u/RicardoFreitas1965

I’m building a portfolio website with NextJS + Payload CMS for a client who works heavily with photography/visual projects.
The issue is that all uploaded images are huge:
4096x4096

JPEG

~8–9MB each

Each project has around 10 images, and there are already 44 projects, so we’re talking about ~440 very large images.
From a web performance perspective, serving originals obviously makes no sense, so I started optimizing them (WebP/AVIF, responsive sizes, compression, etc.).
The problem:
The client keeps saying the optimized versions “lose quality” and wants the site to preserve the “original quality”.
Technically I understand that:
browsers rarely need full 4096px images

modern formats can massively reduce size with almost no visible loss

Next/Image + responsive sizes is the right approach

But I’m trying to find the best balance between:
visual fidelity

performance

client expectations

For people building photography-heavy sites:
what workflow do you use?

do you always keep originals and serve transformed versions?

what quality settings are your sweet spot?

are you using Cloudinary / Imgix / Cloudflare Images?

how do you explain this to clients that pixel-peep everything?

Would love to hear real-world setups and how you handle this conversation professionally.

Hey everyone,
I’m looking for some advice on email hosting providers for managing email accounts for my existing clients.
I’m not trying to start a hosting business or do large-scale reselling just want a reliable solution to manage email for the clients I already work with through web design / IT services.
The setup would basically be:
I manage domains, DNS, mailbox creation, passwords, etc.

clients use Thunderbird, Outlook, Apple Mail, phones, etc.

mostly small businesses and local clients

no mass marketing or bulk email sending

I’ve been looking at:
MXroute

Migadu

Fastmail

maybe Google Workspace for some clients

I do NOT want to self-host email because I don’t want to deal with deliverability, spam reputation, blacklists, server maintenance, etc.
For people already doing something similar:
which provider has been the most reliable?

how has MXroute been for client use long term?

any providers I should avoid?

anything important I should know before moving clients over?

Thanks!