Handing RAW files to clients: the options compared
USB stick, cloud storage, WeTransfer or a gallery platform? We compare the common ways to hand RAW and original files to clients — with pros and cons.
The finished JPEGs are shared quickly — but some clients want the RAW originals. Couples who later have their own edits made, agencies that need full control, or corporate clients with their own design team. RAWs are large, and not every handover route is up to it. Here are the common options.
Option 1: USB stick or hard drive
The classic. Works offline, no upload needed, the client physically holds the data.
Downsides: You have to buy, fill and hand over or ship the medium. If it gets lost, the data is gone — or worse, in the wrong hands. For shipped media with personal images, the question of encryption also arises. And a second shipment after a loss comes out of your own pocket.
Option 2: consumer cloud (Google Drive, Dropbox & co.)
Quickly set up, generous storage. But: the big providers are based in the US, which raises the familiar GDPR third-country problem with personal images. It also mixes the client handover with your private storage, and the links are often hard to control or expire.
Option 3: WeTransfer
Convenient for a quick send — but with large RAW volumes you hit size limits, the links expire quickly, and the GDPR questions around US infrastructure exist here too. Okay for occasional small handovers, impractical for the RAW archive of a whole shoot.
Option 4: gallery platform with original download
Here lies the advantage of a platform built for photographers: you upload the RAWs once, the client downloads them via an access-restricted link — encrypted, traceable, without extra logistics.
Well-made platforms let you decide per gallery whether originals may be downloaded at all or only reduced web versions. That way you give RAWs specifically only to the clients who paid for them, and protect your work for everyone else.
What to watch for
Whatever route you choose, three things decide its practicality:
- File size: RAWs are 20–80 MB per image. The route must handle several GB per gallery.
- Access control: Only the authorized client should get to them — with a password or expiring link.
- Data protection: With identifiable people, the same GDPR rules apply as for JPEGs. EU hosting saves you the third-country effort.
Conclusion
For occasional one-off handovers an encrypted USB stick can suffice. For the professional, recurring workflow a gallery platform with controlled original download is almost always the cleaner solution — faster, safer and without logistics.
Lumio supports RAW formats from Canon, Nikon, Sony, Fuji and many more, generates previews server-side, and lets you control per gallery whether the client gets the originals or only web versions. The originals stay unchanged.