watchDirectory

Foto Systems is a professional photolab in Gouda (Holland). With the fast rise of digital photography, it was necessary to adapt the workflow in the lab to the constantly rising supply of digital photographs. In the last few years we have invested a lot of money in 'branch specific software'. In the course of time however it became clear that a lot of recurring tasks still had to be done manually.

After searching for a solution for a while we found that there was no standard answer to our specific demands. Of course we could have hired a software firm to create a custom-made program to fit our needs, but as you know this is extremely expensive. Furthermore any future alteration would cost even more money.

Then we accidentally stumbled across the website of watchDirectory and found a partial solution to our problem. After a short email exchange with the people from watchDirectory, they pointed out to us the infinite possibilities of this program and now our demands are completely satisfied.

After a few months of running watchDirectory on three of our servers, without watchDirectory taking up too much memory or processor time (CPU), already 500.000 files have been fully automatically processed by watchDirectory. Without any crash, error or human intervention our FTP and internet servers are monitored by watchDirectory 24 hours a day, 7 days a week.

Incoming files are checked on colorspace and if necessary converted; previews for the database are generated; safety copies are made and by means of productcodes adaptations in the database are executed depending on the customer's order.

Thanks to watchDirectory we have managed to bring the quality of our product to a higher level and our workflow has been completely automized. All this for a price not worth mentioning. If you find yourself doing the same thing for few minutes every day, recouping this investment is possible within a month. As for us watchDirectory has saved us at least one full-time job.

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