The Lightroom Classic plugin

Camera → Lightroom tether → plugin applies your preset → JPEG in the watch folder → Quick Gallery uploads it → the guest’s gallery

Lightroom Classic can’t export automatically on its own; the plugin adds that. The cloud-based “Lightroom” app doesn’t support plugins.

Install (once)

1. In Quick Gallery, open Settings → Lightroom plugin → Download plugin. This copy has your license built in, so don’t share it.
2. Unzip it and move the QuickGallery.lrplugin folder somewhere permanent, like Documents/Lightroom Plug-ins.
3. In Lightroom Classic, choose File → Plug-in Manager… → Add and pick QuickGallery.lrplugin.
4. It should say Quick Gallery — Installed and running.

To update later, download it again and replace the folder, then click Reload in the Plug-in Manager.

Set up before the event

You need two separate folders:

Folder	What goes in it
Tethered capture folder	Lightroom’s RAW files: the Destination in File → Tethered Capture → Start Tethered Capture…
Watch folder	Finished JPEGs only. This is the folder you pick with Watch folder on Quick Gallery’s Live screen.

Neither folder can be inside the other, or unedited camera files could be uploaded.

1. Start tethered capture as usual. In the tether bar, set Develop Settings to None: the plugin applies your preset, so your look is set in one place.
2. Open the Quick Gallery panel (Library → Plug-in Extras → Show Quick Gallery Panel), click Start Tethered Sending… and fill in:
   • Tethered captures: the tether Destination folder.
   • Watch folder: your Quick Gallery watch folder.
   • Develop preset: your look.
   • Size: long edge 4000 px by default. Smaller files reach phones faster.
   • JPEG quality: 85 by default.
3. Click Start. The Quick Gallery panel opens.
4. On Quick Gallery’s Live screen (Chrome or Edge), click Watch folder and pick the same watch folder.

Settings are remembered, so next time it’s just Start.

During the session

• Start the guest on the Live screen, then shoot. Frames arrive in their gallery a few seconds later.
• Frames shot with nobody started are held on the Live screen, never sent to the wrong person.
• Rejected (X) frames and virtual copies are skipped.
• To send a frame again after re-editing it, select it and click Send Selected on the panel.
• To stop, click Stop on the panel.

The Quick Gallery panel

Everything the plugin does is a button on this one floating window, so you never need the menus. Open it once with Library → Plug-in Extras → Show Quick Gallery Panel. Drag it next to Lightroom’s tether bar or onto a second screen; it reopens in the same spot. It has two parts.

The top line shows the event new check-ins join and its day. If your account can’t send photos, a red line says why, with a button that opens Billing; photos keep waiting in Lightroom and nothing is lost.

During the event · tethered: the status (Sending automatically, Review then send, Paused or Off), who you’re photographing in large type with their party and time, and a line of counts (sent, waiting, last sent).

• Start Tethered Sending… when it’s off; Pause / Resume and Stop at the top while it runs.
• Send N Waiting appears when frames are waiting for review.
• Send Selected and Use This Photo’s Look appear when photos are selected.
• Bring this panel forward… (off by default) pops the panel in front of Lightroom when new frames are waiting or a new guest starts.

After the event · memory card (while tethered sending is off): three numbered steps, Set Camera Clock (shows ✓ Done once set), Sort Photos into Guest Galleries and Send Event to Quick Gallery. A step you can’t use yet is greyed out, with a line saying what to do first. With tethered sending off, Send Selected asks which guest the photos are for. See Edit after the event.

Closed it? Library → Plug-in Extras → Show Quick Gallery Panel. On a Mac you can give that menu item a keyboard shortcut: System Settings → Keyboard → Keyboard Shortcuts → App Shortcuts → +, choose Adobe Lightroom Classic, and type the menu title exactly.

Two ways to send

• Automatically as I shoot (the default): every new frame gets your look and goes straight to the guest.
• After I review them: every new frame gets your look but waits in Lightroom. Tweak what you like, reject (X) any you don’t want, then Send Selected or Send All Waiting.

In review mode, send before you start the next guest: photos go to whoever is started when they arrive. If frames are still waiting when you press Complete or start someone else, the Live screen warns you.

