Frequently Asked Questions

Now that, my friend, is one very loaded question indeed!

Here's the Reader's Digest abridged version: PickPic ProofPro is an online proofing experience designed to give you, the photographer, an insane level of control over the online proofing experience extended to your clients. That includes the ability to manage galleries comprised of low-resolution "web-friendly" images and securely accept orders online for the product offerings of your choice. As an extension of those capabilities, it's an absolute snap to offer various discounts and promotions to further drive sales.

A fully-functional demo of ProofPro's gallery and shopping experience is available here. Please keep in mind that some features have been disabled or may not be available due to the nature of a live simulation.

Like its predecessors, you configure everything from within a web browser-based control panel that's just as easy to use and feature-rich as the galleries your clients browse.

Let's face it: Part of the fun of having this much power at your fingertips is the coolness factor in your clients believing that their proofing experience is something you had custom-built. Therefore, we do not place our branding anywhere that your clients can see, except on certain error screens. No "Powered by PickPic" footers, and no active links back to our site. Why would we want to spoil the fun?

(As a side note, when your clients check out and the system switches into secure mode, URLs will change from your own personalized domain to something like "yourphotographystudio.pickpic.net". That's because we're providing you access to our own SSL certificate for use as a ProofPro subscriber.)

ProofPro has been designed to take full advantage of the technologies included within so-called modern web browsers. Like with other web sites delivering cutting-edge features, it is possible that there could be various compatibility issues that affect a very small percentage of your clients, particularly if they're visiting your site with an older web browser.

ProofPro has been tested within the following web browsers:

It should be noted that Internet Explorer 7 will lack some ProofPro features that are available in other browsers.

No, not at this time.

Absolutely — though please keep in mind that ProofPro is currently only available in English-speaking territories. To answer that question though, at last count we have clients in Australia, Canada, Greece, Ireland, Malaysia, Mexico, New Zealand, Panama, Saudi Arabia, Switzerland, and the United Kingdom.

For our non-U.S. friends, we've put together a nice of features to accommodate their distinctive needs. So U.K. shoppers, for example, will be able to enter a "town" instead of "city," view time and date formats in a familiar way, and take comfort in words peppered throughout like "colour," "favourites," and "expiry."

Additionally, ProofPro's gallery and shopping experience has been designed to support non-English languages in the future.

In the future, we may need certain features or upgrades tested beyond the PickPic bullpen. We'll always ask you if you're interested, and we'll never pass off to you something that might knowingly compromise the security of your installation.

Yes, we do. Your hosting includes unlimited low-resolution image uploads (unlimited being images that have been prepped as 1200 pixels longest edge at 72 pixels-per-inch).

Not currently, though ProofPro does support the ability to create prints and products that are based on those offered by WHCC.

First of all, it's important to keep in mind that only low-resolution, "web-friendly" images are used by ProofPro. In order to get images to your lab for printing, ProofPro would need to access the high-res files on your hard drive and facilitate a transfer. Although not currently possible via ProofPro directly, it could certainly be done through other means.

We do currently offer PickPic Photo-ma-tron for Photoshop. Photo-ma-tron is designed to help facilitate image preparation during the order fulfillment process. It can locate your original high-res image files and then create lab versions that are resized, cropped, toned, and bordered.

That all said, the answer to this question will be changing significantly in the future, so watch for additional announcements!

We're always on the lookout for sweet new features that can simplify or enhance the ProofPro experience. Shuffle on over to the "Contact Us" page and submit a feature request. Do it quick before you forget! And make sure you specify under "Subject" that it's a feature suggestion.

Um... so how long have you been trapped in 2003?

ProofPro was designed to simplify your life — not feed your sick masochistic tendencies! The system automatically generates all toning and border previews on-the-fly.

Yup. In ProofPro, you can not only offer custom borders, but you're in total control of the toning options you offer and exactly how they look! Feel like adjusting our sepia? No problem! Wanna create a palladium, cyanotype, or selenium? Knock yourself out!

If you've been around the web block a few times, you've probably figured out that protecting images online is a hard one. The web simply wasn't designed with it in mind. And even if it were, a person could always resort to any number of other means, including screenshots and the like. Your very best protection is to add a persistent watermark to your images.

Yes, ProofPro supports realtime payment processing via popular payment gateways like Authorize.net, Elavon, PayJunction, SkipJack, WorldPay, and others. If you're curious as to whether we support the gateway associated with your particular merchant account, just contact us for the answer.

Yes, ProofPro does support PayPal's Website Payments Standard option — though we still highly recommend considering a regular merchant account and gateway since that generally does not require buyers to completely exit the streamlined ProofPro checkout process to complete the transaction (which unfortunately is the case with PayPal). We've also found that it's more assuring to keep your clients within your site throughout the entire checkout process, considering the level of apprehension many buyers apparently still have in regards to PayPal.

ProofPro is available as a monthly subscription plan. For more info on what all that includes, please visit ProofPro's product page.

We accept Visa, MasterCard, and American Express.

Accounts are usually set up within just a few days.

However, please note that during ProofPro's initial launch period, deployments will take some additional time due to strong demand. We'll have more information about the ProofPro queue during the week of March 8, 2010.

No, ProofPro is a subscription-only service.

As a monthly subscriber, you won't have access to ProofPro's source code.

Unlike proofing services such as SmugMug and Pictage, you won't pay commissions to us on a per-order basis. That's because you use your own merchant account (or PayPal) in conjunction with ProofPro to process payments. As a result, we don't have to skim off as much as 18% every time you receive an order.

Additionally, you are not bound to fulfill orders through any one lab or vendor. ProofPro proudly maintains the spirit of its predecessors by granting you total flexibility in fulfilling orders yourself. That committment will remain in place, even when optional WHCC integration arrives.

Of course, we would recommend a third party, specifically PickPic ProofPro. But beyond the most obvious reason (duh, you're at pickpic.com), there are other considerations to think about.

The resources needed for continual development and support of an online proofing system on the magnitude of ProofPro is expensive business. It's a very serious commitment on the part of a developer to offer this kind of service and pledge to carry it forward with feature updates and bug fixes.

Most web designers will not have those resources, nor will they possess the experience needed to manage such an endeavor.

And then there's the very serious question of whether or not it's wise to rely on your web designer for something as mission-critical like proofing, especially should you hire a new designer in the future. Will you get the same level of support for your proofing as you did when you were a design client? Or will the designer relegate you to their low-priority list? We'd like to think they'd be ethical about it, but our experience on this front has not been the most encouraging.

ProofPro doesn't run from your own computer, instead working its magic from a web hosting server.

ProofPro removes the mystery in that by eliminating the hassle of a separate FTP program. Instead, you'll use our nifty new desktop app to faciliate image transfers.

As a current PickPic 3 user, we're offering special migration discounts on your first year of ProofPro. For exact pricing, visit the "Sign Up" page and choose the appropriate option from the pulldown menu.