Add professional and cloud photos

Why it goes through the guest link

The album has 1 entrance, and that is the guest link. It takes your files exactly as it takes a guest s, checks them the same way and prepares them identically. A second route would only mean 2 routes that can drift apart, with 1 of them eventually counting differently.

For you that means: with 200 photographer files, open the link on a computer rather than a phone. The steps are the same; the file picker is simply easier.

1. Get the files local. Download from the cloud onto the device you will upload from. A computer works as well as a phone.
2. Open the guest link. The same link your guests get. It takes your files just as readily.
3. Upload in batches. Send large quantities in several rounds rather than 1. Each file runs on its own.

The ceilings apply to you too

A professional photo is larger than a phone picture but stays within the 25 MB per file. Album storage is the real question: it runs from 5 GB on the free tier to 250 GB. Work out roughly what the photographer will deliver before you start.

On the free tier the 60-contribution cap is added on top. A photographer s delivery exhausts it in 1 go.

RAW files will not go through

Camera files in RAW are refused, because they are not among the formats we read. Ask your photographer for JPEG, which is what they export for handover anyway. PNG and WebP go through as well, and so does HEIC.

Renaming does not help: the header is checked, not the extension. A RAW file named as a JPEG is caught in the same place.

Duplicates cost nothing

If you are unsure whether a batch already went through, send it again. Every file gets a checksum on arrival, and within one event an identical file counts exactly once — against the count and against storage alike.

That holds for genuinely identical files only. A freshly exported version of the same shot is a different file and counts again.

Where the pictures land

Uploaded pictures order themselves by upload time, not by capture date. A photographer s delivery arriving weeks later therefore sits at the end rather than among the phone pictures from the night. If you would rather it did not, create a separate event for the professional shots.

With the review step running, your own uploads wait for approval too. For large batches it is worth switching it off first.

What to agree beforehand

Settle with your photographer what resolution they deliver and whether the pictures may go into a shared album. That is a question of your arrangement with them rather than of the technology, and it is more awkward to settle after the party than before.

Check how long your album lives, too: 30 days on the free tier, then 90, 183 or 365. A late delivery should not land in an album that has already expired.