You’ve just spent 8 hours covering a seminar. You’ve delivered 90 edited photos, on time, with care. The client opens the WeTransfer link — and sees a ZIP folder full of files named “DSC_4821.jpg”, “DSC_4822.jpg”, “DSC_4823.jpg”.
First impression: amateur. No matter how good the images inside are.
Delivery is the last contact you have with your client before they decide whether or not to recommend you. It’s where their final perception of your professionalism is formed. And it’s the part most photographers put the least care into.
Delivering is a client experience
The thread running through this article: delivery is not a technical formality. It’s the last stage of your service — the one the client experiences alone, without you, often with colleagues around them. A well-structured gallery, well-named files, a polished email: all of this tells the client that you work with the same care from start to finish. And that’s exactly what generates recommendations.
File formats: which one to deliver for which use
The first question a professional photographer asks: which format should I deliver in? The answer depends on how the client plans to use the images. If you didn’t ask during the brief, ask before you deliver.
| Format | Recommended use | Advantages | Drawbacks |
|---|---|---|---|
| JPEG (max quality) | Web, social media, standard printing, general use | Universal, lightweight, compatible everywhere | Slightly lossy compression |
| TIFF | Large-format printing, high-quality archiving, advanced retouching | Lossless, maximum quality | Very large files (20–80 MB/image) |
| PNG | Visuals with a transparent background, infographics, web integration | Lossless, supports transparency | Heavy for photos, not suited to professional printing |
| RAW (CR3, ARW, NEF…) | If the client has an in-house photographer or retoucher | Maximum latitude in post | Requires specific software, not universal |
| WebP | Optimised web integration only | Very light, decent quality | Little used outside the web, not for print |
Default recommendation: JPEG at 90–95% quality, sRGB colour profile. That’s what 95% of corporate clients use day to day — website, social media, PowerPoint presentations, office printing. If the client wants large-format printing or professional DTP, deliver in TIFF or ask them to check the specs with their printer.
Resolution and file size: what clients really want
A corporate client generally doesn’t know what DPI resolution is. What they do know is where they’ll use the photos. That’s the question for you to ask — and your job to translate the answer into files.
| Final use | Resolution | Minimum size (pixels) | Typical JPEG file size |
|---|---|---|---|
| Social media (LinkedIn, Instagram) | 72-96 dpi | 1080 × 1080 (square) / 1200 × 628 (landscape) | 300 Ko – 1 Mo |
| Website (banner, article) | 72-96 dpi | 2000 × 1333 px minimum | 500 Ko – 2 Mo |
| A4 print (press kit, report) | 300 dpi | 2480 × 3508 px | 3 – 8 Mo |
| A3 print | 300 dpi | 3508 × 4961 px | 8 – 15 Mo |
| Signage / roll-up banner (> A1) | 150 dpi is enough | Full sensor resolution | TIFF recommended |
| Projection / PowerPoint presentation | 96 dpi | 1920 × 1080 px | 500 Ko – 2 Mo |
| Press / magazine publication | 300 dpi minimum | Full sensor resolution | TIFF or max-quality JPEG |
Best practice: always deliver in full resolution by default. The client can scale down — they can’t scale up. If you want to add web-optimised versions, deliver both: an “HD” folder (full resolution) and a “Web” folder (1920px on the long edge, JPEG 80%).
Professional turnaround times by type of assignment
Turnaround time is one of the first things corporate clients check in a quote. And it’s one of the first things they mention when they recommend a photographer. “Delivers fast and delivers well” — a phrase worth its weight in gold.
| Type of assignment | Standard turnaround | Express turnaround (on request) | Notes |
|---|---|---|---|
| Corporate event (seminar, gala) | 5 to 7 working days | 24–48h (+30–50% on the fee) | A few photos possible next day for social media |
| Conference / keynote | 3 to 5 working days | 24h (+30%) | Volume often lower |
| Portrait / team shoot | 3 to 5 working days | 48h | Beauty retouching = longer turnaround |
| Press product launch | 24 à 48h | Same evening (+50%) | Journalists have deadlines |
| Multi-day reportage | 7 to 10 working days | Negotiable | Large volume, lengthy culling |
| Real estate / architecture shoot | 2 to 3 working days | 24h (+20%) | Low volume, simple editing |
Golden rule: quote a turnaround you can meet 100% of the time — not your ideal one. If you say “5 days” and deliver in 3, the client is delighted. If you say “3 days” and deliver in 5, they’re disappointed. Overpromising is the enemy of client satisfaction.
