Every school photographer knows the feeling. You come home from a shoot with six hundred frames, spend the next day or two retouching every one of them, publish the gallery — and then watch the orders come in for maybe a hundred. The other five hundred were edited for nobody.

We have added a way to flip that around. With Hold Orders Until Released switched on, you can publish your gallery straight off the camera, let parents order, and then edit only the photos that actually sold. For a typical school shoot, that turns a full day of retouching into an afternoon.

How it works

When you create a school shoot, tick Hold Orders Until Released. You can also switch it on later from the shoot's details page. Upload your images as they are and publish the gallery as usual — parents browse, choose and pay exactly as they always have.

The difference is what happens next. Nothing is delivered. No digital downloads go out and nothing goes into a print batch. Every order waits on your shoot page, in a new panel called Orders Waiting To Be Released, until you say it is ready.

Getting the right images to edit

Working out which hundred photos out of six hundred actually sold is its own chore, so we do it for you. Press Email Images To Edit and we will email you a download link for each class, containing only the images behind your held orders — digitals and prints together, each photo once, under its original filename so you can find it in your own files straight away.

Edit those, then upload them back into the gallery under the same filenames. Keeping the names the same is what tells us the new file replaces the old one; rename it and the order will still point at the unedited original.

Releasing the orders

Once your edits are uploaded, press Release Orders. The digital downloads are emailed to your customers and the prints go off to the printer, all from the edited versions now in your gallery.

Orders that come in after you release are held again, ready for the next round. So if a few late orders trickle in before the cut-off, simply edit those, press Release again, and only the new ones go out. If you ever switch the setting off, everything still waiting is released in one go — we will warn you before that happens.

What your customers see

Parents order in exactly the same way. The only change is in their order confirmation email, which tells them that you are editing the photos they ordered and that their digital images will be emailed as soon as they are ready. That way nobody is left wondering where their download is.

We do recommend letting your school and parents know up front to expect their photos in two to three weeks rather than straight away. Most people are happy to wait for a better photo — they just like to know the wait is coming.

As always, if you try it out and something does not fit the way you work, we would love to hear about it — get in touch and let us know.