The short answer here is ‘however is easiest for you’

We use and love Dropbox. If you don’t have it, they have a free trial that works just fine for sending one or two files but you’ll need a paid plan for ongoing use. What I love about Dropbox is the fact we share a folder and changes made at your end mirror to my computer. It means you can have an ongoing folder structure to help keep jobs organised. For example, you share your ‘Jim’s Photography Printing’ folder with me, each of your clients gets a folder in that folder, all of that is shared to me live as you work on new client’s orders.

Google Drive is cool, it is free but take care with permissions! If you’re sending files for print make sure you grant me permission to access them or I’m sitting twiddling my thumbs waiting for permission changes instead of printing your beautiful photos!

WeTransfer and Hightail are both great and I’m sure ten minutes after writing this, there’s another four or five new file transfer apps launching. Just send file links to paul@perthprolab.com.au

What about a website for uploading? Honestly, have you used one? As a photographer, I find them so counter intuitive and just a pain. Uploading through web interfaces with annoying dropdowns and tick boxes…. keep it simple, export from Lightroom to a Dropbox folder and you’re done… dozens of hours saved over the course of a year! If you don’t have any other option, we’ve added a basic file upload here.

Client Gallery is cool, Pic-Time, Pixieset etc, please send us a login and somehow isolate the files you want printed. We don’t want to have to find files from your 3000 image client gallery! So long as we have access to your high resolution files and they’re cropped to how your clients are ordering, we should be all good!

Email, I’ve left this one for last as it should probably be your final option. You can send small files via email but herein lies the problem, small files equal small prints. If you do email a file, please please check that your email app isn’t ‘conveniently’ downsizing your nice high resolution images. Often they are set by default to shrink your images to speed up the sending and receive process. It can very easily ruin a perfectly good file.

If you are unsure, get in touch and we’ll help figure out something that will work for you!

….oh, you’re always welcome to drop by with a hard drive or thumb drive! It’s always great to catch up for a chat while sorting your print orders. You’re welcome to drop thumb drives in our after hours lockbox too, just make sure it is labelled with your contact details. Contact us ahead of time for the PIN number to the lockbox.