Best Practices: How to Deliver Digital Image Files to Your Clients Over the Internet

by Harry Guinness

At some point in your career as a photographer you’ll need to share images over the Internet. If you’re sending pictures to your friends and family, you can be as casual as you like. If, however, you are delivering images to a client, then you must do it in a professional manner. Your professional reputation can be damaged by something as simple as a poorly worded email.

In this tutorial, I’ll outline some of the best practices for delivering images to clients over the Internet.

Why You Shouldn’t Use Email

When it comes to sending images, many people default to attaching the files to an email. This is a terrible way to do it.

First, digital images taken with a modern DSLR, even when exported as JPEGs, are generally a few megabytes in size. A full-size image taken with my 5D MKIII and saved as a JPEG at 70% quality, the settings I normally use for client images, is around 5MB. Most email services limit the size of attachments to 25MB. Even in the best case scenario, you’ll at most be able to attach five or ten images.

What you shouldn't be doing.

Second, there’s a good chance your client will receive the images on their smartphone. If they are using a cellular connection, your large attachment will take up a decent chunk of their monthly data allowance. If they have a poor signal, the email will take a few minutes to download, slowing all other Internet traffic to a crawl. By the time they open the email, you’re unlikely to be at the top of their “favourite people” list.

While email has its place, don’t use it to send images to your clients.

How to Deliver Files

Instead of just emailing photos, the best way to deliver images is to use a dedicated file hosting service. In the past few years, a number of great companies have all started offering large amounts of file hosting for a very reasonable monthly fee. The most popular of these services are Dropbox, Google Drive and Microsoft OneDrive.

Dropbox's home page.

All work in much the same way: a folder on your computer is mirrored to the service’s servers. Anything you add to it is automatically uploaded to the Internet. You can share any individual file or subfolder—such as the one containing your client's images—simply by sending a unique URL.

Using one of these services overcomes many of the limitations of email. While you don’t have unlimited space, all the services offer at least a few gigabytes for free. This is more than enough to let you send thousands of images to your clients.

A Note on Professional Services

If you’re a professional photographer and regularly deliver images to clients, it might be worth your while looking at some of the professional services that automate the whole process. While doing it yourself is free, if you’re delivering 15 or 20 shoots worth of images a month, a service like Pixieset or PASS will simplify the whole process.

Organise Your Files for Delivery

Even if you use a file hosting service, you can’t just send the client the link and be done with it. Instead you need to create a professional package for delivery. Here are some guidelines for doing it.

Name Your Images Semantically

Sending an image called IMG_324582 to a client doesn’t give off the air of a professional. Instead, you should ensure all your images are named properly.

There are any number of formats you could use, but I recommend you choose one that includes the date of the shoot, a descriptive title such as the job or model name, a sequence number and the original filename. You should also use underscores or hyphens instead of spaces.

A file naming template I use.

For example, I use the structure YYMMDD_Job_Name_Sequence#_FileName; images are then named something like 150621_Ali_Clarke_001_5D3_10004. 

Each component serves a purpose. Starting with the date keeps every image in chronological order. It also allows you to reuse descriptive titles such as a model’s name. The descriptive title makes it easy for you and the client to identify the images without looking at thumbnails when you’re browsing your computer. The sequence number gives each image a unique identifier within the series. Finally, including the original file number creates a link between each exported image and the RAW file. If a client wants a larger version of an image, they can tell you the last few digits and you’ll be able to find it.

Sort Your Metadata in Lightroom

Lightroom’s ability to import and develop RAW files gets the most attention, but it is also an incredibly powerful metadata manager. Before you send any images to your clients, use Lightroom to add a title and caption to each image. Ideally each image should have a unique title, even if the only change is to incrementally increase a number. For example, you might title three similar images as Black Dress Look #1, #2 and #3. The caption should be a description of each photo.

If you get your metadata sorted as you edit images, it makes it much easier to upload them to the web and create contact sheets. If you’ve never paid too much attention to metadata before, Andrew Childress’s course The Living Archive in Lightroom is a great place to start.

Include a PDF Contact Sheet

While contact sheets were a lot more important back in the film era, they’re still worth including when you deliver files to your clients. With a contact sheet it’s really easy to glance over all the images included in a delivery. Also, depending on how you work, a contact sheet might be all you initially send to your clients. You can then send full images on request.

