Send a proofing gallery, get picks back

Proofing that comes back as a decision, not a thread

A proofing round usually ends as a mess: a folder of files, an email thread of filenames, and a client who "thinks it was the third one from the top". Sending the gallery as a FileDroppr link replaces all of that with a structured selection. One URL opens the whole set in the browser, on any device, and each reviewer marks every page pick, maybe, or reject right there - so what comes back to you is an answer, page by page, not a paragraph to decode.

The same link is where feedback lives. Instead of "the one with the tree, make it warmer", a reviewer draws a box on the exact frame and pins the comment to it. You open one report and see every annotation grouped by page, next to the pick/maybe/reject tally for that page and the name of whoever left it - the entire round in one place.

How photo proofing works

• Pick, maybe, reject - per page.One image per page works best: each page becomes a unit a reviewer can mark. Every mark updates a live per-page tally so you can watch the shortlist form.
• A breakdown by reviewer.You get more than a total - you see which reviewer chose pick, maybe, or reject on each page, so you can tell the art director from the client and act on the split.
• Named reviewers via invites.Send the gallery to a list and every set of picks arrives with a name attached rather than as anonymous marks - the same email-invite distribution that names your readers.
• Box-and-comment annotations.A reviewer drags a box around the detail and attaches a comment to it; you read them all grouped by page, tagged with who left each one - no account required of the reviewer.
• Selections that persist across visits.A reviewer's marks are saved to them, so proofing can span several sittings and pick up where they left off - and a returning client sees their own shortlist intact.
• Export the selections to CSV.Pull the whole round out as a CSV - every page, every reviewer, every pick/maybe/reject - to hand to the retoucher, the printer, or your own records.
• Watermark and self-destruct the preview.Client previews are proofs, not deliverables: per-viewer watermarking names every page per reviewer, and a self-destructing link lets the whole gallery expire on a view budget or a date once the selection is made.

What the owner actually sees

Your side of a proofing gallery is a single report. Each page shows its pick/maybe/reject tally and, expanded, the individual reviewers behind those marks; each annotation sits under the page it belongs to with the box preserved and the commenter named. The shortlist is whatever you filter to - every page a majority picked, everything one specific client rejected - and the CSV export hands the same data to whoever does the next step.

And because a FileDroppr link is tracked underneath all of it, the selection sits on top of full readership: you know the gallery was opened, which frames held attention longest, and whether a reviewer came back for a second pass before committing - usually the sign a decision is close. None of it stores a reviewer's IP address.