How do I set the web gallery permissions and settings?

In the last 2 posts, we’ve learned how to share a web gallery from all of the different Lightroom versions. This week, we’ll concentrate on all of the permissions and settings for the shared web galleries.

There are 5 posts in this series:

• How do I share a web gallery from the Lightroom cloud ecosystem?
• How do I share a web gallery from Lightroom Classic?
• How do I set the web gallery permissions and settings?
• How do visitors navigate around my shared web gallery?
• How do I see the likes and comments visitors have left on my shared web gallery?

Where do I find the web gallery settings?

Many settings can be accessed from the Share & Invite dialog in the Lightroom ecosystem apps, whereas Lightroom Classic has very limited control. We’re going to use the Web interface to set the gallery settings, as it’s the only place that all of the options are available, so go to https://lightroom.adobe.com

In the left panel, click on Shared, then click on your album. (If you’re a Lightroom Classic user, collections are called albums in the cloud ecosystem.) The Shared Photos panel allows you to see all of your shared albums in one location, without having to search through your folders of albums.

You’ll see your photo thumbnails on the right. Above the thumbnails, click the Share icon to view the Share & Invite dialog. Let’s go through the settings one at a time…

Link Access & Permissions

The first choice is who can view the photos:

If the Link Access is set to Anyone Can View, it doesn’t mean your photos are being broadcast across the web. It simply that anyone with the link can view the gallery. The link is shown below, and you can copy it to the clipboard or share it directly to some social media sites.

If the Link Access is set to Invite only, the gallery is kept private, except for the people you invite by email. To view the photos, they must click the link in their email and sign in using their Adobe ID or Facebook/Google login.

To invite someone, enter their email address in the Invite tab below. While inviting someone to a shared album, you can set their access level:

• Can View allows them to view the gallery.
• Can Contribute allows them to upload their own photos to your album, either using the web interface, or even the Lightroom app on their phone. They don’t need to be a paid subscriber, as the photos are added to your cloud space. For example, if you’re the designated photographer at a family event, you may invite family members to upload their photos to the shared album. Then the whole family can enjoy them.
• Can Edit and Contribute allows them not only to add photos to your album, but also to edit your photos too. Their edits are saved as an Auto Version, badged with their avatar, so you can go back to your own edits if you don’t like their changes. They can also export full resolution originals, if the originals are stored in the cloud. Don’t worry, only the album owner has permission to delete photos and edit metadata.

You can change or revoke access permissions for a specific person at any time.

Display Preferences

In the Display tab, it directs you to the buttons at the bottom of the thumbnail grid. (In the ecosystem apps, the Display tab contains these settings.) Select the button that looks like a paint palette to adjust the gallery appearance and see a preview.

• The Theme—Photo Grid, Column or One-Up—controls the layout of the gallery
• The Appearance options allow you to switch between a light and dark design.

Click the arrow on the right of the Display bar to show additional options.

• The Title at the top of the gallery defaults to the album name, but you can change it to something more descriptive, as well as adding your name as the Author.
• Use Cover As gives you the choice of using a cover photo as a background or hero/header image. To select a cover photo, click the checkbox in the corner of the thumbnail then select Set Cover Photo at the top of the Grid.
• And of course, you may want to change the Sort Order. Custom sort orders do sync up to the cloud, even from Lightroom Classic, but it’s not always selected automatically.

Custom Share

While you’re in the Display view, you can also create a more interesting web gallery by splitting the grid of photos and inserting descriptive text to tell a story. Extracted from Adobe Lightroom – Edit Like a Pro, here’s a quick reference on how to customize the gallery:

Settings

Finally, return to the Share & Invite dialog using the button at the top of the grid view, and select the Settings tab. Using these options, you can control how your visitors can interact with your photos. (In the next post, we’ll look at how these features appear to your visitors.)

• Allow Downloads (JPG) and Export displays a download button in the viewer’s web gallery. This allows them to download JPEGs of the photos. The downloaded images are full resolution if uploaded using the ecosystem apps, but only up to 2560px if uploaded using Lightroom Classic.
• Show Metadata and Show Location Info limit the amount of metadata your viewers can see in the Info panel of the web gallery.
• Allow Comments and Likes allows your viewers to share their thoughts on your photos.
• Allow access requests is only available if the gallery is set to Invite only. If an uninvited guest visits the link (perhaps because it was previously shared as Anyone Can View), they’ll be asked to log in, and then be given the option to request access. This sends you a request by email, giving you the choice to approve or deny their request. They won’t be able to view the gallery until you grant access from the Share & Invite dialog.

In next week’s post, we’ll look at how the gallery appears to your visitors. We’ll also summarize how they can use the different features, such as how to download photos.