A contact sheet created in Lightroom's print module.

Again, Lightroom offers a solution. The criminally underused Print module has great contact sheet templates. I suggest you modify Lightroom’s presets so that the contact sheets you send to clients include each image’s title and caption.

Although it’s called the Print module, you can save anything you create to a PDF file; perfect for a digital contact sheet.

Tip: To ensure the contact sheet sits at the top of all the files, you should name it something like _Contact_Sheet. The leading underscore will keep it on top of any alphabetically sorted stack of files.

Add a ReadMe File

In addition to a contact sheet, you should also include a text file called _ReadMe.txt. This file should include all the information your clients need to know about you, the shoot and the images.

A ReadMe file should include:

• your name and contact details
• the client's name and contact details
• information about the shoot such as date, location and number of models
• a list of the images, including their file name, title and caption
• image usage guidelines for clients
• copyright information

Although you can do it by hand, the LR/Transporter plugin makes creating these readme files easy.

Send a Professional Email

Once you’ve packaged the image files for delivery along with the additional files like the contact sheet and readme file, it’s time to let your clients know how they can access them. As bad as email is for actually delivering files, it’s a great way to send this information. The delivery email should include all the information about the images and files you are sending.

Below is a sample script for what the email should look like.

Dear [Client],

I’ve finished processing the images from the [descriptive title] shoot on the [date]. They’re now ready for you to review. You can access the files by visiting [weblink] and clicking download.

Included in the folder are: 

• A readme.txt file. 
• A contact sheet showing all the images. 
• 294 full resolution image files.

If you have any issues accessing the files, please don’t hesitate to contact me.

Kind regards, 

Harry Guinness.

Summary

The days of delivering printed images to clients are gone. Now almost all images are delivered digitally. If you want to do it in a professional manner, this article has covered many of the things you should consider, including:

• how to deliver files
• how to name your files
• the importance of adding metadata
• what additional files to include
• how to send the delivery to your client

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How To View Hidden Facebook Photos Of Anyone

The glorious thing about the stuff we post online is that invariably, once it’s there, it’s there for good. Even after we remove content from cloud storage services or social media, it’s likely to fester away in the growing basement of forgotten files. Facebook sort of lets you hide photos from viewing with the hide from timeline feature, but there are ways around this, and one third-party app takes advantage of the loophole and shows these “hidden” snaps in all of their glory.

Sure, this isn’t a bug on Facebook’s part. After all, when you hide a photo from your timeline, you are met with a reminder / warning that snaps can still be viewed in Timelines of your friends if the photo is public, and if you remain tagged in said photo, then a little Chrome extension called Picturebook lets you, and, more importantly, others, find them.

It’s by no means a hack – the “hide from my Timeline” feature does exactly that and nothing more – but if you’re uncomfortable with the idea of somebody using Picturebook to check out all of the photos you’ve been tagged in, then there is a way around it.

We’ve all been tagged in those unflattering photos that we’d probably rather nobody saw, and so to ensure that snoopers cannot source them, you’ll have to embark upon a good old-fashioned de-tag. It’s the next best thing to having the photo completely deleted, and will ensure that even if somebody has the Picturebook or a similar hacky extension, they won’t be able to find those dreaded snaps that you’d prefer never to see again.

To de-tag, first select “hidden from Timeline” from the drop-down located beneath a photo’s date. Then, hit the “Report/Remove tag” option from the pop-up, and then select “I want to untag myself“.
So, there you have it. As ever, always keep tabs on your privacy settings to ensure that you’re not giving away more information to the world than you’d like, and hey, if you want to get your stalk on — and provided you’ve Google’s Chrome Browser installed – then simply go to this link.

But remember, if you take pride in privacy then be sure to follow the steps which we have mentioned above.

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Firefox 37.0 Comes with New Search UI

NOTE: This article is updated whenever some interesting stuff is found in Nightly build ofMozilla Firefox web browser. So keep checking this page regularly.

Download Links: Nightly | Aurora | Developer Edition | UX (latest UI improvements)

UPDATE 75:

The latest Nightly 37.0 build comes with a new improved Search UI. When you search for a term using search box, you get a new search interface as shown in following screenshot:

The new search interface is called One-Click Search. The search interface has been improved as well as some new buttons for different search engines have been added below the search suggestions.

