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Selection

How to Collect Client Photo Selects Without a Spreadsheet

A spreadsheet of filenames is not a workflow. It is what is left over when the place your client looked at the photos could not record what they decided. Here is how to remove that step, and what each gallery platform actually hands you at the end of a selection round.

Updated 7 September 2026

The request arrives in a familiar shape. Could the client just send a list. A tab in a shared sheet, a numbered paragraph in an email, a screenshot of a notes app. Then you sit down and rebuild that list inside your editing software by hand.

The spreadsheet is a symptom, not the disease. It exists because the selection was made in one place and has to be reproduced in another, by the person least equipped to get filenames right. Fix that and the document stops being necessary. This page covers the whole problem: what the list costs you, where the decision should live instead, what each of the main gallery platforms documents handing back, and the one case where a spreadsheet is genuinely the correct deliverable.

Four things a hand-built list loses

None of these need a study to establish. Any photographer who has received a list of selects has met at least two of them.

  • Transcription. A client copying names by eye drops a leading zero, transposes two digits, or skips a frame in a run of near-identical filenames. A wrong name matches nothing, or worse, matches a neighbouring frame. Nothing in the document tells you which of the two happened.
  • Renames. If you rename after ingest, or the gallery carries JPEG names while you cull RAW files, the client's list describes files that no longer exist under those names. Now you need a mapping before the list is usable at all.
  • No levels. A row in a spreadsheet is a yes. A definite yes and a reluctant maybe look identical once they are both a line of text. The client's own ranking is the most useful thing they produced, and it is the first thing the format throws away.
  • Version drift. On Thursday the client sends a second list. Is it a replacement or an addition. Does it still contain the four they changed their mind about. You now hold two documents and reconcile them by hand, and the only record of what was agreed lives in a mail thread you will have to search for in eight months.

Every one of those is a consequence of moving a decision by copying text. The answer is not a tidier template.

Record the decision where the photos are

The selection should be a property of the photo, made in the same window the client is already looking at, and it should carry a level rather than a yes.

In a clientgallery.io gallery the client marks at two levels. A single tap stars a photo and a double tap loves it, and tapping the level a photo already has clears it. A running tray at the bottom of the page keeps the two counts visible while they work, so they can see the shortlist growing without leaving the grid.

Finishing is deliberate. The client presses Send my picks, and a dialogue warns that sending locks the selection, then asks for their name and email. Both are required and the email is checked on the server, so a set of picks always arrives attached to a person. The lock is the part that kills version drift: once sent, the gallery has exactly one authoritative selection, and there is no question of which document is current.

The client never makes an account. The share link is the login, optionally with the gallery password, and the name and email are collected at send time rather than being credentials. The photographer is told three ways: an email naming the client and the gallery with the loved and starred counts, a push notification on the phone, and the dashboard, which flips to show that the client sent their picks.

What each platform hands you at the end of a selection round

This is worth checking before you build a habit on it, because the products differ more at the end of the round than at the start. Every cell below uses the vendor's own documentation, fetched on 7 September 2026, and the sources are listed at the foot of this page.

PlatformHow the client finishesWhat the photographer gets
clientgallery.ioStars and loves photos, presses Send my picks, enters a name and email, which locks the selectionAn email and a phone notification, the two levels written into the Lightroom Classic catalogue by the plugin, or an Export picks (.txt) filename list
PixiesetClicks the heart to add photos to a favorite list saved under their email, then can "Send the list directly to you and confirm they finished their selections"Lists under Activities, Favorite Activity, "organized by email address", from which you can "export a .CSV of filenames" or a Lightroom Copy List
Pic-TimeFlags photos in the Selection Request tool and clicks "Send to Photographer", with a requested count that blocks submission if exceededEmail notification on completion, picks under Workflow, User's Favorites, a downloadable .csv, and a Lightroom sync via "LR Sync also Favorites"
ShootProofFavorites inside the gallery, then clicks Favorites in the top navigation for a filtered viewA dashboard notification and an email, the favorites count in the Gallery Visitors report, and a documented Lightroom filter for "the photos your clients have chosen as Favorites"
CloudSpotFavorites images, then clicks the Download icon and picks their favorites list, which emails a download link to the address they enterDownload activity, marketed as seeing downloaded files. Downloads must be enabled in gallery settings first

Two honest readings of that table. The first is that nobody makes you build the spreadsheet yourself: all five record the selection inside the gallery, and the platforms that document an export produce the file for you. The second is that the column on the right is where the products separate. A .CSV of filenames and a text file of filenames are the same object with a different extension, and both still have to be matched against a catalogue.

Two details are worth pulling out of the cells. Pixieset lets a client create more than one favorite list, which is the documented way to separate a yes from a maybe there, and lets the photographer preset a list with a cap on how many selections it accepts. Pic-Time enforces the count from the other direction: a client can send fewer photos than requested, but selecting too many shows a red indicator and blocks the submission. Pic-Time also lists Client Selections on its Professional and Advanced plans and not on Free or Beginner. These are all statements about what the vendors publish, not claims about what their products cannot do.

From the gallery into the catalogue, with no list in between

If you edit in Lightroom Classic, the list can disappear entirely. The clientgallery.io plugin authenticates with a studio key, matches the picks by filename inside the open catalogue, and writes the client's two levels in as things you already filter on.

