How to Set Up an Online Photo Proofing Gallery (Step by Step)

Once you understand what photo proofing is, the practical question is how to actually run one without it turning into a mess of emails and spreadsheets. An online proofing gallery handles the whole thing in one place: you share a private set of images, the client marks what they love and leaves feedback, and you review it all from a single dashboard. Here is how to set that up and run it from start to finish.

Before you start

You need a culled set of images ready to show. Proofing is not the moment to share every frame straight off the card; do a first pass to remove the obvious rejects, the test shots, the blinks, and the duplicates, and keep the images that are genuinely in contention. You do not need to finish-retouch anything yet, which is the whole point of proofing, but the set should be clean enough that every photo in it is a real candidate. A tighter gallery leads to faster, more confident decisions from your client.

Step one: upload and create the gallery

Create a new gallery for the client and upload your culled selects into it. Give it a clear name the client will recognize, tied to their session or event, so there is no confusion about what they are looking at. This is also the point to decide presentation details such as whether images carry a watermark and what download quality, if any, is available at this stage. During proofing many photographers keep downloads off or watermarked, because the goal right now is selection and feedback, not handing over final files.