Food Photography Delivery to Restaurants: A Menu-First Workflow

The menu is the only index everyone at the restaurant already knows. So the filename should read like a menu line.

Rename at import or before export, never after the gallery is live. A rename after sharing leaves you with two names for one photo. The guide on renaming files before proofing covers the timing.

The pattern below is a recommendation, not a product rule.

Assembled, that reads mains-braised-short-rib-overhead-01.jpg. Use lowercase, hyphens instead of spaces, and no accented characters. A dish called crème brûlée becomes creme-brulee in the filename.

Put the category first for a practical reason. If you finish in Lightroom Classic, picks come back by filename with a contains match, not an exact match. A file named fries-01 is contained in truffle-fries-01, so both could be matched. With the category in front, sides-fries-01 is no longer part of sides-truffle-fries-01.

Build one gallery for the shoot. Inside it, make a section for each menu category.

Sections are an organising tool on your side. The owner and the chef see one scrolling page, with a jump bar at the top that lists every section and how many photos it holds. Tapping a section name moves down the page to it. Photos you have not placed in a section appear first, under Highlights.

Sections go one level deep. They do not add room: every photo counts toward the gallery's ceiling of 1,000 photos. A restaurant group shooting several venues on one day is better served by one gallery per venue.

Each section also has its own share link. That link is view-only. It carries no downloads, no picks, no comments, no labels and no full-resolution file, and the gallery password still applies. Use it to show the pastry lead the desserts, not to collect decisions.

Everyone who opens the link works on the same set of picks. There are no per-person picks and no separate favourites for the chef. A change made by one person shows up for the other after a page reload.

Picks have two levels. In the full-screen view, one tap stars a photo and a double tap loves it. A convention that suits a restaurant: a star means usable, a love means the shot for the printed menu.

When the choice is final, someone presses Send my picks. That person enters a name and an email, and the selection locks. You get an email with the counts.

Agree before the link goes out on who presses that button. One workable rule: the owner sends, after the chef has had a pass. Put the rule in the welcome note, which shows under the gallery title.

If they change their mind, use Reopen picking. The existing picks stay in place. The client is not notified, so send them a message yourself.

The answer on several people choosing from one gallery goes deeper into shared picks.

A chef may spot what the camera missed. A smear on the rim, a wilted herb, a sauce that reads too dark. Those notes belong on the photo, not in a text thread.

Two tools handle that, and both are off by default. You switch them on for this gallery only.

Comments. The chef writes a note on a frame and can draw on the photo to circle the problem. Comments are signed with the client name set on the gallery, so ask each person to start a note with their initials. When a fix is done, mark the note done. The note is struck through and gets a Retouched chip. The per-photo retouched badge is a separate flag, so set both when a frame is finished.

Colour labels. The gallery offers Lightroom's five colour labels. A colour means nothing until you define it. Write the key into the welcome note before the round starts.

If you finish in Lightroom Classic, the plugin's Import ClientGallery Picks command brings this back into the catalogue. A star becomes 3 stars, a love becomes 5 stars plus a Pick flag, and colour labels arrive as Lightroom labels. Comments can optionally be written into the photo's caption. The guide on getting picks back into Lightroom covers the command, and the colour labels guide and the photo comments guide cover each tool in full.

Outside Lightroom, a plain-text list of the picked filenames is available once picks are sent. Because the names follow the menu, that list already reads like a shot list.

A restaurant's social accounts need the chosen dishes in several shapes. The gallery helps with that, but only at the right moment.

Once picks are sent, crop buttons appear for the picked photos. The client can make four shapes.

Every crop is a centre crop, made in the client's own browser. There is no way to move the frame. So compose with that in mind on the day: keep the hero plate near the centre and leave room around it. An overhead of a sharing table with the main dish at one edge will lose it in a Story crop.

The crops apply to picks only, and nothing appears before picks are sent. That is one more reason to get the send done early. The answer on how clients post gallery photos to Instagram covers posting and the credit question.

The gallery holds proofs sized for fast viewing. They are for choosing, not for a printed menu. The printer and the web designer need files exported from your masters.

Ask each of them for their file requirements in writing before you export. This guide lists no print or platform specifications, because each printer, website and delivery app sets its own.

Then build one ZIP yourself and upload it to the gallery. Keep the menu filenames, and add a suffix that says what each file is for, such as -print and -web. The printer can then take the print files and ignore the rest.

Filenames are the reason to build this ZIP carefully. The one-click Download all photos button gives a ZIP of the hosted proofs with numbered files. Of the two ZIPs, only the one you build keeps your menu filenames.

The client sees the ZIP's size and how many days are left. The hosted gallery itself does not expire, so the proofs stay available while your account exists.

Two cautions before you upload. The downloads switch hides Download all photos and the per-photo download, but it does not hide the full-resolution ZIP or the social crops. And the payment link is manual: you can paste your own link, but nothing unlocks when the restaurant pays. Upload the ZIP once the invoice has cleared.

Restaurants change menus, and a good client books you again. Galleries carry no per-gallery fee, so each season can be its own gallery.

A new dish added mid-season can go into the existing gallery. The link stays the same, and new photos appear at the end of the page. The client is not notified when photos are added, so tell them.

For a client you shoot for every quarter, the guide to a photo portal for repeat commercial clients shows how to keep years of work findable from one link.

If the menu is unreleased, set a gallery password. It covers every section, the ZIP downloads and the comments. It cannot stop someone who forwards both the link and the password.

This is a delivery gallery, not an asset library. A restaurant group that needs usage-rights tracking or named logins per location should buy a digital asset manager.

There are no seats, roles or per-person logins, on the client side or the studio side. A two-person studio shares one account.

The gallery hosts JPEGs and does not store RAW files or video. If the job includes short-form video for social, deliver that part another way.

If your studio earns from selling prints or products through its gallery, stay on a platform with a print store. There is none here.

This page states no external figure, quotes no competitor and gives no print, website or delivery-app image specification. The filename pattern, section plan and colour key are recommendations, not measurements. Every clientgallery.io behaviour below was checked against the product on 17 September 2026.

• clientgallery.io product behaviour (sections shown as one scrolling page with a jump bar and counts, unfiled photos under Highlights, view-only section links, one shared pick set, star and love levels, Send my picks with name and email locking the selection, Reopen picking without a client notification, opt-in comments with drawings and colour labels, the Retouched chip and the separate retouched flag, the plain-text picks list, social crops at 9:16, 4:5, 1:1 and 16:9 made in the browser after picks are sent, numbered files in the proof ZIP, the full-resolution ZIP live 3 days per handoff within 100 GB, the downloads switch and what it leaves visible, the manual payment link, 1,000 photos per gallery, 250 GB of proofs per paid account at about 0.6 MB each, 1 gallery and 5 GB on a free account, JPEG hosting with no RAW or video, no seats, and the plan at $10 a month or $100 a year), checked 17 September 2026, https://clientgallery.io/
• clientgallery.io Lightroom Classic plugin (Import ClientGallery Picks: star to 3 stars, love to 5 stars plus a Pick flag, colour labels carried, optional comments into the caption, filename contains match), checked 17 September 2026, https://clientgallery.io/lightroom