Delivering a 4K Photo Gallery Without the Usual Pain

Photographers have a delivery problem that designers don't. A typical wedding shoot is 800-1200 final edits. Each at full resolution is 8-12 MB. The whole gallery is 5-10 GB. Email is impossible. WeTransfer caps at 2 GB on the free plan. Dropbox needs the client to sign in. Pixieset has a recurring subscription and a heavy interface. Here's a leaner workflow.

Step 1 — Curate before uploading

The first decision is which gallery to deliver. I deliver two: a 'best of' (40-60 images at 2048px web-resolution) and the 'full gallery' (every keeper at full resolution). The best-of is what they'll share on social media; the full gallery is what they'll keep forever.

Step 2 — Zip the full gallery

Use your OS's built-in zip (no compression — photos don't compress further) to bundle the full gallery into a single archive. Single files transfer faster than thousands of small ones because of TCP overhead per file. Naming convention: ClientName_Wedding_2026-02-04_FullGallery.zip.

Step 3 — Upload to SendMe Pro

Free plan caps at 100 MB per file, so you need SendMe Pro for full galleries. Drag the zip and the best-of folder into the same upload — they get the same 6-digit code. Set expiry to 7 days (the maximum) and a password. Add a password — wedding photos shouldn't be on a guessable URL.

Step 4 — Deliver with context

Don't just send the code. Send a delivery email that doubles as documentation:

Hi Sarah & Tom — your wedding gallery is ready. There are two downloads: 'Best Of' (52 images, web resolution — share these freely on social media) and 'Full Gallery' (847 images, full resolution — for printing and personal archive). Code: 482931. Password: yourlast4digits. Link expires Tuesday at 6pm. Save locally — after expiry I'll need to re-upload (no charge, just a delay). Print recommendations are in the README inside the zip.

Step 5 — Include a README

Drop a one-page README.txt inside the zip:

• →Photographer's name and contact
• →Date of shoot
• →Total image count
• →Resolution and colour space
• →Print size recommendations (e.g., 'these images print up to 20x30 inches at 300 DPI without quality loss')
• →Usage licence (personal use, social media OK with credit, commercial reuse requires written permission)

This single page heads off 80% of follow-up questions and makes you look professional.

Step 6 — Save the metadata for your own records

When the transfer expires, you lose the visual record of having delivered. Maintain a simple spreadsheet — client name, delivery date, gallery zip filename, SendMe code (for the first 7 days). Once the code expires, the row stays as proof of delivery.

Variant — for clients on slow connections

If you know the client is in a rural area or on metered mobile data, deliver the best-of immediately and offer to USB-mail the full gallery for the cost of postage. Many clients will pay ₹500 to avoid downloading 10 GB over their mobile plan.

Why this beats Pixieset for solo photographers

Pixieset is great if you have a recurring subscription, want client self-service galleries, and need ordering integration. For a solo wedding photographer doing 8-15 weddings a year, that's overkill — and the monthly cost outpaces SendMe Pro. SendMe is the right tool when you want 'transport, not storefront'.