As professional photographers, our job doesn’t end when we press the shutter. In many ways, the click is just the beginning. The final, crucial step of our service is delivering the images. This is our “final handshake” with the client. Choosing the right client gallery platform is a huge part of that. It shapes your brand, your client’s experience, and, most importantly, your workflow.
Key Takeaways
- A Gallery is a Workflow, Not Just a Link: The best gallery solution is one that fits seamlessly into your post-production process. A disconnected gallery adds hours of extra work.
- Start Your Delivery from Your Editing App: The most efficient workflow connects your editing software directly to your client gallery. This saves you from the slow “export-then-upload” grind.
- Integrate to Save Time: We’ll explore how platforms like Imagen are changing the game. They let you cull, edit, and then deliver to a gallery (like Pic-Time) all from one desktop app. This is a massive time-saver.
- Core Features to Judge: A great gallery is more than just pretty. It needs strong features for branding, client proofing, print sales, security, and marketing.
- Objectivity is Key: We will look at several popular platforms functionally. The “best” one depends entirely on your specific needs, whether that’s e-commerce, simple proofing, or brand customization.
Your Gallery Is More Than a Gallery. It’s Your Workflow.
Let’s talk shop for a minute. We’ve all been there. You just finished a long wedding edit. You’re happy with the images. Your editing software is closed. Now what?
For too many of us, the process looks like this:
- Export: You export 800 high-resolution JPEGs to a folder on your hard drive. This takes a while.
- Log In: You open your web browser and log in to your standalone gallery service.
- Create: You create a new gallery, set a password, and design the cover.
- Upload: You start uploading all 800 JPEGs. This takes hours. You can’t close your computer.
- Organize: Once uploaded, you might have to organize them into “Getting Ready” or “Ceremony” folders.
- Send: Finally, you send the link to your client.
This entire process is friction. It’s a bulky, slow, and frustrating part of our job. It’s a workflow bottleneck.
The “best” client gallery isn’t just the one that looks the prettiest to the client. The best solution is one that removes this bottleneck. It’s a platform that understands your gallery is the final step of your post-production, not a separate task that comes after.
This is why integration is no longer a “nice-to-have.” It is essential. The ideal workflow is one where your editing application “talks” directly to your client gallery. You should be able to finish your edits and click a “deliver” button right there in the app you are already using.
Starting at the Source: Delivering from Your Editing Workflow
This brings me to a key part of my own post-production: Imagen. As a professional photographer, my workflow is my business. Every minute I save on a repetitive task is a minute I can spend shooting, finding new clients, or just plain living my life.
Many photographers know Imagen for its AI-powered culling and editing. I use it for that every day. It’s a desktop app that works with my Lightroom Classic catalogs. Its AI culling saves me hours sorting through thousands of photos. Then, its Personal AI Profile, which learned my unique editing style, applies my look consistently across an entire wedding in minutes. It’s a huge time-saver.
But here is what many photographers miss: Imagen isn’t just a culling and editing tool. It’s a complete post-production platform. And that includes the final step: delivery.
This is the part that solves the workflow problem I mentioned earlier. Imagen has a “Deliver Photos” feature built right into the desktop app. It’s designed to connect your finished edits directly to a client gallery.
Here’s how it works:
- Finish Your Project: After I cull a project and apply my Personal AI Profile for editing, I download the edits back to my Lightroom Classic catalog. I do a quick review and make any final creative tweaks.
- Upload Final Edits (Optional): If I’ve made tweaks, I can use the “Imagen” app to “Upload Final Edits.” This helps my Personal AI Profile keep learning and fine-tuning itself to my style.
- Deliver: Now, instead of exporting, I go to my project in the Imagen app. I click the “Deliver Photos” option.
- Connect to Gallery: Imagen integrates directly with Pic-Time, a very popular and powerful client gallery platform. I’ve already connected my Pic-Time account inside Imagen.
