Updated Oct 6, 2026 ## How do I send photo proofs to a client? Upload your web-resolution selects as one album and send the link. Your client browses the set in their browser, no account, no software, and opens any frame's own page to leave a comment on the ones they want. Downloads are switched off per photo, in that photo's link settings; there is no album-wide switch yet. You see when they opened it and what they said, and the full-resolution originals stay with you until the work is signed off and paid. ### The client chooses, not keeps Delivery wants the files in a client's hands at full quality forever. Proofing wants the opposite: enough to judge by, nothing to keep, and a decision at the end. Send web-resolution selects, downloads off, so the originals stay with you until the work is signed off. [View-only file sharing](https://linkinseconds.com/view-only-file-sharing) ### Comments on the link, not a 40-message thread Switch comments on for a link and the photo's own page gets a feedback box; your client types their picks straight onto the frame and you get an email. Number your files 0001 to 0060 and a comment becomes a clean list of picks, no thread to reconstruct. ### View-only: the download button goes away Turn a link view-only and the save control disappears from the page. The photo still displays, that is the point, but the one-tap save is gone. Be precise: it stops the casual download, not a screenshot. The real protection is resolution, so proof at around 2,000px. [How view-only works](https://linkinseconds.com/blog/share-a-pdf-people-can-view-but-not-download) ### Know they have seen it before you chase Every open is timestamped, and on any plan you can be emailed the moment a link is viewed. For a freelancer this is the difference between a follow-up that reads as attentive and one that reads as nagging. Never opened after five days usually means the email went to spam, not that the client is ignoring you. [Know if someone opened your file](https://linkinseconds.com/blog/how-to-know-if-someone-opened-your-pdf) ### The honest limits for a proofing workflow No image watermarking. The watermark feature applies to the PDF preview only. JPEGs are served as uploaded. Burn watermarks in at export, or proof from a watermarked PDF contact sheet. View-only is friction, not protection. Turning downloads off removes the save button. It cannot stop a screenshot, a screen recording, or developer tools. Send proofing-resolution files, not originals. No favouriting, no star ratings, no selection export. Clients tell you their picks in a comment. There is no ratings UI and no CSV of selected frames to pull into Lightroom. No print sales, no client accounts, no branded gallery skins. There is no storefront, no per-client login and no theme editor. Every plan can hide our branding and add your logo; it cannot make the page look like your studio's site. Comments are enabled per link. There is no album-wide switch that turns comments on for every photo at once, and the album view has no comment box of its own. For a big set, put a numbered contact sheet behind its own link with comments on and ask for one numbered list. ## How it works - 1 ### Export web-resolution selects, not the originals Long edge around 2,000px, quality 70-80, sRGB. A proof needs to be good enough to choose from and no better. It loads instantly on a phone, it costs you almost no storage, and it is not a deliverable if it leaks. Name the files 0001.jpg through 0060.jpg so your client can point at them by number. - 2 ### Upload as one album, then switch the frames to view-only Drop the whole set in together, that gives you one album link. View-only is a per-photo control: open a frame's link settings and switch downloads off, and the save button disappears. There is no album-wide download switch, so for a large set either do the frames that matter or send a view-only contact-sheet PDF. A password on the album covers every file in one go. - 3 ### Turn comments on where you want feedback, then send the link Comments live on a photo's own page, which your client reaches from the album in one tap. With comments enabled on that link, they type their picks straight onto the photo and you get an email. No thread to reconstruct, no numbers lost between three messages. ## The client must choose, not keep Delivery and proofing look like the same task, send photos to a client, and they have opposite requirements. Delivery wants the files in their hands at full quality, permanently. Proofing wants the opposite: enough to judge by, nothing to keep, and a decision at the end. Every setting on this page falls out of that one distinction. Web-resolution exports rather than originals. Downloads off rather than on. A deadline rather than a permanent link. Comments rather than a silent gallery. If you use your delivery workflow for proofing, you have effectively delivered, and the awkward conversation about the balance of the invoice gets much harder. - ·The reverse is also true: do not proof-share your final delivery. When the shoot is signed off, send a second link with the full-resolution files and downloads on. Two links, two jobs, no ambiguity. ## Comments on the link, not in a 40-message thread Comments are a real feature here, and for proofing they are the one that saves the most time. Switch comments on for a link and the page gets a small feedback box; your client types their picks there and you are emailed when something new arrives. What this replaces is the