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How to use the Format Publisher Lightroom® plugin with Client Galleries

Updated

Detailed guide on the best way to use the Lightroom plugin for publishing to Client Galleries.

If you have not installed the Format Publisher for Adobe® Photoshop Lightroom® plugin yet please see our How to install the Format Publisher for Adobe® Photoshop Lightroom® plugin guide first.

The following screenshots are from macOS, but the steps are the same for WindowsOS computers.

Create a new Client Gallery with the Format plugin

Adobe Lightroom Classic needs to be the active application.

  1. Navigate to the Library module

  2. From Publish Services, in the lower-left sidebar hold the 'Control' keyboard button (macOS or 'Alt' button for WindowsOS) and click once on your websites’ name listed under the Format Publisher dropdown

  3. From the contextual menu select 'Create Page…'

Set the Website and Type of Page to Create

  1. Set: this will display your website Format address (first) then the Website Header) the default page type that would be created is a Gallery Page

  1. Toggle the dropdown

  2. Select the indented 'Client Galleries' option (if you were wanting to create a Gallery Page, leave set as the top option)

  1. Add the Title for you Client Gallery Page

  2. Add the URL, this should match the Title but be all lowercase with a hyphen between words (in this example color-studio-portraits)

  3. Toggle off the 'Hide' checkbox

  4. Click 'Create'

  1. The newly created Client Gallery Page will show indented under the 'Client Galleries' heading at the top, just under the Site Name

OPTIONAL: Switch to your Format account in your web browser

  1. Navigate in the left sidebar to the Workflow > Client Galleries pane

  2. The new Client Gallery Page you created in Lightroom will appear in the list

Return to the Lightroom Classic application.

Select images for adding to the Client Gallery Page

  1. From the left sidebar, locate the Folder with the images you are wanting to publish

  2. Select the images

  3. Tap-and-drag until you are hovering the Client Gallery Page you are wanting to publish the images to (in this example, the Color Studio Portraits page). Your original images will stay in this location, only an alias will be copied to the Format Publisher Client Gallery Page for publishing

  1. Selection of images that wil be added to the Client Gallery Page. Release mouse button when over the correct page

  1. Image counter will show the number of images that will be published

  2. Your original images remain in their original location (they have not been moved or edited)

  3. Metadata can be published and used with your images but requires setting prior to publishing. Please see the section below on 'How to add specific metadata'

  4. 'Publish' button with information showing the path to the selected page within your Format website

  5. Second 'Publish' button option

How to add specific metadata

In addition to any camera or photographer metadata that you may have already included or prepared for embedding with your images, you can also add a Format Caption which will appear in the Image Caption field, and also Format Alt Text, which will appear in the Image Description field (to assist those with visual impairments).

This is accessible from the Library module and right-side tools panel under Metadata

  1. Locate and open the 'Metadata' pane using the triangle toggle (far right)

  2. The dropdown selector may be showing 'Default' Click to activate list in dropdown

  1. Select 'Format' from the bottom of the Metadata settings dropdown

  1. Individual image selected

  2. Format Caption and Format Alt Text added to fields (repeat for all images)

With Client Galleries, and the nature that you are usually sharing the images with a smaller group (your clients), it may not be necessary or worthwhile for you to add individual Format Captions or Format Alt Text to each image, but the option is available if you want to.

You can embed your photographers, camera and other metadata with your images, just enable this in the Plugin settings (see section below).

For more information on why having alt text is important please see our Adding Image Descriptions to images guide.

Check the Format plugin Image Settings before Publishing

Because it is not possible to save different 'presets' for how images will be published using the plugin we recommend that you review the options set prior to publishing to your Client Gallery Page.

If you are also using to publish to Gallery Pages, you may have different options configured.

  1. Right-click on the main 'Format Publisher' Publish Services name to get the contextual menu to appear

  2. Click 'Edit Settings…'

  3. Client Gallery Page with images currently unpublished

Recommended Image Settings for publishing to Client Galleries

  1. 'Sync with Format' click to Update your list of galleries (Client Galleries or Gallery Pages) every time you add or delete on your Format site(s). Syncing will not import images from your galleries to Lightroom.

  2. Favorited Images: enable Use flags for favorited images unless you are already using the 'flags' feature already in your post-processing workflow. Please see our separate How to synchronize favorited images in Lightroom® article

  3. File Naming: Use dropdown to select 'Filename' and toggle this on as you are likely to have already named and numbered your images within Lightroom

  4. File Settings: Quality set to 100

  5. Image Sizing: toggle off 'Resize to Fit' or any other option, we want the original image dimensions and quality level to be uploaded

  6. Resolution: set to 300 pixels per inch (this number doesn't really matter though)

  7. Sharpen For: Screen with Amount: Standard (or disable if you do not want the images sharpened)

  8. Include All Metadata, you can turn off (or keep) the Person and Location info

  9. Save

One-way synchronization

The Format plugin only UPLOADS images from Lightroom to your Format website. Any images already added to Client Galleries do not get downloaded or added to your Lightroom Collection/s.

Publishing the images for the first time

  1. With the Publish Settings checked, you are now ready to click 'Publish'

This will now process in the background (similar to how importing or exporting images works), and these will be published to your Format Client Gallery Page.

  1. Progress indicator, click to expand to see more information

  2. Option to 'X' cancel publishing of images

You can continue working on other tasks in the meantime. Depending on how you have your Lightroom settings configured, you may get a sound notification at the completion of successful publishing.

Any errors or unsuccessfully published images will be displayed.

View the Client Gallery

Switch to your Format account in your web browser.

  1. Navigate to the Workflow > Client Galleries list view. Click the page title to Edit Content or

  2. From the right side hover the '…' icon to open menu

  3. Select 'Edit Content'

Checking the images in the Client Galleries Page editor

  1. Settings are unique for every Client Gallery, See our Creating Client Galleries guide for more information

  2. Images view showing the image thumbnails, hover a thumbnail to see options appear

  3. Number of items on the page

Review Image Description (Format Alt Text) published Metadata

  1. Hover an image thumbnail to activate toolbar and select the top-left icon to 'Edit Image Description'

  1. Pop-up window with image thumbnail and the Format Alt Text (Image Description) that was added in the Lightroom > Metadata field.

Modified photos to re-publish

  1. You can edit any image and it will be displayed in an area named 'Modified Photos to Re-Publish' (the image example above has been converted to black-and-white, cropped to a square 1:1 ratio).

  2. Click either of the two 'Publish' buttons to re-publish

If you remove a photo, re-publishing from Lightroom will remove it from your Format Client Gallery Page.

  1. Updating Published Collections progress indicator bar

  1. Viewing the Format Client Gallery Editor window will show the original image has been replaced with the re-published image

Troubleshooting

If you delete an image from a Format Client Gallery Page when you are accessing and editing from the Worfklow > Client Galleries > Edit Page area you will not be able to 'Re-Publish' this from Lightroom as the file link will be broken. Attempts to upload will show an error message.

Reach us at our live chat or via our email info@format.com if you have any more questions. We’re happy to help!

Adobe, Photoshop and Lightroom are either registered trademarks or trademarks of Adobe Systems Incorporated in the United States and/or other countries.

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