- Publish: I choose to “Publish to a Pic-Time gallery.” I can create a new gallery right from the Imagen app. I give it a name, and Imagen handles the rest. It exports the final JPEGs and publishes them directly to the new gallery in my Pic-Time account.
There is no “export-then-upload” bottleneck. I click “Deliver” in my post-production app, and a few minutes later, the gallery is live and ready for me to share with my client.
This is what I mean by a “workflow-first” approach. Imagen acts as the hub. It brings culling, editing, and delivery into a single, efficient platform. It’s a standalone solution for editing that also integrates as part of a broader platform for delivery. This lets me use a best-in-class tool for AI editing (Imagen) and a best-in-class tool for client experience (Pic-Time) as if they were one program.
Now, this doesn’t mean Imagen is a client gallery. It’s the engine that delivers to the gallery. You still need a great gallery platform to host the images and interact with your client.
So, let’s look at what makes a gallery platform “great” in the first place.
What Makes a Great Client Gallery Platform? A Core Criteria Checklist
When I’m evaluating a gallery platform, I break it down into several key areas. Here is my personal checklist.
1. Client Experience and UI Design
This is the first thing your client sees. It has to be good.
- Modern & Clean: Does the gallery feel current? Or does it look like a website from 2005? The design reflects your brand.
- Intuitive: Can your client (and their grandma) figure out how to find photos, download them, and buy prints? If you get emails asking “how do I download?”, your gallery has a bad user interface (UI).
- Fast: Galleries must load quickly, even with hundreds of photos. Slow-loading images will frustrate your clients.
- Mobile-First: Most clients will open your gallery on their phone first. It must look and work beautifully on a mobile device.
2. Branding and Customization
The gallery should look like your business, not the gallery company’s.
- Your Logo & Colors: Can you add your own logo? Can you change the gallery colors to match your brand palette?
- Custom Domain: This is a big one. Does the link look like client.yourname.com or galleryplatform.com/yourname? A custom domain is far more professional.
- Layouts: Do you have options for how the photos are displayed? Can you use different grid styles (e.g., masonry, single-column) to help tell a story?
- White-Labeling: Can you remove all of the gallery platform’s branding (e.g., “Powered by…”)? True white-labeling makes it feel like you built the software yourself.
3. Proofing, Favorites, and Communication
This is the “working” part of the gallery. It’s how you and your client make selections.
- Favorites Lists: Can your client create a “favorites” list? This is essential for wedding photographers (“Pick 50 for the album”) and portrait photographers (“Pick 10 for retouching”).
- Commenting: Can the client leave a comment on a specific photo? This is much better than getting an email saying, “On the 34th photo, can you remove the sign in the background?”
- Guest Access: Can the client share the gallery with family, but keep their own “favorites” list private? Can you control what guests can and cannot do (e.g., guests can buy prints but not download originals)?
- Simple Proofing: How easy is it for the client to “approve” the gallery or send their selections back to you?
4. E-Commerce and Print Fulfillment
This is where your gallery stops being a cost and starts being a revenue source.
- Integrated Print Labs: Does the platform connect directly to a professional print lab (like WHCC, Miller’s, or Loxley Colour)? This is “print fulfillment.” A client orders, the lab prints and ships it, and you get paid. It’s passive income.
- Self-Fulfillment: If you prefer to use your own local lab, can you set that up? This means you get the order, you send it to your lab, and you handle the shipping.
- Storefront: Is the store easy for clients to use? Can they see mockups of their photo on a canvas or in a frame? A good store encourages sales.
- Product Variety: Can you sell more than just prints? What about canvases, metal prints, albums, and digital downloads (e.g., “Buy the full-res file for $10”)?
- Commission & Fees: How do you get paid? Does the platform take a cut of your sales (e.g., 15% commission) on top of your monthly fee? Or do you just pay the base cost of the print?
5. Digital Downloads and Security
This is all about delivering the files securely.