A new Search tab has also been added into Firefox Preferences page which allows you to change default search engine. You can also show or hide desired search engine buttons which are shown below the search suggestions in new search interface.

Also Check: How to Disable New One-Click Search Bar Interface in Mozilla Firefox?

UPDATE 74:

A few day back, in UPDATE 66 we told you about a new feature "Invite someone to talk" which was added in Nightly 33.0 build.

Now the feature has been improved a lot in the latest Nightly 36.0 build. The feature has been renamed to "Firefox Hello" and comes with a brand new UI.

Once you click on its toolbar icon, you get a call URL to share with your friends. You can also change your chat status to Available or Do Not Disturb.

UPDATE 73:

The latest Nightly 35.0 build comes with a new toolbar button called "Forget Browsing History" which helps users in quickly deleting cookies and browsing history of selected time period. At the moment users can select from 3 given choices: Last five minutes, Two hours and 24 hours.

UPDATE 72:

The latest Nightly 35.0 build comes with working e10s functionality. Mozilla has started testing ofElectrolysis (e10s in short) functionality in the latest Nightly build.

When you launch the latest Nightly 35.0 build, you get following notification in addressbar to enable e10s functionality:

After restart, you'll notice that tab titles are shown as underlined in e10s mode to distinguish it from normal mode:

You can also enable or disable Electrolysis aka e10s functionality using Firefox Preferences window:

Thanks to our reader Kyle for the update...

UPDATE 71:

In latest Nightly 34.0 build, Mozilla has added a few built-in themes to customize Firefox appearance. Users can apply these themes using Customize screen:

UPDATE 70:

In latest Nightly 34.0 build, Mozilla has moved "Always check to see if Firefox is the default browser on startup" option to General tab of Preferences window.

UPDATE 69:

Recently we told you about "Share This Page" button which was added to Nightly 33.0 toolbar but at that time the button was not working. It was just a dummy button with no functionality.

Now in the latest Nightly 34.0 build, Mozilla team has added functionality to this button. Now when you click on "Share This Page" button, it allows you to add various social networking website icons such as Facebook, Twitter, Google+, etc to Firefox and then you can click on those icons to immediately share the current webpage on those websites.

If you can't see the "Share This Page" button in Nightly toolbar, check the button in Australis Menu.

UPDATE 68:

The latest Firefox 34.0 Nightly build comes with a new menu to customize "New Tab" page appearance:

As you can see in the above image, it allows you to select New Tab page look from following 3 options:

• Enhanced
• Classic
• Blank

Thanks to our reader "Kyle" for the update...

UPDATE 67:

The latest Firefox 33.0 Nightly build comes with a new button "Share This Page" in toolbar:

Currently the button is not working. Its always remains disabled. It seems Mozilla has disabled the button for some reasons and the button will start working in upcoming Nightly builds.

UPDATE 66:

Mozilla has added a new toolbar icon "Invite someone to talk" in the latest Nightly 33.0 build. You can click on the icon and get a call URL to invite a friend to talk.

UPDATE 65:

The latest Nightly 32.0 build comes with an improved iconized context menu which shows basic icons such as back, forward, refresh, bookmark at the top:

Thanks to our reader "TheAslan" for the update...

UPDATE 64:

Mozilla has put a new option to enable or disable Title Bar in the latest Nightly 29.0 build.

How to Enable Titlebar Text and Icon in Mozilla Firefox 28 and Later?

UPDATE 63:

Mozilla has added a new option in the latest Nightly 28 build to directly launch Firefox in Windows 8 style Metro mode as shown in following screenshot:

UPDATE 62:

The latest Nightly 28 build comes with 2 new options in toolbar context menu:

• Add to Menu
• Remove from Toolbar

These new options appear when you right-click on titlebar or toolbar.

"Add to Menu" option adds the toolbar button to "Customize and Control" menu previously known as orange Firefox button.

"Remove from Toolbar" option deletes the button from toolbar.

Nice and useful addition by Mozilla.

UPDATE 61:

The latest Nightly 28 build comes with a new Australis UI.

