Why we don’t email photos.

I know, it’s crazy. We’re a professional media company, handling thousands of photos and videos on a daily basis. But we don’t email pictures. How can that be?

It can be for exactly that reason: we’re a professional media company, handling thousands of photos and videos on a daily basis. That’s potentially thousands, although more like dozens, of clients on a weekly basis who would like us to send them digital files. Since our job is to make it as easy as possible on our customers, you’d think emailing photos would accomplish that. But you’d be wrong.

How many times have you received a file you couldn’t open, or perhaps it was embedded in a message so you couldn’t save it, or perhaps it was such a large file that it bogged your machine and crashed your program? Whatever the cause, everyone is used to the perils of email, especially when those emails are coupled with important–and often cumbersome–digital photo and video files.

We learned pretty quickly that everyone’s email program is different. It’s hard to diagnose a customer’s computer problems over the phone–especially if you’re a photographer instead of a computer tech. It’s even harder to wonder whether a company’s server will filter a message with attachments as spam, or whether it will block the emails altogether and relegate the sender to the spam blocking list. The point is, when multiplied by all of the customers who want to receive files via email, it becomes an ever-growing nightmare of problems.

To avoid all of those issues, we’ve developed a workaround. For years we’ve been uploading photo and video files and folders via FTP to our web site, and then sending links to our customers via email so that they can click and download the necessary files instantly. We’re still sending files electronically and via email, but we’re circumventing the problems that come with attaching files to email–streamlining the process and making it even easier to download high-resolution, large-megabyte photo and video files, literally anywhere in the world.

This system worked so well that we decided to incorporate it permanently into our new web site, and thanks to a few security upgrades and user interface improvements, it’s now a top notch digital delivery system that we think you’ll love. Here’s how it works:

Visit our web site at www.barlowpro.com. Click the “Client Access” link in the top right corner and enter your login information (provided in the email we’ll send). You’ll be greeted with a page of proofs. If your job included the opportunity to view proofs online, this is where you would see them. Whether or not proofs are involved, when you’re here for high-resolution finished image files you click the “Finals” tab near the center of the screen. This “Finals” page now shows the high resolution photos, videos or folders of files you’re here for. Simply click the icon to view it in your browser window, or click the “Download” link below the image and watch the progress bar move. Simple, right?

In our opinion, no digital delivery system works better than sending a link and downloading the files you need securely from our web site–especially not emailing photos. Instead of wondering where your photo files are hung up in the ether, with this digital delivery system you can not only retrieve files quickly and efficiently, you can forward those files to other users no matter where they are on the planet.

For more information about our new and improved digital delivery options, please visit the Digital Media section of our web site or contact us with your questions.

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