- Download Options: Can you control how clients download? Can you offer high-resolution for print and web-size for social media?
- Gallery & File Security: Is the gallery password-protected? Can you add a second layer of security, like an email-only login?
- Watermarking: Can you automatically apply a (hopefully subtle) watermark to the photos in the gallery? Can you set it so the watermark is removed when a client buys or downloads the image?
- Download Tracking: Can you see who downloaded the photos and when?
6. Marketing and Automation
A smart gallery works for you even after delivery.
- Email Automation: Can the gallery automatically send emails to clients or guests? Think “Your gallery is expiring in 7 days” or “Here’s a 20% off coupon for your first print order.”
- Coupon Codes: Can you easily create discount codes to encourage print sales? (e.g., “BLACKFRIDAY” for 30% off).
- Visitor Analytics: Can you see how many people viewed the gallery? This helps you know if the client has actually seen the images.
7. Storage and Pricing
What are you paying for?
- Storage Limits: How much storage do you get for your monthly fee? Is it 100GB or is it unlimited?
- Gallery Expiration: Do you have to manually archive old galleries to save space?
- Pricing Tiers: Are the pricing plans fair? Do they lock essential features (like the print store) behind the most expensive plan?
- Commission-Free Sales: As mentioned, do you get to keep 100% of the profit (minus print cost) from your sales? Many platforms offer “0% commission” plans.
Section Summary
That’s a long list, right? It shows that a “client gallery” is actually a complex, powerful tool. It’s your proofing hub, your print shop, your marketing engine, and your brand’s front door.
A Functional Look at Popular Client Gallery Platforms
Now that we have our criteria, let’s look at some of the most popular platforms in the industry.
I am going to be objective here. As my workflow is built around Imagen, my personal choice is a platform that integrates with it. But your needs might be different. I’ll give a “dry,” functional description of each, based on the criteria we just discussed.
Pic-Time
- Overview: Pic-Time is a client gallery platform known for its modern, visual-first design and its powerful, integrated marketing tools.
- Functional Features:
- UI/Branding: It offers highly visual, customizable layouts (e.g., scrolling, grids) that are mobile-friendly. It allows for custom branding and custom domains.
- E-Commerce: The platform has a very robust e-commerce system. It features an extensive built-in print store with a large variety of products (prints, albums, frames) from many international labs. It also has a drag-and-drop album proofing tool.
- Marketing: A key part of Pic-Time is its marketing automation. You can build complex, automated email and coupon campaigns (e.g., “Holiday Sale,” “Abandoned Cart”) to drive print sales.
- Integration: This is the key for me. Pic-Time has a direct integration with Imagen, allowing for that “deliver” workflow I described. It also has a Lightroom plugin for uploading.
Pixieset
- Overview: Pixieset is a very popular platform, often chosen by photographers for its combination of simplicity, elegance, and a strong set of features.
- Functional Features:
- UI/Branding: Known for its clean, minimalist, and easy-to-navigate gallery design. It’s very user-friendly for clients. It offers good branding customization and custom domains.
- E-Commerce: Pixieset has an integrated storefront for print fulfillment, connecting with professional labs. It allows for selling prints, canvases, and other products. It also supports self-fulfillment.
- Ecosystem: Pixieset has expanded to be an “all-in-one” solution. Beyond galleries, it offers a Website builder, a Studio Manager (for contracts, invoices, and questionnaires), and a mobile app for photographers.
- Integration: Pixieset offers a Lightroom plugin to upload photos directly from Lightroom Classic.
ShootProof
- Overview: ShootProof is a well-established platform that focuses heavily on the business and sales side of photography, integrating galleries with studio management tools.
- Functional Features:
- UI/Branding: Provides customizable gallery layouts that can be branded with a logo and colors. It supports custom domains.
- E-Commerce: Has a strong focus on e-commerce, with print fulfillment from multiple pro labs. It gives photographers a high degree of control over their price lists and product options. It also has strong invoicing and self-fulfillment tools.
