Client Picks in Two Lightroom Classic Catalogs: What Carries Over

The pick import lives in the Library menu, under Plug-in Extras, as Import ClientGallery Picks. It asks for two things: your studio key and the gallery link.

The gallery is the single source. The picks are stored on the gallery, not in any catalog. So every catalog that runs the import reads the same list of likes, loves and labels.

The target is the active catalog only. The plugin asks Lightroom Classic for the catalog that is open and searches that one. A second catalog sitting on the same drive is never opened, read or written by the import.

The match is by file name. For each photo the client picked, the plugin searches the open catalog for that file name and writes to every photo the search returns. The search is a partial match, not an exact one, so a short name can also catch longer names that contain it.

Each run writes the same values, whichever catalog is open. This is the full list of fields the import sets.

Nothing else is written. Develop settings, keywords and every other field are left alone. The import never sets a photo to Rejected.

The rule is the same in every case: run the import in each catalog that holds the shoot. What changes is whether you need to.

If the shoot is in only one of your catalogs, there is nothing to sync. Run the import there and ignore the other.

A second catalog on a second computer needs the plugin installed on that computer too. The plugin is a free download from the clientgallery.io Lightroom page. Our own install steps are: unzip it, move the folder ending in .lrplugin somewhere permanent, add it through File, Plug-in Manager, then restart Lightroom Classic. The plugin install guide walks through each step.

The studio key is per account, not per computer. The same key works on the laptop and the desktop. You find it at the bottom of your studio page on clientgallery.io.

Paste it once on each computer. The plugin remembers it after that, and the pick import dialog opens with it already filled in. In the ClientGallery export settings, the Check button confirms which studio the key signs in to.

One thing to know before you regenerate the key on the dashboard. A new key kills the old one. Both computers then need the new key pasted in before the next import.

The plugin works in Lightroom Classic only. It does not run in the cloud Lightroom app.

It overwrites what it touches. The import sets the rating and label without checking what was there. A frame you rated 5 stars in one catalog, which the client only liked, drops to 3 stars in that catalog. An existing color label is replaced by the client's label.

With two catalogs, this means your own ratings can differ between catalogs before the import and match after it, on the photos the client picked. On the photos the client never touched, each catalog keeps whatever you had.

It never clears anything. A re-run adds and overwrites. It does not remove a rating, flag or label from a photo the client later un-picked. A love that the client later turns into a like drops to 3 stars on the next run but keeps its Pick flag, because a like never sets the flag. The collection is reused on each run and nothing is ever removed from it.

The practical order. If the client changes their mind between your two runs, the two catalogs can end up with different picks. The clean way is to wait for the client's final picks, then run the import in each catalog. If one catalog already carries picks from an earlier round, check the photos the client dropped by hand, since the import will not reset them.

On the upload side, a gallery is identified by its name on your account. Exporting from either catalog to a gallery name that already exists adds to that gallery. This works on a free account too.

A gallery holds one photo per file name. If you export the same frame again from the other catalog, the new upload replaces the old one in place and the client's picks on it stay. So a proof re-exported from the desktop after a laptop edit does not reset the client's choice.

Plugin uploads carry the catalog photo's own file name. That is the name the pick import later searches for. Keep the same file names in both catalogs and the picks find their photos in both. If one catalog holds renamed copies, the import will not find them there.

Rating changes made by the import do not queue anything for re-upload. The plugin does not treat a metadata change as a reason to republish, so running the import in a catalog never pushes new proofs to the client.

There is no seat model. clientgallery.io has no multi-user accounts, no roles and no per-assistant logins. A two-person studio shares one account and one studio key.

For the pick import that is enough. Both people read the same galleries with the same key and write into their own catalogs. What it does not give you is a record of who ran what, or separate access per person. If you need that, this is the wrong tool for it.

If none of the picked file names exist in the open catalog, the plugin says so with this message: "None of the N picked filenames were found in this catalog. Import the shoot folder first, then run this again." N is the number of names it searched for.

With two catalogs, check these three causes.

• The wrong catalog is open. The import only searches the active one. Open the catalog that holds the shoot and run it again.
• The shoot is not in this catalog yet. Import the photos first, then run the pick import.
• The file names differ between catalogs. The search is by file name, so renamed copies in one catalog will not match the names stored in the gallery.

When the import does find photos, a summary dialog reports the counts, so you can compare the two catalogs side by side.

You want your own ratings and edits synced. The plugin moves the client's picks, nothing else. Merging your own work between two catalogs is a Lightroom Classic job, not a plugin job, and this page does not cover it.

You need picks to clear when the client changes their mind. The import never removes a rating, flag, label or collection entry. If you re-run it after a change, the dropped frames need a manual check.

You work in the cloud Lightroom app. The plugin is Lightroom Classic only.

For studios that do fit, the plan is simple. A free account holds one gallery and 5 GB, and the pick import is not limited by plan. The paid plan is $10 a month or $100 a year for unlimited galleries under fair use. The full pick workflow is in the guide to getting client picks back into Lightroom, and the two-person view of the product is in client gallery software for a small studio.

No outside source is used on this page. Adobe's help pages could not be fetched on 18 September 2026, so nothing here describes how Lightroom Classic handles catalogs internally.

• clientgallery.io product facts, checked in code 18 September 2026: Lightroom Classic plugin version 3.2.0 (active catalog only, partial file name match, 3-star likes, 5-star loves with a Pick flag, label and optional caption writes, overwrite without clearing, collection reuse, the not-found message, studio key remembered in the plugin, metadata changes not triggering republish), the plugin upload routes (gallery identified by name, one photo per file name, 1,000 photos per gallery, 250 GB per account), the pick import route (not limited by plan), and the plan terms ($10 a month or $100 a year, free account of one gallery and 5 GB, no seat model), https://clientgallery.io/lightroom