Check out our exclusive review of Australis UI:

[Review] The New "Australis" UI of Mozilla Firefox Web Browser

UPDATE 60:

UPDATE: The search bar has been moved back to bottom in newer builds.

Another interesting UI change in latest Nightly 25.0 build! Mozilla has moved the search bar to top in latest Nightly build. In previous Firefox versions, the search bar used to show at bottom but now it has been moved to top as shown in following screenshot:

The search bar is used to find text in webpages. It can be accessed by pressing "Ctrl+F" keys together.

UPDATE 59:

The latest Nightly 25.0 build comes with new "Automatic Update" options which allow you to automatic update Firefox for Desktop as well as its Metro app for Windows 8.

UPDATE 58:

"Close Tabs to the Right" option is a useful feature present in Google Chrome web browser which allows users to close all tabs present at the right-side of the selected tab. This option was missing in Mozilla Firefox but now it has been added in the latest Nightly build.

A confirmation dialog box is shown if you click on the option.

Thanks to our reader "Ahmad" for the update...

UPDATE 57:

Mozilla has released first alpha build of upcoming Firefox 24.0 version to the Nightly channel.

UPDATE 56:

The latest Nightly 23.0 build comes with a new bookmark icon in toolbar which lets you access bookmark options as well as allows you to instantly bookmark a page.

Thanks to our reader "Kyle" for the update...

UPDATE 55:

Recently in following article we told you that Mozilla is going to remove several unnecessary options from Firefox preferences window:

Mozilla to Remove Several Unnecessary Options from Firefox Preferences Window

In latest Nightly build Mozilla has removed the options to enable or disable SSL and TLS protocols. These options were present in "Advanced -> Encryption" tab of Firefox preferences window but now they are no longer present.

UPDATE 54:

Mozilla has removed a few unnecessary options from Firefox 23.0 preferences window. More options will be removed in future builds.

Check out following topic for more details:

Mozilla to Remove Several Unnecessary Options from Firefox Preferences Window

UPDATE 53:

The latest Firefox 22.0 Nightly build comes with a new tab "Services" in Add-ons Manager(about:addons) which allows you to manage social API easily and quickly.

Thanks to our reader "Ahmad" for the update...

UPDATE 52:

Mozilla has released a testing build of its upcoming Metro version of Firefox for Windows 8. The latest Nightly build installs a new Metro version of Firefox in Windows 8 computers. You can launch and test it using the Start Screen in Windows 8.

You can read more about this version at following link:

How to Use Mozilla Firefox Metro Version in Windows 8?

UPDATE 51:

Latest Firefox 21.0 Nightly build comes with new options to customize tracking settings. When you open Nightly preferences, you see 3 new options in "Privacy" tab as shown in following screenshot:

Thanks to our reader "Ahmad" for the update...

UPDATE 50:

Latest Firefox 21.0 Nightly build adds a new option to the "New Tab" page which allows you to restore removed thumbnails to the page. Whenever you remove a thumbnail from new tab page, Firefox shows 2 new options: Undo and Restore all.

You can restore the most recently removed thumbnail by clicking on "Undo" option. If you want to restore all removed thumbnails, click on "Restore All" option.

Thanks to our reader "Ahmad" for the update...

UPDATE 49:

Latest Firefox 21.0 Nightly build comes with a new tab "Data Choices" in Options window which allows you to customize privacy settings such as:

• Enable or disable telemetry
• Enable or disable Firefox health report
• Enable or disable crash reporter

Mozilla has moved these options from "General" tab to this new tab. Thanks to our reader "a" for notifying us about this feature...

UPDATE 48:

With the release of new Firefox 18.0 stable version, Mozilla has released first alpha build of upcoming Firefox 21.0 version to the Nightly channel.

This new build features a new animation in download complete notification. When you download a file from Internet and the download completes, Firefox shows a new animation for the download manager icon present in the toolbar as shown in following image:

We would also like to tell that Mozilla has replaced the old download manager window with a new downloads section which is shown using the built-in Library which also shows History and Bookmarks.

Thanks to our reader "a" for letting us know about the new animation...

UPDATE 47:

When you open Firefox in private browsing mode, it overwrites the existing window with the new private browsing window and you lose all the tabs which you were working on. But the latest Nightly build fixes this issue.