Delivery tools in 2026 — a full comparison
Pixieset ⭐⭐⭐⭐⭐
The benchmark for professional photographers. Elegant online gallery, optional password, HD downloads, favourites selection by the client, built-in print shop. The interface is beautiful — which matters when your client opens the gallery with their team. Price: free up to 3 GB, then from $10/month. Essential if you want a premium delivery.
Pic-Time ⭐⭐⭐⭐
A direct competitor to Pixieset, with a strong focus on print sales and automated marketing galleries. Very polished interface, built-in photo blog, gallery animations. Slightly more geared towards wedding photographers but very well suited to high-end corporate work. Price: from $10/month.
Google Drive / Google Photos ⭐⭐⭐
Universal, free up to 15 GB, familiar to every client. Functional but not premium: no clean visual gallery, generic interface, no password on a shared folder (only the link). Acceptable for small assignments or B2B clients who want to drop the files straight into their company Drive. Best avoided for galas and high-end events.
WeTransfer ⭐⭐
Handy for a one-off transfer but not a professional delivery solution. Links expire after 7 days (free version) or 30 days (Pro). No gallery experience — just a ZIP download link. Keep it for quick file exchanges during an assignment, not for final delivery.
Dropbox ⭐⭐⭐
Good for clients who already have a professional Dropbox account. Decent preview interface, simple folder sharing. Lacks the “photo gallery” feel of Pixieset. A good option if your client is a large company with Dropbox Business already in place.
USB stick ⭐⭐
Still requested by some clients, particularly institutions or for long-term archiving. Factor the cost into the quote (quality USB stick + sleeve = €5–15). Keep a backup copy on your side before handing it over. A physical stick is seen as more “definitive” and reassures certain types of client.
Summary comparison table
| Tool | Gallery experience | Password | Link duration | Price | Recommended for |
|---|---|---|---|---|---|
| Pixieset | ⭐⭐⭐⭐⭐ | ✅ | Unlimited | $10/month | Any professional |
| Pic-Time | ⭐⭐⭐⭐⭐ | ✅ | Unlimited | $10/month | High-end |
| Google Drive | ⭐⭐ | ❌ | Unlimited | Free (15 GB) | B2B clients using Drive |
| WeTransfer | ⭐ | ✅ Pro | 7 to 30 days | Free / €12/month | One-off exchanges |
| Dropbox | ⭐⭐⭐ | ✅ Pro | Unlimited | Free (2 GB) | Large companies |
| USB stick | N/A | N/A | Permanent | €5–15 each | Archiving, institutions |
How to structure your delivery gallery
File naming
Never “DSC_4821.jpg”. Always use a naming convention that gives context and makes searching easy.
Recommended format: ClientName_EventType_YYYYMMDD_001.jpg
Examples:
Renault_AnnualSeminar_20260515_001.jpgMaisonChanel_PerfumeLaunch_20260522_047.jpgIDZ_GalaCannesFestival_20260514_112.jpg
This naming lets the client find an image instantly and add it to their file management systems — and it protects you in the event of a dispute (the date is in the name).
Folder structure
For events with several sequences, organise by moment:
01_Welcome-Cocktail02_Plenary-Speeches03_Workshops04_Gala-Dinner05_Team-Portraits
The client finds the photos they need for any given communication channel in 5 seconds. It saves them time — and it’s a detail that leaves a lasting impression.
Selection: deliver less, but better
A corporate client who receives 400 photos of a seminar won’t look at them all. They’ll use 10 to 20. The other 380 clutter their storage and dilute the best images.
Your added value as a professional is precisely to make that selection for them. A healthy ratio in corporate event photography: deliver around 10 to 15% of the raw shots. From 500 frames, 50 to 75 edited photos. From 300, 30 to 45.
- Cull ruthlessly: closed eyes, technical blur, near-identical duplicates, uninteresting transition shots
- Keep variety: wide atmosphere shots, medium group shots, individual portraits, details (hands, badges, decor)
- Vary angles and moments: a shot of the room + a speaker + an audience reaction makes a complete narrative sequence
If the client asks you for “all the photos”, explain that your selection work is part of the service and that handing over 400 raw files would do them a disservice. Good clients understand. The others will learn.
The delivery email — full template
The email that accompanies your delivery is just as important as the gallery itself. Here is a template you can adapt directly.
