Let Your Client Upload Their Own Photos

Here is a great idea from our friends at SmugMug. They have now made it possible to create a gallery that your customer can upload pics to. Now why on earth would that be a great idea, you ask? Well primarily where I see this could be fun, is for wedding clients. I have been to many weddings where the Bride handed out small disposable digital cameras at the reception and asked them to take pictures as well. The Bride could then upload those pics for sharing to a special gallery at your site. Maybe she even just instructs all of her friends to upload any pics of the day that they have. It is a cool way for the Bride to really enjoy the experience all over again.

Here is how it is done. The below was copied directly from SmugMug and pasted here on my blog. I somehow don't think the will mind....

_________________________

_________________________

You’ve always asked us if we had a way for your friends to upload lots of photos to your galleries without using a special Pro-only login. Someplace for your wedding and party guests to share all their crazy candids, funny faces and those micro-moments even Sherlock Holmes would miss.

You didn’t have a way to do that before. Now you do, whether you’ve got a Basic, Power or Pro account.

Here’s how it works.

How to create the most awesome pool of photos, ever

Step 1. Open up your gallery’s settings page and scroll down to Security & Privacy.

Step 2. Type a password into the “Upload Key” field. Note: Whatever you type here will be visible to your guest. (Just sayin’)

Step 3. Click the Save button at the top, then take a look at the “Upload Key” field again. We’ve baked your password into a special link like this:

Alternatively, you can fire up that gallery’s uploader and see the “Guest Upload” link at the bottom:

Step 4. Copy and share the link! Anyone who hits it will be taken straight to a special version of our web uploader where they can drag and drop files into your gallery… and only that gallery.

Stuff you should know

• If your gallery has a viewing password, your guest can still upload photos to it with your special link. However, they will need to enter the viewing password before they can browse the gallery.

• Anyone who has your link can upload files to the gallery, so be aware when you share. If you’re concerned about it getting into the wrong hands, you can give your guests a deadline, then delete or change the Upload Key after that date.

• Want captions? Have your guests fill out the caption field of their photo files before they upload. When it’s in the gallery, their text will automatically show up under the image. They can easily do this in programs like Picasa, iPhoto and Windows Photo Gallery.

There’s never too many cooks in the kitchen when fun photos are involved. So gather your friends, give it a try and let us know how you’re using it.

We’d love to hear your feedback so we can make this feature as awesome as humanly possible.

Posted in: smugmug