About Pic-A-Shot

Ok, I'm a bit lucky in a way because if I need a bit of software to do something I can write it myself. I often write stuff that is useful for me and then discover that it is also useful for many other people. Pic-A-Shot is a perfect example. Here is the problem I had;

"I would do a photo session and then have the client looking over my shoulder at the computer while trying to decide which images to send off to the lab for printing. Or, I would burn all the pictures onto a CD / DVD in a low quality format to stop them printing reasonable sized prints at home. I found both methods to be a pain in the #^$&."

I'm also a very lazy person so if I can find an easy way to do something I will. I know what you're thinking, writing software isn't lazy because you get to sit down most of the time and it takes months to write and perfect. But in the long term it makes my life easier and therefore it fulfills my desire to be lazy.

So, I put on my thinking cap and came up with a solution and here is the criteria it had to meet;

• Easy to use
• Find all jpg images in a folder
• Encrypt images
• Prevent screen capture
• Multiple print sizes
• Multiple print costs
• Taxes
• Other charges
• E-mail order to me
• Unique identifier for client
• Automatically burn the Distribution CD / DVD
• Client application must auto run

With that in mind I wrote Pic-A-Shot which is now at version 3.0 and has changed dramatically over the past 12 months.

Pic-A-Shot comes in two parts, the first part is the Wizard and is the component used by the Photographer to create a Distribution Package. The second is the Client Application which the client uses to purchase images.

See the Tutorial for more information.