You spent a week getting the reception tones right. Then the gallery goes live and the skin looks a shade greyer, the greens look flat, and a few of the detail shots look softer than they did in Lightroom. Nine times out of ten the edit is fine. The export is the problem.
Quick answer: for Pic-Time, Pixieset and ShootProof, export JPEG in sRGB, quality 92–100, at full resolution or at least 3600px on the long edge, with Output Sharpening for Screen, Standard and Copyright & Contact Info metadata. Stay under each platform's file limit: 100MB on Pic-Time, 50MB through Pixieset's Lightroom plugin, 50MB on ShootProof.
Save these as a Lightroom export preset and use it for every client gallery.The rest of this guide explains why each of those settings matters, where the three platforms differ, and the handful of export mistakes we see over and over when photographers send us their old galleries to match.
Why delivery exports are different from web exports
A lot of export advice online is written for blogs and Instagram, where you resize to 2048px and drop the quality to 80 so the page loads fast. That is good advice for your website. It is the wrong advice for a client gallery.
Pic-Time, Pixieset and ShootProof all keep the file you upload as the master. They build their own smaller copies for the gallery view, and they use your master for downloads and print orders. ShootProof says it directly: it stores the original you upload and resizes only what is displayed in the gallery. So if you upload a small, heavily compressed file, every download and every print your couple orders is made from that small, compressed file. The gallery handles speed for you. Your job is to hand it a clean, full-quality master.
The anatomy of a gallery export in Lightroom Classic
File format: JPEG
Choose JPEG. ShootProof only accepts JPEG for photos. Pixieset accepts PNG and RAW as well, but its print store only works with JPEG files. Pic-Time supports JPEG and GIF. JPEG is the one format that works everywhere, including the print labs behind each store.
Colour space: sRGB
Set Color Space to sRGB. This is the setting behind most "my photos look dull online" complaints.
Lightroom edits in a very wide colour space. When you export in Adobe RGB or ProPhoto RGB, the file is tagged with that wider profile. A colour-managed program on a calibrated monitor reads the tag and shows the colours correctly. Plenty of phones, apps, email previews and older browsers ignore the tag and treat the file as sRGB, and the result is the classic washed-out look: muted skin, grey-green foliage, weak blues.
Pixieset and ShootProof both ask for sRGB in their help centres, and ShootProof warns that other profiles can change both how the gallery displays and how prints come out. Pic-Time accepts Adobe RGB as well as sRGB, but your couple will view the gallery on everything from a new laptop to a five-year-old phone, so sRGB is the safe choice there too.
Quality: 92–100
For delivery, keep the Quality slider high. Pic-Time's own guide says to leave it at 100 and to leave "Limit File Size To" unticked.
A detail many photographers do not know: Lightroom does not use 101 separate quality levels. It groups the slider into bands, roughly 0–7, 8–15 and so on up to 93–100. Every value inside a band produces the same file, so 93 and 100 are identical, and 85 and 92 are identical. That means:
- 93–100 is the top band. Use it when file size is not a concern.
- 85–92 is the next band down. Files are noticeably smaller, and for a 24–45MP wedding frame the difference is very hard to see. It is a sensible choice if uploads are slow or a file goes over a limit.
- 77–84 (the "80% sweet spot" you see recommended for blogs) is fine for your website, but it starts to show banding in skies and soft backgrounds once a couple orders a large print.
Size: full resolution, or at least 3600px on the long edge
Pic-Time recommends exporting JPEGs without resizing: untick Resize to Fit. Pixieset says 3600px on the long edge is enough for prints up to poster size, and its own high-resolution download option is 3600px. ShootProof wants at least 3000px on the long side so images fill the gallery viewer.
So you have two reasonable choices:
- Full resolution if you want the gallery to hold your true masters and you sell large prints or albums through it.
- Long Edge 3600px, with Don't Enlarge ticked, if you want faster uploads and lighter storage. This covers screen viewing and standard print sizes on all three platforms.
Ignore the Resolution (ppi) box. Pic-Time states that neither it nor its partner labs use that number; only the pixel dimensions matter. 300 is a fine value to leave in, but it changes nothing.
Output sharpening: Screen, Standard
Tick Sharpen For: Screen, Amount: Standard. Export sharpening is applied after the file is resized, and it puts back the crispness that resizing takes away. That matters here because every gallery shows a downsized copy of your file.
- Low suits galleries with a lot of soft, airy portraits, or images you already sharpened heavily in Develop.
- High almost always looks crunchy on wedding skin and veils. Avoid it for delivery.
- Matte Paper / Glossy Paper are for files you send to a lab yourself, not for gallery uploads. Pic-Time also notes that print sharpening is a matter of taste and suggests a test order with your lab before you change anything.
Metadata: copyright in, personal data out
Set Include to Copyright & Contact Info Only. Then tick Remove Person Info and Remove Location Info. Your name and contact details stay with every downloaded file, while GPS coordinates of the couple's home (from getting-ready shots) and face-recognition tags do not.
File naming
Use a simple scheme with no spaces or special characters, for example Custom Name – Sequence with smith-wedding-0001. Pixieset and ShootProof both recommend avoiding spaces and symbols, because they break the unzip tools clients use when they download the full gallery.
Platform-by-platform settings
Pic-Time
- Format: JPEG.
- Colour space: sRGB (Adobe RGB is accepted, sRGB is safer for viewing).
- Quality: 100, with "Limit File Size To" unticked.
