Guest Uploading

Andy

It was a top 10 feature request on our feedback site, and now it's live!

Enjoy, and more info here.

johnloguk

Excellent development

RyanS

First off, I'm going to be thinking of some awesome uses for this. Thanks! Now some questions. All of these are really rhetorical questions. I've already tested them. People should be aware of what this means before using the feature.

* Does a guest uploader have to agree to a legal click-through to protect the site owner against copyright claims, etc?
- Nope. Talk to your lawyer depending on use.
* Can visitors purchase prints of uploaded images so the site owner could potentially profit from images they didn't take?
- Yup. Pros can set up an empty price list to prevent this (tested). See above.
* Is it clear that the site owner may not have taken the pictures?
- Not that I could see, other than changing the theme and adding a description explaining the gallery.
* How do we prevent creepy Uncle Joe from uploading his pr0n collection? Can we manage (delete/move) images by upload IP, upload date, etc?
- Wasn't able to figure this out.
* Is there a way to filter these images from the "recent upload" site module?
- Does not appear to be an option.

jasonscottphoto

RyanS wrote: »

* How do we prevent creepy Uncle Joe from uploading his pr0n collection? Can we manage (delete/move) images by upload IP, upload date, etc?
- Wasn't able to figure this out.

Maybe you could make the gallery unlisted until you approve the images?

Smugmug - it would be great if we could approve before they go live!

Andy

jasonscottphoto wrote: »

Maybe you could make the gallery unlisted until you approve the images?

Smugmug - it would be great if we could approve before they go live!

You can - just make the gallery unlisted.

SamirD

jasonscottphoto wrote: »

Maybe you could make the gallery unlisted until you approve the images?

Smugmug - it would be great if we could approve before they go live!

This is one of the things I'd like to see as well.

mbellot

Andy wrote: »

You can - just make the gallery unlisted.

How about making images uploaded by a guest hidden by default?

EDIT: Or even better, let us decide whether they get hidden or not by default with a gallery setting.

Andy

mbellot wrote: »

How about making images uploaded by a guest hidden by default?

EDIT: Or even better, let us decide whether they get hidden or not by default with a gallery setting.

You can make the gallery unlisted or pwd protected, and that would allow you the control to hide/show as you see fit.

mbellot

Andy wrote: »

You can make the gallery unlisted or pwd protected, and that would allow you the control to hide/show as you see fit.

What if I's already unlisted or password protected (as many of my personal/family albums are) but I still want control over which images other family members upload?

rsquared

mbellot wrote: »

What if I's already unlisted or password protected (as many of my personal/family albums are) but I still want control over which images other family members upload?

You could make a new (unlisted) gallery for them to upload to, and then move or collect the photos into the existing gallery after reviewing them.

smilenj

Curious if anyone has used this feature yet in a business situation?

Andy

smilenj wrote: »

Curious if anyone has used this feature yet in a business situation?

What questions do you have? Just ask

smilenj

Andy wrote: »

What questions do you have? Just ask

No questions but at our next smug I would like to share how photographers are using this feature. I've read about the possibilities but I haven't read about someone using it for their business.

SamirD

Will this cause problems on the gallery where we can upload images via email? I've played with settings before and broke the feature. Don't want to do that again.

rainforest1155

SamirD wrote: »

Will this cause problems on the gallery where we can upload images via email? I've played with settings before and broke the feature. Don't want to do that again.

I don't see why guest uploading would affect the email upload feature, but then you could always create a separate gallery as there's no limit on how many galleries you can have.

Just tried it and after setting up guest upload, I was still able to email upload fine.

baikodaker

thanks! it's great to have this kind of feature. our client was happy about it.

SamirD

rainforest1155 wrote: »

I don't see why guest uploading would affect the email upload feature, but then you could always create a separate gallery as there's no limit on how many galleries you can have.

Just tried it and after setting up guest upload, I was still able to email upload fine.

Thank you for testing it for me. I'm about to try it. I hope nothing breaks! I've got a lot more to do today...

SamirD

I can get Simple to work 100% of the time on certain computers that are just dedicated to uploading. (Don't tell anyone I said this--but they're xp embedded thin clients--not supported!!)

