The Client Wants to Change Their Photo Selection After Submitting

A client picks photos in the full-screen view. One tap stars a photo. A double tap loves it. The star and heart buttons do the same thing.

When they are done, they press “Send my picks” in the bottom tray. On the last photo, that button also takes the place of “Next”.

A confirmation asks for a name and an email. It also tells the client plainly that sending locks their picks.

After they confirm, the gallery refuses every further pick change. The star and heart buttons disappear, and so does the tray.

The client sees a short thank-you message saying your studio is on it.

Some things keep working while the selection is locked. If you switched on colour labels or comments for this gallery, the client can still use both.

You hear about the send three ways. You get an email with the loved and starred counts. An event row appears in your feed. If your iPhone has picks notifications on, you also get a push.

One detail matters later. The name and email the client typed in the confirmation replace the client name and email stored on the gallery.

On the gallery’s page in your studio, the button reads “Reopen picking”. It removes the lock and nothing else.

Because the old picks stay, the client edits rather than starts over. That is usually what they want. Someone swapping three photos should not have to rebuild a list of forty.

It also means a reopened gallery can look finished to a client who does not read your message. Their picks are all there. Nothing on the page tells them why the tray came back. Your note is the explanation.

Keep it short. Say what is open, what to do, and when you need it back.

“I have reopened your gallery, same link as before. Your picks are all still there. Open any photo to change it: tap once for a star, twice for a love. When you are done, press Send my picks again. I will start editing once I have the new list, so please send it by Friday.”

Three parts of that message do real work.

• “Same link as before.” The client does not go hunting for a new email.
• “Your picks are all still there.” The client does not panic and re-pick everything.
• A date. A reopened gallery with no deadline stays open. The lock you just removed was the thing that closed the job.

If the client only wants to swap one or two photos, you have another option. You can skip reopening and ask them to name the photos in a comment, if comments are on for the gallery. Comments keep working after the lock.

A gallery holds one shared set of picks. Everyone with the link is editing the same list.

That is often why the change request arrives. One partner sent the picks before the other had finished.

Reopening works the same way here. The second person comes back to the first person’s picks and adds or removes from there.

Warn them about one limit. Changes made by one viewer appear to another only after a page reload. The page does not update live.

Two people editing at the same moment should agree who goes first. The one who finishes last should reload before sending.

Whoever presses send types their own name and email, and those replace the ones on the gallery. Comments on the gallery are signed with that client name. If the name matters to you, check it on the gallery after the second send.

Picking also happens only on the main gallery link. A link to a single section is view-only and has no picks. If you shared section links with family members, send the main link for the edit.

The full pattern for couples and families is on the page about several people choosing from one gallery.

Treat the new list as the list. The old one is gone, because the client edited it in place.

Export again. The “Export picks (.txt)” button appears once picks are sent. The file lists one filename per line, loves first and stars after. It does not mark which line is which. Take the loved and starred counts from the new pick email to find where loves end.

Check Lightroom. The Lightroom Classic plugin matches picks by filename. A star comes in as 3 stars. A love comes in as 5 stars plus a Pick flag. Every pick lands in a collection named after the gallery. If you pulled picks into your catalog before the change, compare that collection with the new export before you edit.

Mind the retouch count. After picks are sent, the client sees a pill reading “X of Y picks retouched”. It counts the photos you flagged as retouched on the Retouch round page, across the photos currently picked. If the client drops a photo you already finished, it leaves that count. If they add a new one, the total grows.

The product makes reopening easy. That does not mean every request deserves it.

Put the rule in writing before the first send. One change round before editing starts is a common and fair line.

clientgallery.io has no setting that caps the number of picks. If the change pushes the client past the package, the page on a client picking too many photos has the wording. If the request is about how a photo was edited rather than which photo was chosen, that is a revision, and revision requests are handled differently.

The gallery has no store and does not process payments. You bill extra edits on your own invoice, which you can attach to the gallery along with your own payment link. A studio that wants clients to buy extra images or prints in the gallery itself should use a platform with a store.

You could. It costs more than it saves.

• A new gallery has a new link, and the client has to find it.
• It starts with no picks, so the client rebuilds the whole list.
• Comments and labels on the old gallery stay on the old gallery.
• A free account holds one gallery, so a second one is not available there.

Reopening keeps all of that in one place. Galleries do not expire, so the reopened one is the same page the client has always used.

This page states no external figures. Every product behaviour on it was checked in the clientgallery.io source on 16 September 2026: sending picks from the full-screen view and the bottom tray, the confirmation that asks for a name and email and states that picks lock, the refusal of pick changes after sending, the name and email replacing the gallery’s client details, labels and comments continuing after the lock, the pick email and feed event and iPhone push, the Reopen picking button that removes only the lock and keeps existing picks without notifying the client, a second send emailing the studio again, one shared pick set per gallery with changes visible after reload, section links without picks, comments signed with the gallery’s client name, the Export picks (.txt) format, the Lightroom Classic pick import, the retouched-picks count, one gallery on a free account, and galleries that do not expire.

• clientgallery.io, product and plan details, checked 16 September 2026, https://clientgallery.io/
• clientgallery.io, Lightroom Classic plugin, checked 16 September 2026, https://clientgallery.io/lightroom