In the gallery, the clientIn your catalogue, after the import
Loves a photo5 stars, plus a Pick flag
Stars a photo3 stars
Everything they pickedA collection named after the gallery

The same plugin runs the other direction as a Publish Service, so proofs go out of the catalogue and picks come back into it. Re-exporting a shoot replaces each photo in place rather than duplicating it, and the existing picks stay attached.

The reason this matters is the third row of the previous section. Filtering at the top level gives you the definite yeses. Filtering at the lower level and above gives you the whole shortlist. Neither of those survives a flat list of names, whoever generated it. Why a pasted list behaves badly inside Lightroom Classic specifically, in Adobe's own words, is the subject of stop retyping filenames into Lightroom, and there is no need to repeat the argument here.

If you finish somewhere else, the list is one tap

Plenty of studios cull outside Lightroom Classic. For them there is a button labelled Export picks (.txt) on the completed gallery. It appears only after the client has sent their picks, and it downloads a file named after the gallery containing the picked filenames, one per line, with no header row and no level column. Loves are listed first and stars follow, but the file does not label the boundary.

That file is not a compromise for everyone. The exact steps, the delimiter setting, and the two-pass trick for keeping loves and stars apart are covered in exporting client picks as a filename list for Capture One. The same file is what clientgallery.io offers to anyone culling outside Lightroom Classic, Capture One and Hasselblad Phocus users included.

When the spreadsheet is the right answer

Sometimes the document is the deliverable, and pretending otherwise would be dishonest. An agency traffic desk, a production coordinator or a publisher may need the selection as a file because their own system consumes one, and no argument about workflow elegance changes that requirement.

In that case the filename export gives them precisely what they asked for, and there is nothing wrong with it. The difference from where this page started is who produced the file and when. It is generated from the recorded selection, after the client locked it, by the software rather than by a person reading names off a screen. Transcription errors cannot enter a file nobody typed. If the client then edits that file, you are back in spreadsheet territory, but the version they received was correct.

The same point applies to the other platforms. If a file is what your client needs, Pixieset documents exporting a .CSV of filenames from a favorite list and Pic-Time documents downloading a .csv of the favourites. Use it without guilt.

When you should stay exactly where you are

Your store and client records live inside your gallery platform. If ordering, pricing, fulfilment and your client history all run through Pixieset or Pic-Time, a cleaner selection handback is not a reason to dismantle any of it. clientgallery.io has no print store and takes no commission, which is what keeps it at one flat price, and it is also exactly why it is the wrong tool for a print-led studio.

You are a Pic-Time customer whose Lightroom sync already works. Pic-Time documents syncing favourites into Lightroom, and if that is running for your galleries you are not retyping anything either. Read this page as an argument against the spreadsheet, not against your setup.

You deliver RAW files or master video. clientgallery.io hosts JPEG proofs and does not warehouse RAW files or master video. That limit is deliberate and it is part of why the price is flat, and it makes the product wrong for a RAW delivery service.

Sources

clientgallery.io behaviour was verified in the product source on 7 September 2026. All third-party pages were fetched on 7 September 2026.

Frequently asked

How do I get photo selects from a client without a spreadsheet?

Have the client mark the photos inside the gallery they are already looking at, rather than writing filenames somewhere else. In clientgallery.io a single tap stars a photo and a double tap loves it, and the client finishes by pressing Send my picks and entering their name and email, which locks the selection. You then either import those picks straight into Lightroom Classic with the plugin, or download them as a filename list if you cull elsewhere.

What actually goes wrong with a list of filenames?

Four things. A client copying names by eye introduces typos and dropped digits. A rename after ingest means the list describes files that no longer carry those names. A flat list has no levels, so a definite yes and a maybe look identical. And a second list sent later has to be reconciled against the first by hand, with the only record living in an email thread.

Do the other gallery platforms make me build the spreadsheet myself?

No. All of the main platforms record the selection inside the gallery. Pixieset saves favorite lists under the client's email and documents exporting a .CSV of filenames or a Lightroom Copy List. Pic-Time has the client click Send to Photographer, notifies you by email, and documents downloading a .csv. ShootProof sends a dashboard notification and an email and documents filtering client favorites in Lightroom. CloudSpot documents the client downloading their own favorites list once downloads are enabled.

What if my client insists on a spreadsheet because their side needs one?

Then give them one, and do not feel bad about it. The Export picks (.txt) button produces a one-per-line list of the picked filenames from the selection the client already locked, so the file is machine-generated rather than typed. That removes the transcription risk while still handing the coordinator or agency the document their own system consumes.

Does the client have to create an account to send their picks?

No. The share link is the login, optionally with a gallery password. The client's name and email are collected at the moment they send, so the selection arrives attached to a person, but they are not credentials and there is nothing to sign up for.

Can the client change their mind after sending?

Sending locks the picks, which is the point. Until they press send they can add, change and clear marks freely, and the studio can see that picks exist but have not been sent yet. Once sent, the gallery holds one authoritative selection, so there is never a question of which list is the current one.

Which levels survive into my editing software?

Both of them, if you use Lightroom Classic. The plugin matches by filename inside the catalogue and writes a loved photo as five stars plus a Pick flag, a starred photo as three stars, and gathers the whole selection into a collection named after the gallery. The plain text export does not carry the levels: it lists loves first and stars after, without labelling the boundary.

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How to Collect Client Photo Selects Without a Spreadsheet