part of proofing that actually costs you time: the reconstruction. Three messages, two phone calls and a voice note later, you are still not sure whether they wanted 12 or 21. A written comment attached to the photo is unambiguous and it is still there in six weeks when they change their mind. - ·Comments live on a link's own page. In an album, every photo has its own page, so a client can comment on frame 27 specifically, which is exactly the granularity proofing needs. - ·You enable comments per link, in that link's settings. There is no single switch that turns them on for every photo in an album at once; if you want per-frame comments across a whole set, you turn them on frame by frame, which is fine for a 20-shot select and tedious for 200. - ·The album view itself has no comment box, comments belong to a link, and an album is a container of links. The pragmatic setup most photographers land on: export a numbered contact sheet as a PDF, upload that as its own link with comments on, and send the album for browsing plus the contact sheet for the decision. The client leaves one comment listing their numbers. One notification, one list, done. - ·Notification email is throttled to about one an hour per link, so a client leaving eight comments in a row does not fill your inbox. ## View-only: the download button goes away Turn a link view-only and the download control disappears from the page. The photo still displays, it has to, that is the point, but the frictionless one-tap save is gone. Be precise about what that buys you. It stops the casual save: the client who idly downloads the whole set to their desktop and, three months later, uses a proof in an ad because it was the file they had. It does not stop a screenshot, it does not stop the browser's developer tools, and it does not stop a phone camera pointed at a monitor. So use it as friction, not as a lock, and pair it with the thing that actually protects you: send proofs at proofing resolution. A 2,000px JPEG that leaks is an inconvenience. A 45-megapixel original that leaks is your product. ## We do not watermark your images, and here is what to do instead This is the honest one, and it matters most to photographers, so it gets its own section rather than a footnote. Link in Seconds has a watermark feature, and it overlays the PDF preview only. It does not watermark JPEGs. If you came here looking for automatic per-image watermarking across a proof gallery, we do not have it and you should not build a workflow assuming we do. We would rather lose the sale than have you discover this after a client shoot. - ·Option one, skip watermarking. Send small web-resolution proofs, view-only, behind a password. For most portrait, family and event work this is enough: the file is not usable at print size and the download path is gone. - ·Option two, use the PDF route. Export your selects as a contact sheet or a proof PDF from Lightroom, Capture One or Bridge, upload that, and turn the watermark on. You get a per-viewer watermark on the preview, and the client gets a numbered sheet to choose from, which many clients actually prefer to a grid. - ·Option three, burn the watermark in before upload. Lightroom's export dialog, Capture One's process recipes and Bridge's output module all do this at export time, permanently and to your own design. If watermarking is non-negotiable for you, this is the correct place for it to happen, in your editor, not in a hosting tool. - ·Option four, use a proofing platform. If per-image watermarks, print sales and studio management are core to your business, ShootProof, Pic-Time and CloudSpot are built for exactly that and we are not. ## An expiry that ends the selection window Proofing drags because nothing forces it to stop. A link with an expiry date does. Set it for a week, say so in the email, 'the proofs are up until Friday the 14th', and the deadline enforces itself without you having to be the person who chases. Set the date a little past the day you actually want a decision, so nobody is locked out at the exact moment they finally sit down with it, and tell them the date in the same message as the link. You can also disable a link instantly at any time, which is what you want when a shoot goes sideways or a client asks for the set to come down. 0001.jpgJPG 0012.jpgJPG 0027.jpgJPG 0041.pngPNG 0060.jpgJPG 0001.jpgJPG 0012.jpgJPG 0027.jpgJPG 0041.pngPNG 0060.jpgJPG 0001.jpgJPG 0012.jpgJPG 0027.jpgJPG 0041.pngPNG 0060.jpgJPG 0001.jpgJPG 0012.jpgJPG 0027.jpgJPG 0041.pngPNG 0060.jpgJPG proof-sheet.jpgJPG selects-01.webpWEBP contact-sheet.pngPNG 0033.jpgJPG 0048.jpgJPG proof-sheet.jpgJPG selects-01.webpWEBP contact-sheet.pngPNG 0033.jpgJPG 0048.jpgJPG proof-sheet.jpgJPG selects-01.webpWEBP contact-sheet.pngPNG 0033.jpgJPG 0048.jpgJPG proof-sheet.jpgJPG selects-01.webpWEBP contact-sheet.pngPNG 0033.jpgJPG 0048.jpgJPG 2,300+ people sharing files 4,500+ links shared 15,600+ times opened Keep reading [View-only file sharing](https://linkinseconds.com/view-only-file-sharing)[Share a PDF they can view but not download](https://linkinseconds.com/blog/share-a-pdf-people-can-view-but-not-download)[Know if someone opened your PDF](https://linkinseconds.com/blog/how-to-know-if-someone-opened-your-pdf)[Wedding photo sharing](https://linkinseconds.com/wedding)[Compare to Pixieset](https://linkinseconds.com/pixieset-alternative)[Pixieset vs Google Photos](https://linkinseconds.com/pixieset-vs-google-photos) Source: https://linkinseconds.com/client-photo-proofs