I'm all Apple)
Thank you...I will try doing as you said. Fred, do you have to have special subscription with google to have a Cal or vCard?
 
No, just create an account under your business name. I have a personal account and a business account. The only difference is my personal account has my personal info, while the business account is setup with business info. Plus, there's quite a number of additional tools you can use to manage your Google Business info and your website.
 
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Adobe

Hey Perry, I am using Adobe Premier Pro, not too user friendly. What software do you prefer to edit with?
I use Corel, less expensive, I know how to use it, and I'm cheap. Premier is excellent and I think that is what most of the professionals us.

I do very few videos anymore, most everything I do now is mapping, panos, and some stills.
 
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Good suggestion on Google Drive. I never think about that. For some videos I create an unlisted YouTube, but Google Drive seems more secure.

For video you can do almost everything with the free version of Davinci Resolve 17.
 
For simple editing, if you are already familiar Adobe products stay with Premiere. If you want to gear more toward cinematography, then I would suggest DaVinci Resolve. The free edition has most of the functionality of the paid edition except for some effects plug-ins and a few other things (plus you can usually buy it and get a free speed editor board which is the same price as the software). It's a larger learning curve but there are tons of training videos on the Black Magic site as well as certification courses. I've been using Photoshop for almost 30 years so I'm well aware of what I can do with it. I pair that and Da Vinci for video (unless I need just a quick throw together edit, then I do that in Premiere Pro).
 
While there are lots of YouTubes on how to use Resolve, I recommend this very inexpensive course on Udemy. The author has a bit of an accent but is understandable. He takes you from the most beginning level to some of the most advanced features. I had been using Resolve for 2 years, but still learned a great deal from his course.

https://www.udemy.com/share/101WLa3...twODPCMDnq2D5pUq3Broa9wbUfppHIZ1-8dtP0zzy4db/
 
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Hi Everyone,
I am looking for suggestions on the best ways to delivery photos and videos to clients. Email of course would be ideal but the files are too large to just email. I thought about buying thumb drives but that can become expensive in the long run. Also, considering the price of the service is important for me since all I've done for the past four months is spend money on my drone business.
I also use Google Drive for delivering products. I zip still images up for single file delivery - all the client has to do is download, right-click and extract all files. Over time, I have learned that the bigger issue is upload speed. A recent virtual tour, with panos shot on a DSLR, was over 30Gb and took hours to upload. If I had produced the tour, it would have been final images only - but the client wanted to process the RAW, bracketed files for himself. When fiber internet (Ting) came to town, we jumped on it. That same upload only takes a few minutes with fiber speeds. Video files can be quite large, as you know. So that becomes an annoyance of its own. Whatever delivery route you choose, be prepared with a brief tutorial for your clients who may be less tech savvy. And if you deliver products destined for the MLS, or similar sites with branding rules, make sure you know those rules! Yesterday, I processed a 360-degree aerial image with multiple textual annotations that denoted local points of interest in the photo. When the image was linked as an MLS tour link by my host (Ricoh 360 Tours), all of the annotations were stripped, making it much less useful. Took me an hour to figure a workaround...
Best of luck with your business!
 
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Hi Everyone,
I am looking for suggestions on the best ways to delivery photos and videos to clients. Email of course would be ideal but the files are too large to just email. I thought about buying thumb drives but that can become expensive in the long run. Also, considering the price of the service is important for me since all I've done for the past four months is spend money on my drone business.
Hi Addie,

I'm enjoying reading your posts because we are at about the same stage of our gig development (side gig for me).

I have struggled getting content to clients electronically. Even the ones I deem tech-savvy run into problems with firewalls on their companies' networks, and things like that. I now do everything by flash drive unless otherwise requested. I have found some good sales on bulk packs of 16GB flash drives at Office Depot. There is even an option that I haven't tried yet, where they will print your company logo on the flash drives, and they actually work out cheaper than just buying the off-the-shelf ones.

I think there is some benefit to seeing your client in person when delivering the finished product, too. I know it takes more time, but when practical, I think it's a nice touch. I've actually received a couple free lunches and beers this way! Depending on the job, this also sets up the opportunity to be paid in cash... I'll leave it at that. :)

As for photo editing software (from a later post), I like Lightroom. The cloud version is great because I can go between devices and have my library available on all. I use an iPad Mini 6 with my drone, and started playing with editing on it, since I can do it on the couch, or wherever. I thought the screen would be too small, but it works great. It is my go-to now. The Apple Pencil is very useful for editing, too.