The current Firefox 20.0 Alpha build opens the private browsing session in a new window instead of overwriting your running session. So now you can have both normal session as well as private browsing session running at same time. Good move Mozilla...

UPDATE 46:

Mozilla Firefox 20.0 Alpha 1 build has been released and available for download. If you are already using nightly build, it'll automatically update it otherwise you can download it using the link mentioned at the top.

UPDATE 45:

The latest Alpha build of Mozilla Firefox 18.0 version also comes with a Metro version of Firefox specially designed for Windows 8 Start Screen.

If you are facing problems with Firefox Metro version in Windows 8, check out following article:

How to Use Mozilla Firefox Metro Version in Windows 8? Fix Metro App Launching Desktop Version

UPDATE 44:

Mozilla has released first Alpha build of Firefox 18.0. The most noticeable change in this new build is the come back of good old Download Manager. Mozilla has removed the new download manager and replaced it with the old classic download manager window.

Thanks to our reader "Bilal Haider" for the update...

UPDATE 43:

Mozilla has updated the "New Tab" page in the latest Nightly 17.0 build. Now a new "preload" function has been introduced which makes the "New Tab" page faster by preloading it in the background.

Currently the feature is under testing and users will need to manually enable it. To enable preload feature:

1. Open Firefox and type about:config in the addressbar and press Enter. It'll confirm, click on I'll be careful, I promise! button.

2. Now type preload in the Filter box and look for following boolean key:

browser.newtab.preload

3. The entry "browser.newtab.preload" would be set to false. Double-click on it or right-click on it and select "Toggle". It'll set its value to true.

4. That's it. It'll immediately enable preload function for "New Tab" page and it'll load much faster than before.

UPDATE 42:

Mozilla Firefox 17.0 Alpha 1 build has been released and available for download. If you are already using nightly build, it'll automatically update it otherwise you can download it using the link mentioned at the top.

Thanks to our reader "Bilal Haider" for the quick update...

UPDATE 41:

Mozilla Firefox 16.0 Alpha 1 build has been released and available for download. If you are already using nightly build, it'll automatically update it otherwise you can download it using the link mentioned at the top.

UPDATE 40:

Mozilla has made 2 noticeable changes in latest Firefox 15.0 nightly build.

First change is the removal of "Tabs on Top" option. Now you no longer get this option when you right-click on toolbar or select "Toolbars" menu in Menubar. So you'll have to keep the tab bar on top even if you don't like it.

Second change is the re-allocation of "Don't load tabs until selected" option in Firefox Preferences window. In previous versions of Firefox, this option was present in "General" tab of Preferences window but now it has been moved to "Tabs" tab so that all settings related to tabs are present in a single place.

PS: If you are using the Nightly build and want to get tabs on bottom, you can do that using an easy about:config trick:

How to Put Tabs Back on Bottom in Mozilla Firefox?

Thanks to our reader "TheAslan" for sharing this trick...

UPDATE 39:

Finally Mozilla has finalized the "Silent Background Update" feature in Firefox. The latest Firefox 15.0 nightly build comes with this new feature enabled. Now when you install an update in Firefox and restarts it to apply the update, Firefox no longer takes too much time to install the update and no longer shows any screen such as "Installing update...". Now the update is installed in background while you are using Firefox.

UPDATE 38:

Latest Firefox 15.0 Nightly build comes with new InContent Preferences feature which shows Firefox Preferences as web page in separate tab. Check out following topic for more info with screenshots:

How to Enable New InContent Preferences Feature in Mozilla Firefox Nightly Build?

UPDATE 37:

Mozilla Firefox 15.0 Alpha 1 build has been released and available for download. If you are already using nightly build, it'll automatically update it otherwise you can download it using the link mentioned at the top.

Thanks to our reader "TheAslan" for the update...

UPDATE 36:

Latest Firefox 14.0 Nightly build comes with a new simple website security certificate icon in addressbar as shown in following screenshot:

Thanks to our reader "Kyle" for the update...

UPDATE 35:

Latest Firefox 14.0 Nightly build comes with new re-designed "Download Manager". Now when a download starts, a new "Downloads" icon appears in Navigation toolbar which shows progress of download as shown in following screenshot:

Alternatively you can access the download manager using "Ctrl+J" keyboard shortcut.