I've never updated anything and they still work even over the years that the uploaders have been updated. My primary uploading thin client from 2008 just died a few days ago. RIP Neoware e140.

smilenj

baikodaker wrote: »

thanks! it's great to have this kind of feature. our client was happy about it.

What did you do for your client? I'm trying to find real life stories of people using this for clients.

SamirD

One thing I thought about today and am not sure if it's in demand is an email address for a gallery, kinda like this guest upload link. Anyone else want something like this?

SamirD

I've noticed one thing that I don't like about this feature--no custom domain. :cry

If we have a custom domain set up, it has to www.smugmug.com. I'd love to see this changed!

smilenj

I'm still trying to get my head around how to buse it. I have two events that I attended as a participant (son's preschool graduation and neighborhood picnic). Thought it would be great to set up these galleries so that we could have all the photos in one place. But then I think that I'm sure people will want to buy a few so I should enable printing. But I can't charge more then the whole sale prices since they aren't my photos. But there are potential clients in this group and I would imagine that they would wonder how I can charge $1 for a print in the picnic gallery and then $75 when they hire me. Yes there is some education involved but I think it would lead to confusion and confusion always means less business. Am I missing something?

SamirD

Hmmm...interesting problem. Why not do this--have one gallery that has all your professional photos set at their prices. Have a second gallery that allows guest uploads and have those set to print at cost. Collect all your professional photos into the second gallery so everything is in one place.

SamirD

Well, the guest uploading feature is great, but it really opens up the quirkiness of SM uploading to things like this:
"Well smugmug ain't working for me, it will load for an hour or so then say theres a problem.
Check out my youtube channel for the video I took."

The uploading process itself will have to be re-evaluated since users are going to have more problems than with the 'free' options out there like fb and yt.

rainforest1155

There's no video on that channel about uploading to SmugMug as far as I can see. Maybe the user removed it already?

AlliOOP

smilenj wrote: »

Curious if anyone has used this feature yet in a business situation?

Yes, I have.

The photo CD's were delivered to a client and the RAW photos were then archived. The client wanted certain photos not originally post processed worked on again. Instead of the back and forth of trying to find the original "negs", I had the client upload just the ones to be reworked.

Less wasted time for me, more profit from the job and happy client too!

SamirD

rainforest1155 wrote: »

There's no video on that channel about uploading to SmugMug as far as I can see. Maybe the user removed it already?

https://www.youtube.com/user/kornbred77

AlliOOP wrote: »

Yes, I have.

The photo CD's were delivered to a client and the RAW photos were then archived. The client wanted certain photos not originally post processed worked on again. Instead of the back and forth of trying to find the original "negs", I had the client upload just the ones to be reworked.

Less wasted time for me, more profit from the job and happy client too!

Interesting example. I didn't think of it being used for a client to upload the files to me.

rainforest1155

Yes Samir, I looked there, but for me there are only videos about cars (total of 28). Maybe the video is private or only certain people can see it.

SamirD

Those are all of them on his channel. He couldn't upload them to SM.

SamirD

SamirD wrote: »

I've noticed one thing that I don't like about this feature--no custom domain. :cry

If we have a custom domain set up, it has to www.smugmug.com. I'd love to see this changed!

Anyone else really wanting this? It's almost critical for my brand. :cry

yotman

I recently used the guest upload link for a work-related monthly photo contest I'm hosting. I put an upload button the on my entry page that uses Javascript to require entrants to agree to the contest terms, then opens the guest upload link to load photos. That all worked great. Got 227 entries in two weeks and only three requests for help. I've got two thoughts after doing this:

1. I agree it would be nice if my custom domain would carry through. I had one person not enter and contact me because the domain changed and he wasn't sure what Smugmug was or how he'd gotten there.

2. Wish there was an easy way to have the guest submit captions. For my purposes, reaching out broadly to a non-technical audience, I don't think I can reasonably expect them to be using a photo editor for that. Instead I had them using comments for captions, which sort of works but not as well as real captions would since those are visible by default in most views.