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Admin Workspace: Client Galleries

Create, configure, duplicate, back up, and manage client galleries and their images.

What Client Galleries controls

Client Galleries is the home for each client job and sales session. From here you can create a gallery, upload photographs, choose a gallery cover, configure room views, duplicate or back up a gallery or delete it.

  1. Select New Gallery.
  2. Enter the client name. 
  3. Select a pricelist. A gallery needs a pricelist so products and prices can be resolved.
  4. Add an optional job reference (this will show up on the order pdf)
  5. Select Terms & Conditions. If you don't see the option to select Terms & Conditions, it's because no T&C's have been created yet.
  6. Add an optional job date.
Set your Gallery style
  1. Choose how to display your grid of images, e.g. standard, fixed square, masonry or justified.
  2. Select in which folder/tab the images will initially appear, Maybe is default because that's what we recommend.
  3. Choose whether to display the filenames underneath each image or not.
  4. Choose if the image order is randomised the first time the gallery is prepared. If the image order is randomised you can still order images manually afterwards.
  5. Choose the transition style between images in the slideshow.
Set the Mood
  1. Choose the studio default music or select a song specifically for this client gallery.
  2. If you are setting a song specifically for this gallery you can add a song via Jamendo music or upload your own music in mp3 format.
  3. Select whether to sync slideshow duration to music. If not selected, the images will be displayed for the duration set in Studio Settings
Sort Random
Decide if you want to display the image in random order to start off with. This is what we recommend. From a sales psychology point of view it stops clients comparing similar images and eliminating them too quickly.

Select the direct Edit button on the gallery row. The controls match the create dialog. 

Select Add Images on the gallery row. When upload completes, the confirmation dialog reports success; select Done to close it. During upload, ips-session will  optimise and resize images to ensure they display quickly during the session. It will save images with a max height of 2160px.  Which is the max height required if you are displaying the images on a 4K TV.

To speed up image upload, optimise the images prior to importing them to ips-session by resizing them e.g. 2160px height and save as jpeg quality 85 in sRGB.

Common supported image formats include:

  • JPEG / JPG
  • PNG
  • WebP
  • GIF
  • BMP
  • SVG
  • AVIF in supported browsers

HEIC/HEIF support depends on the user’s browser and device, so those files may fail—especially on Windows or some non-Safari browsers.

All successfully uploaded images are resized when necessary and converted to JPEG before storage. For consistent results we recommend JPEG, PNG, or WebP.

If you subscribe to the High Res Export Module you get the option to  import the High Res images. Importing High Res images takes longer compared to generating only low res images. 

Add High Res Images

High Res Images

If you select to Keep the High Res images, they will be stored on the server for later use. It will generate low res copies for use in the sales session to speed things up and ensure the slideshows run without glitching. When you create collages or cropped prints during the sales session, these changes will be applied to the High Res files when exporting an order as High Res. That means you will have correctly cropped jpegs ready for printing using the crop agreed on with the client. If you create collages, they will be generated automatically from the stored High Res files, ready for printing.

If you load retouched images into ips-session, when you export the  high res files  or collages they will be ready to print.

If you load un-retouched images into ips-session you can edit the ordered images after the session using your favourite editing tool and add them again to ips-session. Simply ensure that Overwrite any duplicate images is ticked on. Any crops or collages you made in the sales session will now be applied to the updated images and are ready to export as print ready files.
If you don't have Overwrite any duplicate images ticked on a copy of your image will be made if the filename already exists e.g. image.jpeg becomes image(1).jpeg.

Issues during upload

The image upload process can stop if it runs out of browser storage data. 
To resolve the issue try these steps, starting with the safest:

  1. Free up space on your computer or device. Delete or move unnecessary files and empty the Recycle Bin/Trash. Low disk space can reduce the storage available to the browser.

  2. Remove old saved uploads in ips-session. If a gallery shows an unwanted saved upload, use its discard/trash control. This removes the local upload backup—not photos already saved in the gallery. They will need to reselect any unfinished files later.

  3. Clear stored data for other websites. In the browser’s settings, look for Site data, Website data, or Storage. Remove data from sites they no longer use. This may sign them out of those sites.

  4. Clear ips-session’s site data only as a last resort.
    Do not do this during an upload. It removes local upload backups and may remove unsaved carts or drafts and sign them out. Photos and confirmed orders already saved on the server remain intact.

Also, use a normal browser window rather than private/incognito mode, and select smaller batches of photos to reduce the space needed for upload backups.

Clearing browsing history alone won’t help, and clearing only cached images/files may not remove the stored upload backups.

The browser sets the storage limit, not ips-session

It depends on:

  • Browser and device: Chrome, Edge, Safari and Firefox use different limits.
  • Device storage: total disk capacity and available space affect how much the browser can allocate.
  • Other website data: cached files, local drafts and previous upload backups can consume the allowance.
  • Privacy settings: private/incognito mode or browser restrictions can reduce or block storage.
  • Browser cleanup: browsers may remove locally stored data under storage pressure.

For ips-session, the upload backup stores copies of the original selected files. For example, 200 photos at 25 MB each need roughly 5 GB of local storage, even if the upload is set to web resolution.

This is separate from the server’s image storage. Installing the desktop app also doesn’t guarantee a larger allowance—it still uses browser-managed storage.

Set Cover

The cover image will be the hero image that appears on your homepage for the gallery. 

CoverImage
The image is selected from the images you have previously uploaded.  You may have a special Welcome image as the cover image.
You can open the client gallery by clicking anywhere on the cover image. This will open the Maybe image grid view.
Alternatively click on View cover full screen. This will expand the cover image to  be full screen. There is a Play button on the bottom centre of the image. Click it to kick off the slideshow of the maybe images. Hint: you can  also hit the spacebar to play the slideshow.
WelcomeImage
Launching from the full screen image straight into the slideshow adds a bit of theatre and Wow factor to the presentation.

Room Views dialog

Select Room Views to manage room views available specifically in this gallery. For example if a client provides an image of their home. 

  1. Upload a room photograph, and name your Room View
  2. Set its two calibration points and measured distance, then save. 
  3. It's important that you calibrate 2 points that are along the wall where the images would hang to get correct measurements and perspective. Ideally ask your client to stick an A4 piece of paper on the wall before taking a photo. When setting the distance from A to B you know it's 0.21m
  4. The Gallery room views are separate from reusable studio defaults.280cm London Bedroom with Calibration marker
  5. We suggest creating an instructional email for your clients. Feel free to use the above image as a reference.

  • Client name link opens the client gallery.
  • Open Order, this option is only available after an order has been placed. View the order summary. To edit the order, open the  client gallery and select the Products page to see the live order.
  • Duplicate creates a separate copy of the gallery and its images without copying existing orders. Handy if you have separate family groups ordering from the same photo session. It will copy the saved image selection i.e. the sorted yes, maybe and no images but it will not include the order. This is handy if different family members place separate orders.
  • Backup downloads a JSON backup containing gallery structure and orders. We suggest you create a backup once the ordering session is complete. Save it to your local client folder.
  • Import Client Gallery import a previously backed up client gallery.
  • Delete asks for browser confirmation and permanently removes the gallery. Create a Backup first if it may be needed later.
  • High Res Export, If you subscribe to the High Res Export module you'll see the option to export your ordered images as High Res images. 
Client Galleries are not public share links. Opening and operating a gallery requires access to ips-session.