Client Proofing With Color Labels

Color labels are off by default. You switch them on for one gallery at a time, in the Pro proofing panel of that gallery.

The palette is fixed. It is Lightroom’s exact five colors: red, yellow, green, blue and purple. You cannot add a sixth color or rename one.

The client applies a label in the full-screen view. A row of five colored dots sits above the navigation bar. One tap on a dot labels the photo in that color.

Tapping a different dot replaces the label. Tapping the color that is already set clears it.

The client needs no account and installs nothing. The share link is all they use, behind the gallery password if you set one.

Labels are separate from picks. A photo can carry a star or a love and a color at the same time. The two pick levels are covered in the guide to star and love pick levels.

The first rule limits the size of your vocabulary. Five meanings is plenty for a proofing round, and three is often easier for a client to hold in mind.

The second rule means your meanings must not overlap. If two meanings can apply to the same photo, the client will have to choose one, and you lose the other.

The third rule matters most when more than one person has the link. A couple, a marketing team or a family all write to the same set. If one person labels a photo green and another later labels it red, the photo is red.

Changes made by someone else show up on the next page load, not live. Two people working at the same moment will not see each other’s taps until they refresh.

Send the key with the gallery link, in the same message. A key that arrives after the client has started is a key they will apply to half the gallery.

The gallery’s welcome note is the other place to put it. It shows under the gallery title and your studio details, so the client reads it before the first photo.

The dots carry no words on screen. Only the color name appears as a tooltip on a computer. The meaning lives in your note, so keep the note short enough to remember.

Here is an example key for a portrait or family round:

Leaving a color unused is a feature. Every meaning you add is one more thing the client has to hold in their head while they scroll.

Avoid using a color for “yes”. The love already says yes, and a second way of saying it splits the answer across two marks you then have to reconcile.

Use the same key on every gallery you run. A returning client, and your own editing habits, both benefit from green meaning the same thing every time.

One shared set is a strength when the group is meant to reach one answer. The labels become the group’s agreed state, and you read one result instead of merging three lists.

It is a weakness when each person wants their own opinion recorded. Labels cannot do that. Say so to the client up front.

For a group, give each color a decision meaning rather than a person. “Green is print” survives three people tapping. “Green is Anna’s, blue is Marc’s” does not, because a photo both of them want can only hold one color.

Name one person as the final say. Ask the others to leave notes rather than changing a color someone else set.

If comments are switched on for the gallery, those notes sit on the photo itself. Comments are signed with the gallery’s client name, not the name of whoever typed them, so ask people to start a note with their own name. The comment tools are covered in the guide to proofing with photo comments.

Sending picks locks the stars and loves. It does not lock labels. The client can still change a color while you retouch.

That is useful for late requests, such as a photo the client now wants in black and white. It also means a label you read on Monday can differ on Wednesday.

Read the labels at a fixed moment and tell the client when that moment is. After it, ask for changes by message or comment, not by a quiet tap.

If you reopen picking for a second pass, the existing picks are kept and the client is not notified. Tell them yourself, and restate the color key in the same message.

The five colors are Lightroom’s own on purpose. The product states that client labels land back in your catalog when you import picks with the Lightroom Classic plugin.

The import matches photos by filename. A love becomes 5 stars plus a Pick flag and a star becomes 3 stars, and the picks go into a collection named after the gallery. The full walkthrough is in the guide to getting client picks back into Lightroom.

Once the colors are in the catalog, the key you agreed becomes a filter. Filter to blue and you have the black and white list.

If you do not use Lightroom Classic, the Export picks (.txt) file lists the picked filenames only. It does not carry labels, so read them in the gallery instead.

Section share links are view-only. A client who opens the link to one section cannot label anything there. Send the main gallery link for a labelling round.

Labels are not lists. If a client needs the same photo in an album list, a print list and a social list at once, one color per photo cannot express it. A platform with multiple favorites lists fits that job better.

Labels are not per-person votes, as covered above. If you need each family member’s choice kept apart, run separate galleries or collect choices another way.

A studio that earns from print or wall-art sales should stay on a platform with a store. clientgallery.io has no print store and no commissions. Colors that mean “print this” are a note to you, not an order.

This page states no external figures. Every product behaviour described here was checked in the clientgallery.io source code on 16 September 2026: labels off by default and switched on per gallery; the fixed set of red, yellow, green, blue and purple; one label per photo shared by everyone with the link; tapping the current color to clear it; the dots in the full-screen view; labels continuing to work after picks are sent; section links rejecting labels; reopening picks keeping the old picks without notifying the client; comments signed with the gallery’s client name; the .txt export listing filenames only; and the Lightroom import mappings. That labels return to the catalog rests on the product’s own wording. Plugin details are on https://clientgallery.io/lightroom.