- Size: no resize. Maximum 12,000 × 12,000px and 100MB per file.
- Low-resolution warning: appears when either side is under 2000px.
- Sharpening: Screen, Standard for the gallery; test-print before using paper sharpening.
Pic-Time is the least fussy of the three: hand it the full file and let its uploader and image optimiser do the rest. The only time you need to resize is when a stitched panorama or a large crop goes over 100MB.
Pixieset
- Format: JPEG (required if you sell prints through the store).
- Colour space: sRGB.
- Quality: 92–100.
- Size: full resolution, or 3600px long edge. Avoid files over 10,000px on a side.
- File limit: 100MB per JPEG through the web uploader, 50MB through the Lightroom plugin.
- Download sizes offered to clients: 3600px or original (high resolution); 2048, 1024 or 640px (web).
The plugin limit is the one that catches people. If you publish with the Pixieset plugin and get a "File is too large" error, Pixieset's fix is to set Limit File Size To 51,200 KB in the plugin's file settings. In practice that only bites on very high-megapixel files and big panoramas.
ShootProof
- Format: JPEG only.
- Colour space: sRGB.
- Quality: 85–100. ShootProof says a little compression is fine and speeds up uploads.
- Size: at least 3000px long edge; larger files are resized for display, and the original is kept for downloads.
- File limit: 50MB and 100 megapixels per photo.
ShootProof is the platform where it makes most sense to drop to the 85–92 band, because of its 50MB cap and because it explicitly recommends smaller files for upload speed.
Side-by-side comparison
| Setting | Pic-Time | Pixieset | ShootProof |
|---|---|---|---|
| File type | JPEG | JPEG (needed for print store) | JPEG only |
| Colour space | sRGB (Adobe RGB accepted) | sRGB | sRGB |
| JPEG quality | 100 | 92–100 | 85–100 |
| Long edge | Full size, no resize | Full size or 3600px | Full size, min. 3000px |
| Max file size | 100MB | 100MB (50MB via Lightroom plugin) | 50MB |
| Other limit | 12,000 × 12,000px | Avoid >10,000px | 100 megapixels |
| Output sharpening | Screen, Standard | Screen, Standard | Screen, Standard |
Limits come from each platform's help centre at the time of writing. They change, so check the current page if a file gets rejected.
Common export mistakes (and how to avoid them)
1. Exporting in ProPhoto RGB or Adobe RGB
Usually this happens because a preset made for a print lab gets reused for a gallery. Make a separate, clearly named delivery preset (for example "Gallery – sRGB – Full – Screen Std") and use nothing else for client uploads.
2. Double sharpening
Heavy Develop sharpening plus Output Sharpening on High gives halos on veils, crunchy eyelashes and noisy skin. If you sharpen hard in Develop, drop export sharpening to Low. Check one portrait and one detail shot at 100% after export, not just in Lightroom.
3. Shipping all metadata, or none
"All Metadata" exposes GPS locations and camera serial numbers. "Copyright Only" drops your contact details, so a file shared on Facebook five years later has no way back to you. Copyright & Contact Info Only, with person and location info removed, is the balance.
4. Resizing for the web before uploading
A 2048px, quality-70 export looks fine in the gallery viewer, and then the couple orders a 20×30 canvas from it. Upload masters; let the platform make the web copies.
5. Exporting before the gallery is consistent
No export setting fixes a ceremony that is two shades warmer than the reception. If your sequences drift, sort that out first. Our guide to consistent editing across a wedding gallery covers how.
The real bottleneck is not the export
Once your preset is saved, exporting takes one click. What takes the time is everything before it: culling 4,000 frames down to 700, matching colour across eight different lighting setups, keeping skin tones right from window light to DJ uplighting, and doing it again next weekend.
[before-after before="/media/uploads/webp/light-airy-showcase-before.webp" after="/media/uploads/webp/light-airy-showcase-after.webp"]Bridal prep in window light from our portfolio: the RAW straight out of camera, and the same frame after our colour pass.
That is the part RawFixer takes off your desk. A dedicated lead editor learns your style from your own finished galleries, and we handle culling, colour correction and gallery finishing in your Lightroom catalog. You get a sneak peek within 24 hours and the full gallery in 3–5 business days, ready to export with the preset above. Collections start at $99 per wedding on our pricing page.
If you want to see whether we can match your look first, send us 15 RAWs for a free trial edit. No card, no commitment.
Frequently asked questions
What is the best Lightroom export setting for Pic-Time?
JPEG, sRGB, quality 100, no resizing, Output Sharpening for Screen at Standard. Pic-Time accepts files up to 12,000 × 12,000px and 100MB, and warns about low resolution below 2000px on either side.
What resolution should I export for Pixieset?
Full resolution or 3600px on the long edge. Pixieset says 3600px is enough for prints up to poster size. If you upload through the Lightroom plugin, keep files under 50MB.
Should I export wedding photos in sRGB or Adobe RGB?
sRGB for any online gallery. Adobe RGB only helps on colour-managed screens and with labs that ask for it; elsewhere it can make photos look dull and flat.
What JPEG quality should I use for client galleries?
92–100 for Pic-Time and Pixieset, 85–100 for ShootProof. Lightroom groups quality into bands, so 93 and 100 produce the same file. Save 77–84 for blog and social exports.
Should I sharpen photos when exporting for a client gallery?
Yes, lightly: Sharpen For Screen, Amount Standard. Use Low if you already sharpened heavily in Develop, and avoid High for wedding portraits.