Thanks to AskVG reader "Ahmad" for the update...

PS: If you don't like this new download manager and want to switch back to old one, you can use following steps:

1. Open Firefox and type about:config in the addressbar and press Enter. It'll confirm, click on I'll be careful, I promise! button.

2. Now type ToolkitUI in the Filter box and look for following boolean key:

browser.download.useToolkitUI

3. The entry "browser.download.useToolkitUI" would be set to false. Double-click on it or right-click on it and select "Toggle". It'll set its value to true.

4. That's it. Now you'll be able to enjoy the classic download manager in a separate window instead of the new one.

UPDATE 34:

As mentioned in UPDATE 22, recently Mozilla re-designed built-in image viewer in Firefox and put a dark background when you directly view an image.

Now in the latest Firefox 14.0 Nightly build, Mozilla has again re-designed the image viewer and replaced dark background with a new textured background as shown in following screenshot:

What do you think about this change? Looking better?

UPDATE 33:

The latest Firefox 14.0 nightly build comes with new Script Debugger which is disabled by default. You can enable it using following steps:

1. Open Firefox and type about:config in the addressbar and press Enter. It'll confirm, click on I'll be careful, I promise! button.

2. Now type debugger in the Filter box and look for following boolean key:

devtools.debugger.enabled

3. The entry "devtools.debugger.enabled" would be set to false. Double-click on it or right-click on it and select "Toggle". It'll set its value to true.

4. That's it. Now you can access this new Script Debugger using "Web Developer" menu or using "Ctrl+Shift+S" hotkey.

Thanks to our reader "Carbonize" for this info...

UPDATE 32:

The latest Firefox 14.0 nightly build comes with built-in PDF reader. By default its disabled, but you can enable it using following method:

1. Open about:config and type pdfjs in the Filter box and look for following boolean key:

pdfjs.disabled

2. The entry "pdfjs.disabled" would be set to true. Double-click on it or right-click on it and select "Toggle". It'll set its value to false.

3. That's it. Now whenever you'll visit a webpage containing a pdf file, Firefox will open it in its own built-in PDF reader.

This built-in PDF reader uses HTML5 to display PDF files directly in Firefox browser.

Thanks to our reader "Carbonize" for the update...

UPDATE 31:

We told you yesterday that Mozilla is working on a new homepage design and the good news is that the new homepage has been put in the latest nightly 14.0 alpha build.

Following is a preview of this new homepage in action:

The new homepage is very useful and provides quick access to Bookmarks Manager, History Manager, Settings, Add-ons Manager, Downloads Manager and Sync. It also contains Google search box as usual.

Thanks to our reader "Ahmad" for the update...

UPDATE 30:

Mozilla has added a new "Reset to Default State" button in latest nightly build which can be used to restore Firefox to factory settings.

Read more info at following link:

Mozilla to Add "Reset to Default State" Button to Firefox Browser

UPDATE 29:

Mozilla has once again redesigned "New Tab" page in the latest nightly build of Firefox 14.0. Now "New Tab" page looks far better compared to the previous one mentioned in Update 27.

The background color has been changed, also the page title doesn't overlap the website thumbnail. Its shown below the thumbnail which makes the whole "New Tab" page looking cleaner.

Following is a screenshot of this redesigned "New Tab" page in action:

Thanks to our reader "darkprop" for the update...

UPDATE 28:

Mozilla has added a new secret "about:compartments" page in latest nightly build of Firefox 13.0 version. You can access this secret page by just typing about:compartments in Firefox addressbar and press Enter.

This new page shows a list of all live JS compartments. If you don't know, compartments are little segments of memory which is used by JavaScripts in Mozilla Firefox. Mozilla's idea behind adding this new page was to make detection of zombie compartments as simple as possible. Zombie compartments are a kind of memory leak. In previous versions, you had to use about:memorypage to find out zombie compartments which was a little bit complicated but now addition of this new about:compartments page makes it easier.

This page shows all running websites compartments separate from system compartments.

It also contains a "More verbose" link which can be used to show truncated URLs in full.

UPDATE 27:

The latest Mozilla Firefox 13.0 Alpha build comes with redesigned "New Tab" page enabled by default. Recently the new tab page appeared in an alpha build but Mozilla removed it from later builds. But now the new tab page is back.

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