At first you might be able to get away with sending your photos to clients via email, but sooner or later you’ll need to move onto a more professional ways.
Sending pictures to your mom through gmail works fine, but sending multiple gigabytes of huge images from a commercial photoshoot won’t be fun nor professional. So how do photographers send photos to clients then?
Once you are ready to start sending all your files through professional routes, these are the ones we recommend to try. These are used by professional photographers and are they are also beginner friendly.
WETRANSFER
This is hands down the one most photographers use.
Wetransfer has the simplest file transferring method – you can send images by only using the recipients’ and senders’ email addresses.
This cloud-based file-sharing app has bridged the gap in the market by providing users with different options for their needs.
You can get all the essential features for free and up to 2GB space to send your images. Everything over that will require a subscription.
GOOGLE DRIVE
The best part about Google Drive is that you already probably have an account (that’s your gmail.com account), so you have access to it right away. It’s a free option and is known for it’s fast file-sharing.
The excessive focus on data privacy makes it distinct from the rest.
You can also share photos with other people with complete access authority.
The advanced search features and the drag-and-drop uploads improve your workflow and are easy to use.
DROPBOX
Dropbox being one of the first file-transfer websites, sharing files has been their forte for years.
With its smart sync option, you can always keep a check on your hard drive storage. And its only view and edit options give you complete authority over your files.
As a cloud storage service Dropbox allows you to backup and sync your files across multiple devices. Basic only comes with 2GB of free storage, which is enough if you don’t intend to upload many files.
How To Share Photos With A Client
What size photos should I give my clients?
This usually depends on the usage of the photos. If you’re sending images for a commercial use, you want to make sure your images are large enough for them to resize them for their needs.
Usually the client does not have the right to crop the original photo you send, so sending them in different formats is recommended. Image formats are explained below.
Two important aspects to know about the image size: dpi and px.
Now, the resolution is expressed in dpi (or ppi), which is the acronym for dots (or pixels) per inch. So, if you see 72 dpi it means that the image will have 72 pixels per inch; if you see 300 dpi means 300 pixels per inch, and so on.
The final size of your image depends on the resolution that you choose. If an image is 4500 x 3000 pixels it means that it will print at 15 x 10 inches if you set the resolution to 300 dpi, but it will be 62.5 x 41.6 inches at 72 dpi. While the size of your print does change, you are not resizing your photo (image file), you are just reorganizing the existing pixels.
Image format
File size also depends heavily on image file format (JPEG vs TIFF vs RAW).
It’s advised to shoot in RAW, since you will be able to get a raw file of your image. This give you more access to the file itself.
While you, as the photographer, should probably be shooting in RAW, I recommend delivering images as TIFFs (if the goal is to provide a high-quality image that the client can eventually print) or JPEGs (if the goal is to provide an economical image for proofing or sharing via social media).
It’s important to emphasize that RAW files are terrible for sending images to clients, because they require a RAW processor to view, plus they offer unprocessed, straight-out-of-camera files that are designed to look flat, undersaturated, and generally uninteresting.
Also RAW file sizes are enormous and take alot of space when sending them digitally.
how do photographers send photos to clients
So shoot in RAW, yes. But then process your images and convert to TIFFs or JPEGs before sharing with clients.
If you photograph load of images at once, for example in sports event of music venue, you might want to photograph in JPEG so you can skip the step of processing your files. I like to shoot in RAW just to make sure I can edit the images if needed and really get to the tones and hues of the image.
And by the way, while JPEGs may be relatively low quality and compressed, they don’t look completely bad.
Now that you know the best ways to send photos to clients, you can choose the best option and deliver the ready images to your clients.
How To Share Photos With A Client