Newborn Photography Proofing Gallery: A Tight Set, Two Pick Levels, One Link

A family session spreads across locations and people. A newborn session repeats a handful of setups: wrapped, on the bean bag, in a prop, with parents, with siblings.

Inside each setup, the frames are close. Sending all of them turns selection into a spot-the-difference game.

Parents of a two-week-old do not have the attention for that. They will open the link, scroll, feel overwhelmed, and close it for a week.

The fix happens before upload. Cull each setup down to the frames that are genuinely different: a different expression, a different angle, a different crop.

Then group what is left by setup, so the parents make one small decision at a time. In clientgallery.io, each setup can be its own section. The client still sees one scrolling page, with a jump-to bar at the top that shows each section and its count. Photos not placed in a section show first, under Highlights.

The table below gives our own starting points. They are house recommendations, not an industry standard. The companion guide on how many photos belong in a proofing gallery explains the reasoning across job types.

A gallery can hold up to 1,000 photos under fair use. A newborn proofing round should use a small fraction of that.

A single heart forces a yes or no on every frame. Parents rarely think that way about their baby.

They think in two tiers: the photos they want, and the few they want on the wall. clientgallery.io gives them exactly those two tiers.

Picks are made in the full-screen view. One tap on the photo stars it. A double tap loves it. The star and heart buttons do the same thing for anyone who prefers buttons.

In the grid, each tile shows a small badge for its pick level. That lets a parent scroll back and see at a glance what is already marked.

Tell the parents what each level means for your package before you send the link. The table shows one way to phrase it, and what each level becomes if you edit in Lightroom Classic.

The plugin matches photos by filename. The full walkthrough of the two levels is in the guide to star and love pick levels.

A newborn gallery is often chosen by two people. They may choose at different times of night, on different phones.

Each gallery holds one shared set of picks. If one parent stars a photo, the other parent sees that star.

The update is not live. The second parent sees the first parent’s changes the next time the page loads. Tell them to refresh before they start a pass.

A shared set means one parent can undo the other’s pick. That is usually what couples want, because the final list has to be one list anyway. If they disagree strongly, suggest that each one only adds loves on their own pass, and that they review the loves together at the end.

Comments help when a pick comes with a request. They are off by default and switched on per gallery. A parent can write a note on a photo, or draw on it, for example circling a scratch on the baby’s cheek. Notes are signed with the client name set on the gallery, so both parents’ notes appear under that one name.

Colour labels are also available per gallery, using Lightroom’s five colours. For a newborn set they can be one tool too many. Two pick levels and optional notes may be all the parents need.

More on this situation is in several people choosing photos in one gallery.

The parents will open the proofing gallery on a phone, in a dark room, probably while holding the baby.

They install nothing and log in to nothing. The gallery is a web page on your own subdomain, behind an optional password.

The client can switch the page between light and dark. The choice is remembered for that gallery, which matters when the phone is opened again during the next feed.

Write the instructions into the welcome note, which shows under the gallery title. Keep it to three lines: how many to pick, what star and love mean, and the date you need the picks by.

There is no platform branding on the client page. The header shows your studio name and logo.

If the parents want to show grandparents the set first, the slideshow button plays the gallery full screen and advances on its own. It can be switched off per gallery if you would rather keep the proofing round between the parents.

When the parents are done, they tap Send my picks in the bottom tray. On the last photo, the same button replaces Next.

A confirmation asks for a name and an email, and says that sending locks the picks. The name and email they type replace the client name and email stored on the gallery.

After sending, the star and heart buttons and the tray disappear. The parents see a short thank-you message from your studio instead. Notes and colour labels, if switched on, keep working.

You are told in three ways: an email with the count of loved and starred photos, an entry in your activity feed, and a push on your iPhone if picks notifications are on in the app.

The studio page then offers Export picks as a text file. It lists one filename per line, loved photos first, then starred. The file does not mark which is which, so use the Lightroom plugin when the split matters.

If the parents ask to change their minds, Reopen picking unlocks the round. Their existing picks stay in place. The parents are not notified, so send them a short message yourself. When they send again, you get a second email. The guide on a client who wants to change their selection covers how to word that policy.

Picks and downloads are two separate switches on each gallery. Both are on when a gallery is created.

That separation is what lets one link serve both stages. You do not need a second gallery, a second password or a second email with a new address.

The table shows how the switches line up across the round.

Two honest limits apply to the downloads switch.

First, it does not hide the full-resolution ZIP. That button appears whenever a ZIP is live, so do not upload one during the proofing round.

Second, it does not hide the social crop buttons. Once picks are sent, the parents can save centre-cropped versions of every pick, made from the proofs, in four shapes for stories, posts, squares and wide banners. If you do not want any file leaving before the edit, switch social crops off on that gallery.

While you edit, the parents can follow along. Flag each finished photo on the retouch round page. The photo then shows a green retouched badge, and the page shows how many of their picks are retouched.

When you switch picks off, the page greeting changes to say the photos are ready. The rest of the handoff, including the full-resolution ZIP and payment, is covered in the newborn photo delivery guide. The difference between the two kinds of gallery is laid out in proofing gallery vs delivery gallery.

Some newborn studios earn most of their revenue from albums and wall art sold at an in-person ordering appointment.

If that is your model, keep the selection in the room. An online proofing round can undercut the sale by letting parents decide at home without you. Read in-person sales vs online proofing before you change anything.

clientgallery.io has no print store and takes no commission. A studio that sells prints through its gallery should stay on a platform with a built-in store.

It also hosts JPEG proofs, not RAW files. Your masters stay on your own drives.

If your newborn package is a fixed edited set that you choose, skip the proofing round. Cull privately and deliver. A family that booked newborn and family sessions together may also want the family session gallery guide.

This page states no external figure and names no competitor price.

Every product behaviour described here was checked against the clientgallery.io code on 16 September 2026: the star and love pick levels, the shared pick set, the send and lock step, studio notifications, reopening, the separate picks and downloads switches, the scope of the downloads switch, social crops, retouched marks, sections with a jump-to bar, the picks export, the Lightroom plugin mapping, and the fair-use limit of 1,000 photos per gallery.

The proof counts in the first table are our own editorial starting points, not a published standard.