Subject: Photo gallery — [Event name] — [Date] Dear [First name], Your gallery is ready. Below you will find the link to access your photos. 🔗 Gallery link: [URL] 🔑 Password: [if applicable] 📅 Link valid: until [date, or "no expiry"] ━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━ WHAT'S INCLUDED ━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━ ✓ [XX] edited photos, organised by sequence ✓ Full HD resolution (download from the gallery) ✓ Maximum-quality JPEG format, sRGB profile ✓ [If applicable] Optimised "Web" folder included ━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━ HOW TO DOWNLOAD ━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━ 1. Open the link above 2. Click the "Download" button at the top right of the gallery 3. Choose "All photos" or select the images you want ━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━ QUESTIONS / FEEDBACK ━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━ If you would like any adjustments to certain images (cropping, colour correction), simply reply to this email quoting the photo number. I will take your feedback into account within [X] days of delivery. Thank you for your trust — it was a pleasure to cover this event. [Your first name] [Your last name] [Your phone number] [Your website]
Delivery mistakes that lose you clients
- The link that expires before the client downloads: free WeTransfer = 7 days. If the client is travelling or forgets, you’re the one who has to resend. Use Pixieset or a permanent link.
- Delivering late without warning: a delay flagged 48 hours in advance is acceptable. A delay the client discovers on the very day of their communication is a disaster. If you’re going to be late, say so — and offer a quick partial delivery of the 20 best photos.
- No backup on your side: if the client loses their photos and you have nothing left, the relationship is permanently damaged. Keep your raw and delivered files for at least 6 months. Mention it in your delivery email — it’s reassuring.
- Wrong format without asking: delivering TIFFs to a client who needed JPEGs for Instagram = frustration. Asking about format during the brief takes 30 seconds.
- Badly named or disorganised files: see the naming section. A ZIP folder with 200 “IMG_XXXX.jpg” files is a poor experience, however good the photos are.
- Delivering too many photos: drowning the client in 500 mediocre images instead of 80 excellent ones. Your selection work is your added value — don’t give it up.
- No follow-up after delivery: a simple email 3 days later (“Were you able to access the gallery? Do you have any feedback?”) shows you care about the result. 90% of photographers don’t do it.
FAQ — the real questions about delivery
The client is asking for the RAW files. What should you say?
RAW files are your digital negatives. Under French law, you have no obligation to deliver them — and in the vast majority of cases, you shouldn’t. Unedited RAW files don’t represent your work: they show flat images, without the colour grading and retouching that define your style.
If the client insists for legitimate reasons (they have an in-house retoucher, they want specific variations), you can offer the RAW files as a paid option — typically an extra 30 to 50% of the service fee. Include this clause in your quote if you know the request is likely.
How long should you keep the files after delivery?
At least 6 months for the delivered files (edited JPEGs). Ideally 12 months for the RAW files on important assignments. Beyond that, it’s a question of storage capacity and personal policy. State your retention period in your terms and conditions and in the delivery email — clients appreciate the transparency and it avoids recovery requests 2 years later.
The client is unhappy with the photos. How do you handle it?
Start by understanding: is the dissatisfaction about technical quality (exposure, sharpness, colours) or content (missing moments)? If it’s technical and can be fixed, offer to retouch. If it’s a content issue (an important moment not captured), assess honestly: was it in the brief? Had it been clearly communicated? If you missed something that was planned, putting it right is your responsibility. If the request wasn’t in the original brief, it’s a discussion — not an obligation.
In every case: respond quickly, stay professional and offer a concrete solution. Don’t disappear. A disappointed client who gets a fast response and a solution often becomes a loyal one.
Can you deliver a few “teaser” photos on the evening of the event?
Yes — in fact it’s excellent practice for clients who are active on social media. Offer it as an option in your quote: “5 to 10 social-media-optimised photos delivered within 2 hours of the event”. Some clients make it a deciding factor between suppliers. In practice: select during downtime (cocktail reception, dinner), edit in 5 minutes in Lightroom Mobile, and send via WeTransfer or directly by email. The RAW files are kept for the final gallery.
Should you watermark delivered photos?
No, as a general rule. A watermark on photos delivered to a client gets in the way of using them and comes across as a lack of trust. If you want to protect your online portfolio, watermark the photos on your website — not the files you deliver. Legal protection of your images comes from the licensing contract, not from a logo on the image.
Conclusion: the perfect delivery starts with the brief
Photographers who deliver well don’t do it at the last minute. They ask the right questions at the brief (format, use, preferred turnaround, who receives the files), they organise their workflow accordingly, and they have well-oiled processes — gallery tool set up, email template ready, automated naming in Lightroom.
Put the same care into your delivery as into your photos. It’s what clients remember — and what they talk about when they recommend you.
Want to find out more about how to structure a professional quote or set your event photography rates? Our complete guides are here to help. And if you’re looking for an event photography agency on the Côte d’Azur, contact Images d’Azur.
