Are you suggesting that when I export from Lightroom I should decrease the quality or I should “limit file size to ____” some specific size?
Personally, when I deliver photos to a client, I give the full pixel dimensions (so, no Image Sizing at all in LR), but I do set the Quality slider to lower than 100. I can’t see that much of a difference in quality between 100 and 65, and yet, on an experiment I just ran, the difference in size is 10MB vs 1.63MB. No change in pixel dimensions. At Quality 65 it starts becoming every so slightly noticeable, but run your own experiments. If I’m concerned about space, I export at Quality 65. And really, I think 50 is acceptable. I my test, it was 1.12MB at Quality 50.
I feel like online galleries are the more accepted way to do things these days – is that correct?
I’d say galleries feel the most professional. Dropbox links are great, but they don’t give a professional, front-end experience to a client. It feels like a back-end transfer of files. Both work, but if you’re trying to give a professional impression, an online gallery is going to give that. And some people may feel it’s more safe that way too. Another advantage of a gallery is that, if you pay for it, you may get unlimited space (like I do with Zenfolio) and thus the photos can be accessed online by a client forever, and that can be a plus to a client, to make them feel like there’s no way their pictures will ever be lost.