Soft proofing in Session is built for photographers who want clients to choose their favorites before doing the final edits. You upload proofs once, your client makes their picks, and Session walks you through delivering the finished images—without spreadsheets, emails, or guesswork.
Here’s how it works.
1. Turn on Soft proofing in your gallery deliverables
When you create the gallery (from a mini or a full session), in Deliverables choose:
- Delivery mode: Soft proofing
- Deliverables: set how many photos your client is allowed to select (for example, “10 photos”).
- (Optional) Turn on Upsell so if they pick more than included, they pay before download.
Now the gallery knows: “Client must select X photos first.”
2. Client selects favorites
Your client opens their gallery and starts ❤️ favoriting the images they want edited.
Because the gallery is in soft proofing mode, Session keeps track of how many they selected vs. how many are included.
If upselling is on and they choose extra photos, Session will prompt them to pay for the extras before they can submit their selections to you—which is great because you only retouch paid-for images and there’s zero back and forth.
3. You see their selections in the Delivered section
Back in your gallery, you’ll notice something new on the left sidebar:
- Photos
- Sneak peek
- Favorites
- Delivered ← this is the soft proofing workspace
Inside Delivered you’ll see a status bar with three simple steps:
- Ready for final edits – these are the photos your client chose
- Ready to deliver – your finished edits
- Delivered – what the client has access to
So as soon as your client submits their favorites, they show up under Ready for final edits for you. 💪
4. Upload your edited images
Open Delivered → Ready for final edits and click Upload final edits.
Session will match/replace the proof versions with your edited versions, so the client later sees the polished image in the same spot.
Tip: you can also upload extra images your client didn’t select—great for gifting a couple of black-and-whites or bonus shots.
5. Move them through the steps
After uploading:
- Replaced images move to Ready to deliver
- Once delivered, they move to Delivered
This keeps everything tidy and gives you a clear “where are we?” view for every gallery.
Your client can now download their finals like normal.
6. Ongoing edits? No problem.
Because this is a true soft proofing flow, your client can submit new favorites later and they’ll show up again under Ready for final edits. You can repeat the upload/deliver steps as needed.
Why this workflow is awesome
- Built-in client selections (no outside tools)
- Clear 3-step status for you
- Replaces proofs automatically
- Plays nicely with upselling
- Works the same whether the gallery came from a mini or a full session