How to let clients choose their photos

Decide what the selection is for

Clients choose better when they know why they’re choosing. Tell them in one sentence:

• Retouching: “Choose the 10 photos included in your package for full retouching.”
• An album: “Choose 40 photos for your album. I’ll design the layout from these.”
• Prints or wall art: “Choose 3 photos you’d love on your wall.”

How many photos to show

Show your best work, not everything you shot. Cull out blinks, near-duplicates and misses first. There’s no perfect ratio, but if clients are choosing 10 from 300 near-identical frames, they’ll stall. A tighter gallery with clear variety makes each choice easier.

Set a number and a deadline

A number tells clients when they’re done. A deadline stops the gallery sitting unopened for a month. Put both in your message and in the gallery itself, and send a reminder a few days before. In SendShoot you set both when you ask for picks, clients see their progress as they go, and an automatic reminder can go out three days before the deadline.

Make choosing easy

• Let them choose on their phone. That’s where they’ll open your link.
• Skip accounts and sign-ups. Every extra step loses clients. A passcode is enough to keep a gallery private.
• Put notes on the photo. “Can you remove the sign in the background?” belongs on the photo it’s about, not in a separate email.
• Let partners and family look together. Picks should be shared across everyone with the link, so nobody passes one phone around.

When clients pick too many, or too few

Treat the number as a guide rather than a wall. If a client picks more than their package includes, that’s an opportunity to offer extra retouching at your usual rate. If they pick fewer, ask whether they’d like you to choose the rest. SendShoot asks clients to confirm before sending more or fewer than you asked for, so there are no surprises.

Turn picks into an editing list

The final step is getting from “the one where she’s laughing” to an exact file. Work from filenames: copy the list of picked filenames and paste it into your editing app’s search or filter to pull up those frames. SendShoot keeps picks in a checklist with filenames and notes, lets you copy or export them, and matches your retouched files back to the right photos when you deliver.

A simple proofing workflow

1. Upload your culled, edited proofs to a private gallery.
2. Ask for picks with a number, a deadline and a one-line note.
3. Your client hearts favourites and adds notes, then sends the list.
4. Retouch from the checklist, ticking each photo as it’s done.
5. Deliver the finals into the same gallery, where they replace the proofs.