- Studio Management: This is a core strength. ShootProof integrates contracts, invoicing, and payment processing directly with its galleries. This is useful for photographers who want one tool to manage the booking and delivery process.
- Integration: ShootProof also provides a Lightroom plugin for uploading.
SmugMug
- Overview: SmugMug is one of the original photo-hosting platforms. It is known for its unlimited, secure storage and its ability to serve as both a client gallery and a public-facing portfolio.
- Functional Features:
- Storage: A main feature is unlimited, full-resolution photo (and video) storage on all its plans. This is a significant factor for photographers with massive archives.
- UI/Branding: It is highly customizable, acting as a full website and portfolio builder with drag-and-drop tools. It can function as your main business website.
- E-Commerce: It has a built-in print store with print fulfillment from several labs. Clients can order prints and other products directly from the galleries.
- Security: SmugMug has very granular privacy and security controls, allowing you to control exactly who sees which galleries and photos. It’s also a robust backup solution.
Section Summary
As you can see, each platform has a different focus. Pic-Time focuses on marketing and modern design. Pixieset focuses on simplicity and an all-in-one ecosystem. ShootProof focuses on studio management and sales. SmugMug focuses on unlimited storage and portfolio building.
And for my workflow, Imagen focuses on the start of the process—culling and editing—and provides the bridge to the end of the process—delivery.
How to Choose the Right Gallery for Your Business: A 4-Step Guide
Feeling overwhelmed? That’s normal. Let’s build a simple framework to help you decide.
Step 1: Define Your Primary Goal
You can’t choose the right tool until you know the job. What is your number one priority for a gallery? Be honest.
- Is it E-commerce? If your main goal is to sell a lot of prints and albums, you need a platform with a beautiful store, 0% commission, and automated marketing tools. (e.g., Pic-Time).
- Is it Simplicity? If you just want a beautiful, simple way to deliver files and you don’t care about selling prints, you need a clean, easy-to-use platform. (e.g., Pixieset).
- Is it Business Management? If you want one platform to handle contracts, invoices, and delivery, you need an integrated studio manager. (e.g., ShootProof).
- Is it Storage & Backup? If you are a high-volume shooter terrified of hard drive failure, your priority might be unlimited, secure storage. (e.g., SmugMug).
Step 2: Evaluate Your Current Workflow
This is the most important step. Look at your desk. What software are you already using?
- Do you use Lightroom Classic? If so, you’ll want a gallery that at least has a Lightroom plugin. This saves you the “export-then-upload” step.
- Do you use (or want to use) Imagen? If you use Imagen for culling and editing, your workflow becomes dramatically more efficient if you choose a gallery that Imagen connects to. Right now, that’s Pic-Time. This creates a true, end-to-end post-production workflow.
Your gallery should fit into your workflow. You should not have to change your workflow to fit your gallery.
Step 3: Compare Pricing Models
Look at the total cost, not just the monthly fee.
- Tiers: Look at the different plans. Does the free or cheapest plan have what you need? Or does it hold back the one feature you must have (like custom domains)?
- Storage: Will you outgrow the 100GB plan in six months? Be realistic about how much you shoot. An “unlimited” plan might be cheaper in the long run than paying for overage fees.
- Commission: This is the hidden cost. A “cheaper” $10/month plan that takes a 15% commission on all your sales is much more expensive than a $25/month plan with 0% commission if you sell just a few hundred dollars in prints.
Step 4: Run a Free Trial (As a Client)
You can’t know what a gallery feels like until you use it. Sign up for a free trial for your top 2-3 choices.
- Upload one small, complete gallery.
- Send the gallery link to yourself.
- Open it on your phone.
- Try to find a photo.
- Try to create a “favorites” list.
- Try to download a single web-size photo.
- Try to buy a 4×6 print.
