Now that the helper program is installed, we're going to go into Lightroom and use the export feature to export photos. To use the export function, you select the images you want to upload to SmugMug, and use the File>Export function.

Now a screen will come up that allows you to set all the parameters you want for the export. The settings will depend on what you want to do, but here's what I use, but dont click Export yet because we're not done!

* Export location - Any directory on your local harddisk
* File Naming - Filename
* Color space - sRGB
* Resolution - whatever you prefer
* Constraint maximum - unchecked, let SmugMug handle sizes, use maximum size
* Add Watermark - unchecked, let SmugMug handle watermark

And now the important one, in the last section called Post Processing you can tell Lightroom what to do after the export. Pick the option "Go to Export Actions Folder Now". It will open a window to a directory on your harddisk. Then double click the "Export Actions" folder to enter it.

This directory contains all the programs that Lightroom can use as a post-processing tool. It should be empty right now so we'll add SendToSmugmug to it. Instead of copying the file, we'll just make a shortcut to it. Find the SendToSmugmug folder on your harddisk (probably on "C:\Program Files\Send to smugmug"). Right click the icon for SendToSmugmug and choose 'Copy'.

Now go back to the "Export Actions" folder and right click in the folder window and choose "Paste Shortcut". You'll see something like this.

Now head back to Lightroom, cancel the running export if it's still open and do another export of the images you want to upload to SmugMug. The "Post-Processing/After Export" option now has an extra function called "Shortcut to Send to Smugmug". If you don't like this name, rename the shortcut in the "Export Actions" folder.

Make sure all the options are set like you want them, and click "Export". Lightroom will export the files to your local harddisk and then immediately start up the "Send to Smugmug" (STS from now on) application. STS will open up and here you can add these images to an existing album or create a new album from scratch.

Now click "Upload" and the photos will be uploaded. Once this is done click OK and STS will open a browser window pointing to the album that contains these images. That's it! From now on, every time you want to upload images to SmugMug, all you have to do is pick the "Send to smugmug" option from the post-processing part of the export tool in Lightroom, and away you go.