"Share Photo" - how many people use this?

MichaelKirk

I have always disabled "Sharing Photos". I always view this as another level of security for some reason (maybe I am looking at this wrong?). Watermarking, disabling right click as well as external links, etc. Trying to protech as much as possible.

Now I notice when I try and send emails to customers of a new gallery - the only way to do this is to enable "Share Photos". So I thought I would be smart and enable - send the email and then immediately disable - Red "X's" the photo though.

What is everyones thoughts on enabling the shared photo button? Do you use it? By disableing it is it really offering any sort of protection? (I guess they could screen print directly from my site as easily as from the emails being sent when this is enabled).

Just trying to get some others opinions on using this feature and your thoughts of your history of using it as well. Just trying to figure out if maybe I should enable it on all of my old and new galleries as an added marketing tool allowing current customers to send photos to potential new customers????

Thanks,
Michael

ShepsMom

I never used it, so i wouldn't know. Wouldn't it be easier to just send customer an email with the link to the gallery?

dragon300zx

MichaelKirk wrote:

I have always disabled "Sharing Photos".

I do the same for a very specific reason. Its easy for me to copy and paste a link from the browser withough having to use the share photo button. When you use the share photo button the link it creates actually makes it easy to bypass the right click protection.......

DavidTO

Turning off share photo does not disable external links. Turning off external links disables external links.

I turn of sharing, because you don't need it to link a photo. You just have to know how the syntax works.

The URL of the image will end with the image number. Copy that number and put it in this url to link:

http:yournicknamehere.smugmug.com/photos/XXXXXXX-L.jpg


XXXXXXX is where you would put the image number that you copied from the image URL in the first step.

L is the Large size, you can use M for medium, S for Small, O for Original, Th for Thumb and Ti for Tiny.

Try it!

claudermilk

On all my normal galleries, I turn it off. I have one private gallery I have it on, which is for my use for posting to fora like here. The share button just makes it easier to get the proper URL syntax as mentioned. I figure if visitors don't see the button, 99.99% won't know how to hot link, or even realize it's possible.

thebigsky

I'm confused, how do I stop people linking to my images directly from their blogs for instance, but still be able to do it myself?

Charlie

denisegoldberg

thebigsky wrote:

I'm confused, how do I stop people linking to my images directly from their blogs for instance, but still be able to do it myself?

Charlie

You can't. If you allow external access - which you need to do in order to link to an image in your blog - other people will also be able to link to your images.

I have external links on in my galleries, but I do not enable the share button. Well, I don't enable it for public use, but I do enable it when logged in; I like to be able to just copy the links.

You need to decide what level of exposure is OK for you. I show small, medium, and large images in my galleries, and keep originals turned off. So yes, from my blog - or if someone figures out how to link directly to a photo on my site (which isn't all that hard) - someone could right-click and save a photo. I only link to the smalls & mediums from my blog. But honestly, printing from even the large image is going to be lousy quality.

--- Denise

Hindsight

denisegoldberg wrote:

You can't. If you allow external access - which you need to do in order to link to an image in your blog - other people will also be able to link to your images.

I have external links on in my galleries, but I do not enable the share button. Well, I don't enable it for public use, but I do enable it when logged in; I like to be able to just copy the links.

You need to decide what level of exposure is OK for you. I show small, medium, and large images in my galleries, and keep originals turned off. So yes, from my blog - or if someone figures out how to link directly to a photo on my site (which isn't all that hard) - someone could right-click and save a photo. I only link to the smalls & mediums from my blog. But honestly, printing from even the large image is going to be lousy quality.


--- Denise

Seeings how it takes minimal savvy to right click and save images even with protection on I use watermarks. Even though prints would be ugly the images are still useful for commercial web purposing. Specifically, I do horse photography, so the unscrupilous could use them to advertise horses online at auction/brokerage sites. They still could of course but the watermark is surely a deterrent. (30% opacity, center.) As for WM's effecting sales- I figure if people want a shot they'll buy it. For the few % that fall outside this, I can live with it. There are cases where I'll move the WM if it falls over a major piece of detail, such as a nice catchlight in the eyes or something.

Tandem

I shoot high school sports and I use share so that the kids can brag about themselves to friends and family. I lightly watermark the images so it is great advertising. The more kids that visit the website, the more parents find out about it and the more prints I sell. It is a win/win all around.