How to Publish Photos from Adobe Lightroom to WordPress

Last updated on Nov 25, 2024 by Southie Williamson Reader Disclosure

Managing extensive photo collections can be challenging as a photographer, especially when uploading high-quality images from Lightroom to WordPress.

Luckily, you can use a WordPress Lightroom plugin to streamline the process and publish photos directly from Adobe Lightroom to WordPress.

In this guide, we’ll show you how to seamlessly integrate Lightroom with your WordPress site to help you save time, efficiently manage your photography workflow, and keep your web galleries synced with Lightroom.

Pre-Requisites for Uploading Lightroom Photos to WordPress

Before we get started, make sure you have the following:

1. Adobe Lightroom

This one is pretty obvious—you’ll need Adobe Lightroom installed on your computer to publish a Lightroom web gallery. Any version of Lightroom (Lr) or Lightroom Classic (LrC) that’s newer than Lightroom 6 should work just fine.

If you don’t have Lightroom yet, sign up for an Adobe Creative Cloud plan and install the Lightroom software on your computer. We’ll use Lightroom Classic for this tutorial, but the steps are more or less the same if you prefer to install the cloud-based version, Lightroom CC.  

2. WordPress Website

Next, you’ll need access to the active WordPress website where you want to upload your Lightroom photos. If you’re not the primary site owner, ensure you have admin permissions to manage plugins and publish pages or posts.

If you don’t have a WordPress website, head to our step-by-step tutorial on How to Make a WordPress Photography Website.

3. Envira Gallery Pro

Envira Gallery is the best gallery plugin for WordPress, providing a user-friendly way to create beautiful photo and video galleries on your website. The Pro version includes Lightroom integration, letting you easily create, manage, and sync your WordPress galleries directly from Lightroom.

Plus, you’ll get tons of other advanced features with Envira Gallery Pro, like:

• Proofing galleries for clients.
• Built-in image compression, resizing, lazy-loading, and deep linking to boost your image SEO.
• Watermarking, image protection, and password-protected galleries.
• Albums to categorize and display multiple galleries.
• Filterable galleries and albums using tags.
• Dynamic galleries to display content from other sources like featured blog posts, testimonials, Instagram posts, and more.
• Commenting and social sharing buttons on images, galleries, and albums.
• And lots more…

Get Envira Gallery Pro Now

How to Publish Lightroom Photos to WordPress

Once you have your WordPress website, Adobe Lightroom, and an Envira Gallery Pro license, you’re ready to set up the plugin and start uploading photos from Lightroom to WordPress.

Step 1: Install Envira Gallery on WordPress

To start, you’ll need to install and activate the Envira Gallery plugin:

• Download the plugin’s ZIP file from your account area.
• Login to your WordPress website, go to Plugins » Add New Plugin, and click Upload Plugin at the top.
• Install the plugin and press Activate on the next screen.

You can see our installation guide for more detailed instructions.

Next, you need to add your license key (found in your account area where you downloaded the plugin). After installing and activating the Envira Gallery plugin, go through the setup wizard, which will ask for your license key.

Or, you can go to Envira Gallery » Settings from your WordPress admin menu, paste your license key, and click Verify Key.

After that, we’ll install and set up the Lightroom Addon.

Step 2: Set Up the Lightroom Addon in WordPress

Once you’ve activated your Envira license key, navigate to Envira Gallery » Addons from your WordPress menu.

Find the Lightroom Addon and press the Install button. After a few seconds, click Activate.  

Lastly, head to Envira Gallery » Settings and click the Lightroom tab.

From there, select the WordPress User account you want to use to publish photos from Lightroom, click Generate New Access Token, and copy the token, which we’ll use later.

You can also decide whether to Remove Images. If checked, when you edit and re-publish a collection from Lightroom, the plugin will automatically delete any original images from your server after they’re replaced.

Remember to press Save when you finish!

Step 3: Add the Envira Plugin to Adobe Lightroom

Next, you’ll need to install Envira Gallery’s WordPress Lightroom plugin in Adobe Lightroom. Return to your Envira Gallery Account area and click the Downloads tab (where you downloaded the plugin’s ZIP file).

Scroll down to the list of addons below, find Lightroom Addon (Adobe), and click the download icon.

You should now have a ZIP file in the downloads folder on your computer named envira.lrplugin.zip. Go ahead and unzip the file (double-click on Mac or right-click > Extract on Windows).

Then, open Lightroom on your computer and click File » Plugin Manager.

In the Plugin Manager window, click Add at the bottom of the left column. Then find and select the envira.lrplugin file on your computer and click Add Plugin-In.

Click Done to close the Plugin Manager when you’re finished. Next, we’ll connect the Lightroom plugin to your website.

Step 4: Connect Lightroom to Your Website

After adding the Envira plugin in Lightroom, you’ll see it listed under Publish Services in LrC. Go ahead and click the Set Up link.

This will open the Publishing Manager window. Under the WordPress Authentication tab, add your WordPress URL and the Access Token that you generated previously. Press Authenticate.

After Envira Gallery finishes connecting Lightroom with your website, you’ll see a success message—You have successfully authenticated with Envira. Press OK to close it.

Feel free to adjust any other available settings in the Publishing Manager, such as File Naming and File Settings. When you’re finished, click Save at the bottom.

Now, Lightroom is connected to your website, and you can easily publish photos to your website using Envira Gallery.

Step 5: Upload Photos from Lightroom to WordPress

To create a new Envira gallery in Lightroom and publish it to WordPress, right-click Envira under Publish Services and select Create Published Collection.

A dialog box will open. Give your new collection a Name, which will also be used as the photo gallery name on WordPress, and press Create.

Each collection you create will be a new gallery in WordPress, and you can create an unlimited number of collections.

Once created, just drag and drop images from your Library into the collection you want. When you want to upload them to WordPress, simply select the collection and click Publish.

You can continue adding or removing images from your collection and editing the photos. The collection will show your published photos as well as any new photos you’ve added, deleted photos, or modified photos.

Simply press the Publish button any time you want to re-sync the collection with your WordPress gallery and publish the changes.

When you finish, head to your WordPress website and click Envira Gallery. You’ll see the collection you published listed in your galleries.

From there, you can edit your gallery, set it up for proofing, embed it in a page or post, add it to an album, and anything else you want. Check out our tutorial to learn more about creating WordPress galleries.

As you can see, uploading photos from Lightroom to WordPress is easy-peasy with Envira Gallery! You can simplify your workflow, save time, and keep your galleries beautifully organized.

We hope this article helped you learn how to publish a Lightroom web gallery on your WordPress website. You may also want to check out our guide on How to Upload Images from ZIP Files in WordPress.

Not using Envira Gallery? Get started today!

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