Wedding Photo Delivery File Size: What to Send and How

Pixieset and Pic-Time cap uploads at 100 MB a file, and Pixieset offers fixed download sizes. Email is the tight limit: 25 MB on a personal Gmail account. The table lists what three help pages state, each read on 11 October 2026. Pic-Time also states a 12000 px maximum.

Two details matter. Pixieset does not enlarge small files, so a 1600 px copy stays 1600 px if a client asks for the 3600 px option. And Pic-Time says DPI metadata does not affect it: pixel dimensions are what count. That is why 72 versus 300 DPI is the wrong question for delivery.

Full resolution should be your finished export, untouched. Pic-Time tells photographers to export JPEGs without resizing so clients can order more print sizes, with Lightroom quality at 100 and no file size limit. Pixieset says a 3600 px long edge is enough for poster-size prints.

Compressing the master set is a trade: you save disk and upload time, and you lose headroom if a client later wants a canvas. If you do shrink it, shrink the delivery copy, never the archive. Smol writes a copy beside the original with a _compressed suffix and does not overwrite by default.

Metadata works the same way. Smol strips EXIF, GPS, IPTC and XMP by default, and that includes the copyright and contact fields you write in Lightroom. For a web set that is usually what you want, since it also removes GPS from phone photos. For files you deliver as yours, turn stripping off in the settings, then check one output. See does compressing remove metadata and removing EXIF data on Mac.

Use quality 75 to 80 for web and social copies and 90 or higher for anything meant to be printed. These are starting points we chose, not measured thresholds, so inspect a few skin-tone and sky gradients at 100% before you run the whole wedding.

Smol’s JPEG encoder uses 4:2:0 chroma up to quality 75, 4:2:2 at 80 to 85 and 4:4:4 from 90, so the jump to 90 keeps more color detail on saturated florals and red dresses at a larger file size. Smol sets quality and pixel size, not output bytes: you cannot ask for “under 2 MB” and be sure of it, so sort the outputs by size and rerun the few that miss. There is no lossless mode.

For scale only: on 24 small test photos (768 × 512, high-quality JPEGs, default settings), Smol made the JPEGs 69.3% smaller. Camera files will differ, and the default 2000 px resize accounts for part of any saving on a large file. The method is on the benchmark page.

Export once from Lightroom, then derive the smaller sets from that export in Smol. The work stays on your Mac.

1. 1

   Export the full-resolution JPEGs from your editor

   This is your master set. Do not touch it again.

2. 2

   Drag the folder into Smol

   Whole folders work, and the output lands beside the originals as copies.

3. 3

   Set Compress, output JPG, quality 75 to 80

   Set the maximum dimension to 2048 and leave the fit mode on fit so nothing is cropped.

4. 4

   Decide on metadata

   Leave stripping on for social copies. Switch it off for files that should carry your copyright.

5. 5

   Run it, then sort by size

   Smol shows per-file results. Open one output at 100% and check the largest file against your limit.

6. 6

   Upload or send the copies

   Put them in the gallery as the web set, or attach a few to an email under 25 MB total.

To repeat this for every wedding, save the settings as a preset (presets live on one Mac), or add the Finder Quick Action. A watched folder suits fresh exports only, because it can make already-optimized files larger.

To deliver wedding photos online, send a gallery link, not attachments. A full wedding runs to many files, and Gmail stops at 25 MB a message, so the gallery host (Pixieset, Pic-Time or similar) is the delivery route and email carries the link, a sample or one or two favorites.

• Tell the couple which download size is for printing and which is for phones, using the host’s own labels such as web size and high resolution.
• Upload sRGB JPEGs. Pixieset recommends sRGB for consistent color across devices and print products.
• For a sneak peek by email, keep a few 1600 to 2048 px copies and check the total in Mail against the 25 MB limit before sending.
• Put your name and contact in the filename or gallery text if stripping removed the metadata fields.

Wedding video has its own limits, covered on the wedding videographers page. Delivery workflow for studios in general is on photographers and client delivery, and the broader guide is image compression for photographers.

• You need to deliver original or print files exactly as exported. Skip compression; give the gallery host your master JPEGs.
• You need pixel-identical optimization. Smol always re-encodes images, so use a lossless tool.
• You develop RAW. Smol compresses and converts RAW files but does not edit or develop them; that stays in your editor.
• You are on Windows or Linux. Smol runs on macOS only.
• You need exact sizes such as 640, 1024 and 2048 for a gallery. The host generates those; Smol makes one size per run.

Do studios with second shooters need more licenses?

Solo is $29 for one Mac. Team is $49 for three Macs, and Enterprise is $20 a seat for 5 to 500. All are paid once. Presets stay on each Mac, so write the studio’s settings down and recreate them on each machine. Details are on the pricing page.