Security issue- Are your images as secure as you think using Smugmug?

Hoskovecphoto

I was surprised and disappointed to learn that at this point any files that have been added to any gallery by "collecting" from an original full res source bypass the maximum display protection for that gallery and any subsequent galleries and defaults to the original full res setting of the source file. Even if that source file is "protected" in a private gallery it will still show up in the collected gallery at full res regardless of the new gallery display restrictions/protections. This is an important security issue for anyone wanting to create display restrictions for collected galleries for sharing proofs/selects/samples/portfolios/ etc. and isolating original files for clients to downloading. I can't think of a single reason why I would want this current protection bypassing protocol, what is the point of the gallery image protection settings at all if they are ignored? As an example of how these settings should work, from my testing it looks like the download protection is respecting the gallery security settings and not defaulting to the parent file source gallery location settings. The maximum display protection should work the same way to help secure our images and to maintain a consistent looking/functioning gallery. Imagine pulling together a portfolio of your best work from many galleries, only to have the viewer experience showing images at all different sizes depending on the settings of their original locations.. it doesn't make sense.

The only suggestion Smugmug had was to manually reprocess and re-upload a smaller version of each file.. this seems very redundant and time consuming and could lead to confusion with deliverables.

Is anyone else affected by this on your website or gallery workflow? Have you found a work around for this security issue to keep your images protected?