For video editing, I have tried Premier Pro, DiVinci Resolve, and others. I am not an Apple die hard, and actually prefer Android and PC, but for certain things, Apple just wins. I found Resolve to have a steep learning curve and is very resource demanding of computers for editing and rendering. It is also loaded with features I will never need, but add to the complexity of navigating the app. Even my Macbook Pro will not cleanly scrub through video, and takes a long time to render. I even built up my Dell laptop with a powerful processor, 32GB RAM, and a decent video card, and it is still struggles with certain video processing tasks.

Incredibly, I downloaded Lumafusion on my iPad, and it is awesome! Editing is very intuitive and the processor in the iPad Mini 6 rocks it effortlessly. I can smoothly scrub through clips, and rendering takes about 1/4 the time it does on my PC or Mac. It doesn't have as many features as PP or Resolve, but plenty to suit my needs. It can even be set up with an external monitor where you manage all the controls on the tablet and display the video window on the monitor. I can edit video much faster on this setup using the Apple Pencil than I can on my Mac or PC.

Okay, my two cents worth turned into more of a buck-fifty, LOL! Good luck in your venture!
 
Two problems with jump drives. If your client is some distance from you then you will need to mail the drive. Secondly many government agencies have computers with no USB ports. Also many administrators will not allow jump drives within their corporations.
I have only had one client that had problems retrieving photos from google drive. She seemed technically challenged.
 
Hi Everyone,
I am looking for suggestions on the best ways to delivery photos and videos to clients. Email of course would be ideal but the files are too large to just email. I thought about buying thumb drives but that can become expensive in the long run. Also, considering the price of the service is important for me since all I've done for the past four months is spend money on my drone business.
I generally use Dropbox. Amazon Clouddrive is a reliable and inexpensive solution for files under 2GB. Here in Florida, you can deliver your imagery electronically without collecting or paying states sales tax. If you deliver a physical product to your client, e.g. a thumb drive, state sales tax applies.
 
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Every solution named here is spot on. They cover just about every one out there. Hence, this suggested business practice:

Ask the client how they want to receive the data.

As noted above, firewalls and other security protocols may prevent a client from tapping Google Drive, One Drive and the others. For example, LatLongUAS is working with a large-scale organization here in DC. It provided me a link to upload to THEIR hosting service.

Again, ask questions. Shows professionalism, tech savvy, client-focus, etc. all things good clients value and for which they pay more.
 
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Hi Addie,

I'm enjoying reading your posts because we are at about the same stage of our gig development (side gig for me).

I have struggled getting content to clients electronically. Even the ones I deem tech-savvy run into problems with firewalls on their companies' networks, and things like that. I now do everything by flash drive unless otherwise requested. I have found some good sales on bulk packs of 16GB flash drives at Office Depot. There is even an option that I haven't tried yet, where they will print your company logo on the flash drives, and they actually work out cheaper than just buying the off-the-shelf ones.

I think there is some benefit to seeing your client in person when delivering the finished product, too. I know it takes more time, but when practical, I think it's a nice touch. I've actually received a couple free lunches and beers this way! Depending on the job, this also sets up the opportunity to be paid in cash... I'll leave it at that. :)

As for photo editing software (from a later post), I like Lightroom. The cloud version is great because I can go between devices and have my library available on all. I use an iPad Mini 6 with my drone, and started playing with editing on it, since I can do it on the couch, or wherever. I thought the screen would be too small, but it works great. It is my go-to now. The Apple Pencil is very useful for editing, too.

For video editing, I have tried Premier Pro, DiVinci Resolve, and others. I am not an Apple die hard, and actually prefer Android and PC, but for certain things, Apple just wins. I found Resolve to have a steep learning curve and is very resource demanding of computers for editing and rendering. It is also loaded with features I will never need, but add to the complexity of navigating the app. Even my Macbook Pro will not cleanly scrub through video, and takes a long time to render. I even built up my Dell laptop with a powerful processor, 32GB RAM, and a decent video card, and it is still struggles with certain video processing tasks.

Incredibly, I downloaded Lumafusion on my iPad, and it is awesome! Editing is very intuitive and the processor in the iPad Mini 6 rocks it effortlessly. I can smoothly scrub through clips, and rendering takes about 1/4 the time it does on my PC or Mac. It doesn't have as many features as PP or Resolve, but plenty to suit my needs. It can even be set up with an external monitor where you manage all the controls on the tablet and display the video window on the monitor. I can edit video much faster on this setup using the Apple Pencil than I can on my Mac or PC.

Okay, my two cents worth turned into more of a buck-fifty, LOL! Good luck in your venture!
There is one feature in Resolve preferences (the gear at the bottom right) that allows you to Render your media to a lesser resolution for editing, such as quarter resolution. If you do this it puts less demand on your PC. When your editing is complete you have have an option to not use that pre-rendered resolution and revert to full resolution to render your work to the finished MP4 or QuickTime format.
 

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