Was it easy? Was it beautiful? Or was it confusing? This 15-minute test will tell you more than any review article (even this one) ever can.
Conclusion: Your Gallery Is Your Final Bow
Your client gallery is the last thing your clients experience from your service. It’s the box that holds the gift you’ve spent so much time creating. It should be beautiful, professional, and easy to open.
But for you, the photographer, it’s also a business tool. It’s your storefront, your proofing desk, and a critical part of your workflow.
For me, the “best” solution is one that values my time. By combining the AI culling and editing power of Imagen with its direct-to-gallery delivery feature, I’ve eliminated the single biggest bottleneck in my post-production. This lets me spend less time uploading and more time shooting. And at the end of the day, that’s the whole point.
Frequently Asked Questions (FAQ)
1. What is a client gallery for photographers? A client gallery is a private, online web gallery where you deliver final, edited photos to your client. It allows them to view, proof, share, download, and often purchase prints and other products from their photo session.
2. Why can’t I just use Dropbox or Google Drive to deliver photos? You can, but it’s not a professional experience. Those are file-sharing services. A client gallery is a presentation and sales platform. It’s branded to you, it’s designed for viewing images beautifully, and it allows you to sell prints, which you cannot do with Dropbox.
3. What is “print fulfillment”? Print fulfillment is when your client gallery is connected directly to a professional print lab. Your client can order a print from your gallery, the lab receives the order automatically, and then the lab prints, packages, and ships the product directly to your client. You do nothing but collect the profit.
4. Do I have to pay a commission on my print sales? It depends on the platform and your plan. Many platforms offer “0% commission” plans, which are usually a bit more expensive per month. Cheaper plans often take a commission (e.g., 10-15%) from your sales.
5. How important is using a custom domain for my gallery? It’s very important for branding. Sending a client to photos.yourname.com looks far more professional and builds more trust than sending them to pixieset.com/yourname123.
6. What does “proofing” mean in a gallery? Proofing is the process of the client reviewing and selecting their final images. A good gallery has tools for this, like letting a client create a “favorites” list and send it to you, or leave comments on specific photos for retouching.
7. Can Imagen replace my client gallery platform? No. Imagen is a post-production application, not a gallery hosting platform. It doesn’t host the final gallery for your client. Instead, Imagen integrates with a gallery platform (Pic-Time) to make the delivery of photos from your computer to the gallery seamless and fast.
8. What’s the best client gallery for selling prints? Platforms with the strongest e-commerce features are generally best for sales. Look for features like automated marketing campaigns, a beautiful and simple store, and a wide variety of products. Pic-Time is often highlighted for its strong marketing and sales tools.
9. What’s the best gallery for just simple, beautiful delivery? If you don’t care about print sales and just want a clean, elegant, and easy-to-use gallery for clients to download photos, platforms like Pixieset are very popular for their simplicity and design.
10. How much storage do I really need? This depends on your volume. A wedding photographer delivering 800+ images per client can fill a 100GB plan very quickly. If you shoot a high volume, a plan with “unlimited” storage (like SmugMug) or multiple terabytes can be a long-term money-saver.
11. Can my clients download high-resolution photos from these galleries? Yes, if you allow it. All major platforms give you granular control over downloads. You can allow (or block) high-resolution downloads, and you can also offer “web-size” downloads for clients to use on social media.
12. Should I use watermarking in my galleries? This is a personal choice. Most platforms allow you to add a watermark. It can protect your images from being screenshotted and posted without permission. A good practice is to have the watermark on all “viewing” images, but have it automatically removed when a client downloads a file or purchases a print.
13. How exactly does Imagen’s delivery feature save me time? It saves time by eliminating the two slowest steps in delivery: exporting and uploading. Instead of you exporting 800 JPEGs (which can take 30-60 minutes) and then uploading them (which can take hours), Imagen handles all of that in one click. You click “Deliver,” and the app prepares the files and sends them to your gallery for you.
