How Do You Build a Photography Portfolio Website Directly from Lightroom Classic?

By David · July 13, 2026 · 7 min read

I build Lightroom Classic plugins for a living, which means I spend a lot of time in the Plugin SDK reading exactly how publish services track state, which photos have changed, and when a re-upload is actually needed. Portfolio websites are one of the most-asked-about use cases, and the standard advice is almost always wrong for Classic users.

Here is an honest breakdown of the options, why the most commonly recommended one falls flat, and what a genuinely native Classic approach looks like.

Why do Lightroom Classic photographers struggle to build portfolio websites?

The confusion starts with Adobe's own product lineup. Adobe Portfolio is a polished, free (with any Creative Cloud subscription) website builder that integrates with Lightroom. But the integration is with Lightroom - the cloud-based version, not Classic. To use Adobe Portfolio with your Classic catalog, you have to enable "Sync with Lightroom" on each collection, which uploads every synced photo to Adobe's cloud. Your catalog becomes a hybrid: local masters, cloud copies, synced state to manage.

That sync toggle is exactly what most dedicated Classic users have kept off. Classic appeals precisely because it stores everything locally, works offline, and keeps your catalog under your own control. Turning on sync to unlock a website builder defeats the point.

The other popular options have their own friction:

• SmugMug has a genuine Lightroom Classic publish service plugin, but pricing starts at $13/month for the basic plan and reaches $42/month for the Pro tier. That is $156-504 per year for hosting photos you already pay to store locally.
• Format offers a Lightroom plugin for syncing, but the connection is closer to an export plugin than a true publish service: it does not track which photos you have already uploaded or flag changed images for re-sync the way a native publish service does.
• TTG/Backlight is a legitimate full-featured Lightroom publisher with impressive template quality, but it requires you to run your own PHP server. That means a VPS subscription on top of the plugin license, plus the time to configure server software - a real barrier unless you are comfortable with web hosting.

None of those are bad products. But for a Classic photographer who wants a site that just works from inside Lightroom at a reasonable price, none of them are the obvious answer either.

What does a native Lightroom Classic publish service approach actually look like?

A true Lightroom Classic publish service lives in the Publish Services panel in the Library module. You recognize them because they appear alongside Flickr, SmugMug, and any other services you have installed. They are not export destinations you point at manually - they are stateful connections that remember which photos are published, which have changed since the last publish, and which have been removed.

When a portfolio plugin is built as a real publish service, the workflow is the same as syncing to any other service:

1. You organize your work into published collections inside the service.
2. Lightroom tracks the state: "Published," "Modified Photos to Re-Publish," "New Photos to Publish."
3. You click Publish and only the photos that actually changed get re-uploaded.
4. Remove a photo from the collection and the next publish removes it from your live site automatically.

This is the workflow Classic photographers already understand from other publish services. The portfolio website becomes another destination in the panel, not a separate tool you have to open and manage separately.

I built Keptfolio to work exactly this way: a publish service inside Classic that hosts your portfolio on our servers. No CC sync, no PHP server, no separate upload client. Organize in Lightroom, publish from Lightroom, the site follows.

How do you set up a portfolio in five steps from the Library module?

This is the full flow using Keptfolio, but the same pattern applies to any well-built native publish service plugin.

1. Install the plugin. Download the Keptfolio .lrplugin, then open File > Plug-in Manager in Lightroom Classic and click Add. Point it at the downloaded folder.
2. Claim your site address. Go to Library > Plug-in Extras > Set Up Portfolio Website.... Enter your license key and pick your permanent web address: yourname.keptfolio.com. Add your display name and a short bio.
3. Create your first gallery. In the Publish Services panel on the left side of Library, right-click Portfolio Website and choose to create a published collection. Name it something that will make sense as a gallery title on your site, like Weddings or Portraits 2026.
4. Add photos and publish. Drag images from your catalog into the new collection. Select the collection and click Publish. Keptfolio renders two web sizes of each image and uploads them. Your originals never leave Lightroom.
5. Style your site. When the first publish finishes, a browser window opens to your site's design editor. Pick a layout template, choose a cover photo for each gallery, and add your contact details. Hit Save and your site is live.

After that initial setup, publishing a new gallery or updating an existing one takes seconds. Re-edit a photo in Develop, go back to your published collection, and Lightroom shows it in the "Modified Photos to Re-Publish" section. Click Publish and only that one image re-uploads.

How do you deliver full-resolution photos to clients without leaving Lightroom?

One workflow that most photographers cobble together outside Lightroom is finished-photo delivery: exporting a gallery to a folder, then uploading to Dropbox or WeTransfer, then sending a link, then manually cleaning everything up weeks later. It is four tools where one should do.

A client download gallery collapses that into a single Lightroom publish. Right-click the published collection, choose Edit Collection, and switch the gallery type from Portfolio gallery to Client download gallery. Set a passphrase and pick a download window: 3, 7, or 28 days. Publish it.

Keptfolio uploads the full-resolution JPEGs to a private, passphrase-protected page. You copy the link from the browser editor's Galleries tab and send it to your client with the passphrase. When the download window expires, the link goes dead automatically and the files are removed. No manual cleanup, no lingering cloud storage you forgot about.

Review galleries work similarly: a private passphrase-protected page where clients rate photos with stars and flag their picks. You import their selections back into Lightroom with a single command, and their star ratings map to Lightroom's own star rating system.

How does Keptfolio compare to Adobe Portfolio, SmugMug, Format, and TTG/Backlight?

SmugMug is the strongest alternative if you also want to sell prints or need very granular access controls. Keptfolio is built for the photographer who wants a clean portfolio site and a simple client delivery workflow, without paying for print fulfillment infrastructure they will never use.

Frequently asked questions

Does a native Classic portfolio plugin work without a Creative Cloud subscription?

Yes. Keptfolio works with any active Lightroom Classic license. No Creative Cloud sync, no cloud catalog, and no Lightroom CC account is required. Your catalog and originals stay exactly where they are now.

Can I have multiple galleries on my portfolio site?

Yes. Each published collection inside the Portfolio Website service becomes one gallery on your site. You can have up to 500 galleries per site, so there is no practical limit for most photographers. Set the sort to Custom Order inside each gallery and drag to arrange the sequence visitors see.

How do clients download their full-resolution photos?

Create a client download gallery by switching a collection's type to Client download gallery in its settings, then set a passphrase and a download window of 3, 7, or 28 days. Publish it, copy the private link from the browser editor, and send it to your client. The link expires automatically when the window closes. No manual cleanup needed.

What happens when I re-edit a photo in Lightroom?

Lightroom's publish service marks the edited photo as "Modified - to Re-Publish." When you next click Publish on that gallery, only the changed images re-upload. The rest of your site is untouched. This state tracking is what separates a real publish service from an export plugin.

Can I use a custom domain for my portfolio?

Sites are hosted at yourname.keptfolio.com right now. Custom domain support is on the roadmap. Email [email protected] to register your interest and your request moves the feature up the list.