we're planning on rolling out a "direct download" option to vend.  you will be able to control the size and quantity.  the image processing will most likely be off-loaded to an external (intothedarkroom) processing server.  we'll supply more information once we determine a roadmap!

brian, we had an offline conversation, and i am going to make that available here about what and why to hopefully add to the discussion.

"agreed, that would be sweet.  and it was originally going to be the only option [for vend].  vend was supposed to be an electronic cart only.  but right now, impossible.  because we allow people to install our products on any hosting platform, this is not an option.  we have to develop for the lowest common denominator, and that means that the [many] of our clients are using sub-par shared hosting platforms.  to enable server-based resizing of high-resolution photos requires a server capable of crunching that kind of data.  we're still having issues with people having enough power to crunch web size versions for thumbnails."

@Brian -- i couldn't have said it better.  but i'll try ;)

clearly, this -- along with some other great ideas that (like this one) are massive undertakings -- is very popular.  and i agree with everyone.  it's a great idea, and like i have said before, frankly, i think it's the only way to go in this digital day and age.  so, rest assured, it's in the development pipeline.  but this isn't something we can just shoe-horn in.  there are quite a *few* elephants in the room on this particular subject.  so before i say i can't give you the ETA and why, let's take a moment and looks at the roadmap for Vend:

the first issue is that we are currently working on post-production tools.  if you have vend, you would have received an email about getting feedback.  to us, having post-production completes the life-cycle of the product -- from the photographer installing, to users ordering, to orders being fulfilled.  and clearly -- i think everyone will agree here -- once that cycle is finished, we need to develop a tablet/mobile interface.  unfortunately, once we do that, the development (from our side) gets forked into two different projects, since the mobile version will (and should be) a slightly different experience.  that forking will add significant time to adding major functionality ... like direct downloads.

so what's the ETA?  I can't give you one.  it all depends on how the next two major updates go.  but rest assured, we are continually working to improve this product.  we do have a plan.  we are committed to bring you the best photo cart on the market - and a product that is rock-solid.  A product that is totally secure.  A product that once installed, everyone can use all the features.

with that said, allow me to point out the biggest elephant in the room:  hosting. 

Vend is being sold to scores of photographers in all the corners of the globe, and is installed on as many different configurations of webservers.  I can tell you right now, with absolute certainty, that if we were to offer direct downloads tomorrow, most users would be left without the ability to use it.  offering direct downloads -- meaning making the files available to your purchasers instantly after purchase -- means uploading enormous amounts of data to a server.  as the developer, and as the highest tier of support in our company, i have seen photographers with over 2000 images in one set.  lets say each high-rez image is 5mb (a very conservative number) -- that's approximately 10gb.  one look at European hosting (http://www.ovh.co.uk/shared_hosting/) and you can see how that might be impossible for many users outside of the US.  but even if you are in the US and you think you have "unlimited" hosting on your shared server -- it's not really unlimited -- you are probably capped at 250,000 inodes (http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Inode) -- so while the data storage itself is unlimited, the number of files and folders you can have are not.  look into it if you're on a shared server.  it's the reason why we use zip files in vend, because we're looking out for you. 

all these files, all this data -- and we havent even talked about *crunching* those images yet.  unless your server has imagemagik, it won't have the resources to chop down a 10mb image into a 600dpi 4x6 in sepia.  and even if it does have imagemagick, will your shared hosting provider allow you to consume all those resources?  can it do a loop through a couple hundred files without the process being shut down?  not to mention that now we're effectively doubling (or tripling depending on how many orders) the required storage space because we have to create new files and folders for each order -- meaning more disk space and more inodes consumed.

the clear answer to all this, and where i'm leading up to, is that this feature -- if indeed it is to be completely automated -- is going to require cloud hosting and cloud computing if we're going to make it available to everyone.  and that is why this particular feature is going to take a while before it becomes a reality.

so to recap:  it's a great idea.  we have given it a lot of thought.  your server probably isn't capable of handling it.  when we do offer this feature, it will likely be cloud based.  we're on it -- just wait longer.

hopefully that sheds some light on this topic, gives you some answers as to where it fits in the pipeline, and some what's and why's involved.  i do want to thank everyone for your continued enthusiasm about vend -- we are listening, and we do care.  thanks for being our customers!

@pamela - you're welcome!  and thanks for understanding.

@brian - they will be available.  it's what we're working on -- how do we offload the work?  obviously cloud storage and cloud processing isn't free, so we need to figure that out.  it will likely be something along the lines of "sign up for rackspace/amazon/etc cloud storage and enter your token here" kind of thing.  the nice thing is if we move storage and processing to the cloud, it will free up your shared hosting to do it's job of delivering the interface.

just to update -- we usually try to release a major update to vend about every six months (in addition to smaller requests).  right now, it's all about tablets, and getting our non-flash/html5 version up and running (and it's looking sweet!).  either this or post production integration will be next up.