Next up in my Lightroom series we have Lightroom collections. Collections can be used for many things such as easily posting to Instagram and Facebook, as well as creating galleries to send to clients so they can pick photos they like.
This part focuses primarily on creating galleries for client proofing. This is an incredibly useful (yet under used) feature in Lightroom CC and takes just a few minutes to set up.
First thing you have to do is open Lightroom and make sure you're signed into Adobe CC. In the Library view you're going to click on collections then click the plus (+) symbol. Here you have a few options. One is to create a collection set and the other is to create a collection.
Collections are the galleries where your photos will be. Collection sets is basically a folder you can use to organize your collections.
Once you click the plus (+) sign select create a collection. Give your collection a name, add it to a collection set, and make sure you have "Sync with Lightroom CC" checked. Now if you already have the photos selected that you want to add to the collection you can check the box that says add selected photos. If you do not have the photos selected yet once you create the collection you can drag and drop the photos you want into the collection.
After you create the collection and add the photos, you will see a syncing photos indicator in the upper left hand corner. This is syncing the photos to Lightroom CC. While you're waiting for the photos to sync you can use this time to flag the photos (either approved or rejected). Personally, I go through and reject photos I do not want clients to see. This will come up later when you go to share the gallery.
Once the photos are done syncing go to http://lightroom.adobe.com/ and sign in using your Adobe CC account (if you're not already signed in).
Once the page loads, on the left hand side click on the collection you want to share and the photos will load. On the left had side with the collection, there will be a little gear symbol. Click on that and you get the collection options.
One of the options is to share the album. Click on that then select start sharing. This will give you an adobe link that you can use to share with the clients. Under the link there are options that you can select but the biggest one is the flag option. If you flagged the photos in Lightroom you can use this option to select the photos you want the client to see when the go to the link.
Once you click share all you have to do is give the link to the clients. Now on the client end they will have to sign up for an Adobe ID. It is free and they can unsubscribe from all the adobe emails. Once the client creates an Adobe ID and signs in they will see the gallery of photos you have selected to share with them (they will only see the photos based on the flag settings you use)
If they click on a photo it gets bigger and they can scroll through the photos. On the right hand side there is a button that looks like a comment bubble. If they click on that they have two options. They can click on the heart icon to like the photo or they can send you a comment. Both likes and comments will show up directly in Lightroom.
You can even reply to comments directly from Lightroom. Once the client is done liking and commenting on the photos you can sort the photos by last comment and see all the photos up top that the client liked. From there you can star or label the photos and move onto the editing.
Check out the video below for a walk through of how to set up collections for client proofing.