When the light changes

1. Pause from the panel. Keep shooting if you need to; new frames wait in Lightroom.
2. Take a test shot, or pick a waiting frame, and adjust it in Develop.
3. Select it and click Use This Photo’s Look. New frames, and the ones that waited, get that look. Crop, rotation and spot healing stay with that one frame.
4. Resume. Don’t want the test shot sent? Reject it (X) first.

Edit after the event (shooting to a memory card)

Not tethering, or want to edit and pick the keepers first? Shoot to your card as usual, then sort, edit and send every guest’s gallery at once. You don’t need a watch folder for this.

Start / Complete each guest at the event → import the card → sort into a collection per guest → edit and rate → send → check → Send all galleries

Before the event

1. In Quick Gallery, open Event setup → Photo delivery and choose After I edit them. Add the date guests can expect their photos, if you like.

At the event

1. Before your first guest, open the camera clock (Event setup → Photo delivery, or the Live screen) and take one photo of it with your camera. This is how the plugin corrects for a camera clock that’s a few minutes off. If you use the iPhone app, the first Start of each event day reminds you to take it (turn this off in Settings → Lightroom plugin).
2. For each guest, press Start on the Live screen, shoot, then press Complete. Quick Gallery remembers exactly when each guest was in front of your camera. Guests get an email saying their photos are being edited.
3. Pausing, and starting someone else in between, is fine: each stretch of shooting counts for the guest it belongs to.

Afterwards, in Lightroom Classic

1. Import the card as you normally would. All the event’s photos can go in one folder.
2. Open the Quick Gallery panel (Library → Plug-in Extras → Show Quick Gallery Panel). The rest happens in its After the event section.
3. 1. Set Camera Clock: select just your photo of the clock, click the button and type the time the clock shows. (Skip this if your camera’s clock was right.)
4. 2. Sort Photos into Guest Galleries: select all the event’s photos (click one, then Cmd/Ctrl+A), click the button and pick the event. You’ll find them under Collections → Quick Gallery → the event, one collection per guest (“01 Maya Thompson”, “02 Jordan Ellis”…) in the order you photographed them.
5. Photos taken while no guest was started go into Unsorted. Drag each one into the right guest’s collection, or leave it out. A photo can be in more than one guest’s collection (a group shot, say).
6. Edit and rate as usual. The photo files never move; collections only group them.
7. 3. Send Event to Quick Gallery: click it and pick which photos go: rated ★ or more (and up to ★★★★★), Picks only, or everything except rejects. Each guest’s collection goes to their gallery.

Check, then send

1. Back in Quick Gallery, Event setup → Photo delivery lists every guest with their photos. Guests can’t see anything yet.
2. Press Send all galleries. Everyone with photos gets their gallery link by email at once. Anyone with no photos yet waits, and you can send them later one at a time with Send now.

Changing your mind

• Edited a photo again? Choose Send Event again: only photos you changed are sent, and they replace the earlier version.
• Rated one down, rejected it, or moved it to another guest? Send Event again, and it comes out of the gallery it no longer belongs in. This only happens before that gallery has gone to the guest.
• Wrong clock or wrong event? Run Sort again with Sort again photos already in a guest’s collection ticked.
• The gallery’s open days (1–30) count from when you send it, not from the event.

Your account

The plugin checks your Quick Gallery account when you press Start, when you send, and every few seconds while it runs:

• Active plan: everything works.
• Per event: works while your event pass is unused or running. The pass starts with your first uploaded photo.
• Plan ends mid-shoot: you get 12 more hours to finish the event. After that the panel turns red with the reason, and new frames wait safely in Lightroom. Renew, and they send by themselves.
• No internet at the venue never counts as an ended plan. The plugin keeps working for 7 days after its last successful check.

Lost a laptop? Settings → Lightroom plugin → Sign out all copies, then download a fresh copy on the computers you still use.

Good to know

• Each sent photo is marked Quick Gallery: sent in Lightroom’s metadata, so a restart never sends a frame twice.
• If the watch folder disappears (say, a drive is unplugged), the plugin pauses and says so.
• Exported JPEGs are sRGB, keep the camera’s file name, and have location data removed.
• Requires Lightroom Classic 6 or later. Tethering needs a camera Lightroom can tether; editing after the event works with any camera.