A photo loses quality in two places: when you export it, and when an app decides to make it smaller on the way. The upload itself, to a gallery, a cloud folder or a transfer service, copies the file byte for byte. So the fix is a careful export and a route that does not recompress, which means a link to the full file rather than an attachment in a chat.
In practice: full-resolution JPEGs in sRGB at quality 90 or higher, downloaded from a link, plus a smaller copy for screens. Below is why the usual shortcuts fail, which free options hold up, and what to tell the client so they do not undo your work on their side.
Why do WhatsApp, texts and email shrink your photos?
Because they are built to move messages quickly over a phone connection, not to deliver originals.
WhatsApp compresses images by default. It now has an HD option, and even then its own help pages say media may arrive at lower quality than the original because it is compressed when shared (WhatsApp Help). The way round it is to attach the photo as a document instead of as a photo. WhatsApp then handles it as a file, up to 2 GB each (WhatsApp Help), and skips the photo compression. That is fine for one urgent image to a client who lives in WhatsApp, and painful for three hundred.
Text messages are worse. Between two iPhones, iMessage keeps more of the file, unless the sender has Low Quality Image Mode switched on under Settings, Messages. To an Android phone the message goes over RCS or MMS, and both shrink large photos.
Email does not compress, it refuses. Personal Gmail stops at 25 MB of attachments per message and swaps anything bigger for a Google Drive link (Gmail Help). Outlook.com stops at 20 MB including the message itself (Microsoft Support). A full-size JPEG from a high-resolution camera can be 20 MB on its own, so email gets you one or two photos at a time.
What export settings keep full quality?
Most quality complaints trace back to the Export dialog, not the delivery. In Lightroom Classic, these are the settings for the full-size files:
- File type: JPEG. TIFF only if a client's printer asks for it.
- Quality: 90 to 100. Above about 90 the file grows much faster than anything you can see in a print, so 100 is a choice about file size, not a visible upgrade.
- Color space: sRGB. Adobe RGB or Display P3 looks flat on most phones and in many browsers, which is the whole problem behind photos that look washed out on the web. Consumer print labs expect sRGB too.
- Image sizing: Resize to Fit unticked. The ppi field does not change a single pixel, so leave it at 300 and stop worrying about it.
- Output sharpening: off, or Matte or Glossy Paper at Low. The client's lab may sharpen again, and double sharpening shows as halos.
- Metadata: Copyright and Contact Info Only, which keeps your name in the file and takes the GPS location of a family's home out of it.
Then export a second set for screens: long edge 2048 to 2560 pixels, quality 80 to 85, Sharpen For Screen at Standard. These are the files a client will actually post, and at a few megabytes each they download on a phone without drama.
Label the two sets in the client's words. "For printing" and "for sharing online" stop the most common mistake, which is a 16x20 canvas ordered from the web copy.
Should you send a link or attach the files?
A link to a download page, every time. None of the options below recompress your files. They differ in how long the link lives, how it looks to the client and whose storage it fills.
- A client gallery: a private page with a link and a PIN, viewable on a phone, with downloads of single photos or the whole set, open as long as you decide.
- WeTransfer: the free plan sends up to 3 GB per transfer and the link stays active for up to 3 days (WeTransfer), with 10 transfers or 3 GB in total in any rolling 30 days (WeTransfer Help). A wedding does not fit, and three days is shorter than most clients take to open the email.
- Google Drive: up to 15 GB free, shared with your Gmail and Google Photos (Google One Help).
- Dropbox Basic: 2 GB free (Dropbox Help), which is one portrait session.
The longer comparison, with what each route costs you in re-uploads and support emails, is in how photographers deliver photos to clients.
How do you send photos to clients for free?
For a full session, Google Drive is the free route that holds up:
- Export both sets as above into one folder with two subfolders.
- Upload the folder to Drive and share it as "Anyone with the link" with Viewer access. Shared only with the client's email address, it fails the moment they open it while signed into a different Google account.
- Tell the client that downloading the folder gives them one or more zip files, and that it is easier on a computer.
- Put a date in the message by which you will stop sharing the folder, then keep to it, because every session you leave there eats your own 15 GB.
For one or two images, a WhatsApp document or an email under 25 MB is fine. Several gallery platforms also have free plans with a few gigabytes; the catches are the storage, the number of galleries and the cut they take of sales, compared plan by plan in free Pixieset alternatives.
What if the client asks for the RAW files?
Usually they want the best version, not the RAW. A RAW file is unprocessed sensor data: it looks flat, opens only in an editor, and has none of the edit they booked you for. Ask what they want to do with it. Usually the answer is "print it big", and the full-size JPEG at quality 90 or higher already does that.
If you do agree, send RAW files through a link like everything else, and price it as the separate product it is. Should you give clients RAW files? covers when to say yes and what to charge.
How should clients download the photos?
You can deliver a perfect file and still have it printed as a 1,000 pixel screenshot. The losses on the client's side are predictable: a screenshot of the gallery, a "Save image" from a preview, a link opened inside Instagram's or WhatsApp's own browser, and the web copy forwarded to a grandmother who orders a canvas from it.
Put a short version of this in the delivery email:
Download on a computer if you can. The "for printing" files are full size, so use those for any print or album. Please do not screenshot the gallery: a screenshot is a fraction of the real photo.
When a client still cannot get the files out, it is almost always one of the problems in why clients cannot download their gallery.
Make the route the same for every client
Once the export preset and the email text exist, delivery stops being a decision. Save the two export presets in Lightroom, save the email, and send every session the same way.
A client gallery puts most of this in one place. In Xposure, for example, you choose per gallery whether your client downloads the full-size files, a web copy up to 2,560 pixels on the long edge, or both, one at a time or as a single zip, behind a PIN, until the closing date you set. The workflow from Lightroom to a sent gallery is in how to create an online photo gallery for clients. Whatever you use, test it once from your own phone, signed out, before the client does.
