controlling photo sharing via Facebook etc

<p>Hope this is the right place for this question. I searched, could not find a thread with the same question, and could not decide whether this belongs here, or in website creation, or somewhere else....</p>

<p><strong>Setup</strong><br>

Went to a great presentation here in Dallas a couple of weeks ago at the PPA road tour, where a fine photographer discussed many aspects of her successful portrait business. Don't want to mention her name in case I've gotten something wrong; I thought she was excellent but that's not pertinent to my question. Two things the speaker mentioned that really resonated with me: 1, she does not proof images online; and 2, she does not sell digital files EVER. Someone in the audience asked, "So how do you deal with clients who want to share your photos online with their friends?" Her answer was that she controls this process herself. Apparently she will put up a low-res gallery for clients on Facebook. SHE (the photographer) creates and apparently owns the gallery. She does not directly give files of any sort to the client, not even low-res ones.</p>

<p>I don't at the moment see a way around proofing files and selling prints online. But I am looking for ways to control the digital files.</p>

<p><strong>The question</strong><br>

So, my question is: How do I help my client share her photos on Facebook, without giving her the files? Is this possible? Does it make sense?</p>

<p>Right now I upload low-res image files to my service (pro account through zenfolio). There clients can place orders as well as view files. And that gallery can be shared with the client's friends and family. But say the client wants to share files on Facebook specifically? What then? <br>

Thanks in advance.</p>

<p>Will</p>

<p>I thought low-res was the solution to the CD problem. I make SURE they take accompanying prints home so they know how they're supposed to look; if they take it to Walgreens and try to circumvent the system, they'll have clear evidence of how they would look if they did it through me. I'm baffled someone can be a success today with no digital imaging. I'm stumped.</p>

<p>If they can SEE the images on Facebook (or anywhere else), they HAVE the files. They can right-click and save, do a screen print to their clipboard, save it from their browser cache ... any of dozens of things that will get them a local JPG from what they were seeing online. In short, putting it up on your gallery is fine - nobody can have copies of those low res files. At least, not until you let them <em>look</em> at the proof gallery. At that point, only the honor system or your threat of legal badness can stop them from having those images up on their own FB page or e-mailed to their friends within minutes.<br /><br />For her to say that doesn't ever give out files, even low-res ones, but that she allows people to visit her own FB galleries to see them there, instead? That's either incredibly naive, or rather disengenuous of her. As soon as someone can see those images - no matter where they're hosted or on what platform - the horse is out of the barn.</p>

<p>What's the value of a photo being posted on Facebook? 50 cents? 20 cents? You could send them a bill for $0.20 times the number of photos of them in your gallery and then you would have a reasonable business deal from the financial perspective. On the other hand, that's not a very good policy for doing business. </p>

<p>I predict that the photographer who gave the presentation will have a significantly different model on this next year. It doesn't make sense to take low value things away from customers.</p>

<p>I watermark all my photos and let people use on Facebook and other places as long as they leave in the watermark. It creates good will, referrals and I find that a lot of people get quite a bit of happiness out of it. I'm not really interested in being the grinch to people who want their photos taken.</p>

<p>I didn't mention the speaker's name in part because I was afraid I might say something that would cause people to question her approach. For what it's worth, she's very successful, so whatever she's doing is working terrifically well for her. But her approach is not my approach, her business model is not at all my business model, and therefore her situation isn't pertinent to my question. My fault for bringing somebody into the picture unnecessarily.</p>

<p>*</p>

<p>Theresa writes:</p>

 

<blockquote>I thought low-res was the solution to the CD problem. I make SURE they take accompanying prints home so they know how they're supposed to look... </blockquote>

<p>Yes, I agree and this is something I'm trying to do, too. When I first switched to digital myself around 2001, I initially embraced the whole all-digital, no-paper lifestyle. It's taken me a long time but I've finally changed my mind about this, after realizing that my photos look a lot better when well printed than they look online. And a print is simply more special, in part because they're less common now. Anyway, I'm now trying hard to make sure that clients GET good quality prints.</p>

<p>Matt Laur says,</p>

<blockquote>If they can SEE the images on Facebook (or anywhere else), they HAVE the files. They can right-click and save, do a screen print to their clipboard, save it from their browser cache ... any of dozens of things that will get them a local JPG from what they were seeing online. In short, putting it up on your gallery is fine - nobody can have copies of those low res files. At least, not until you let them look at the proof gallery. At that point, only the honor system or your threat of legal badness can stop them from having those images up on their own FB page or e-mailed to their friends within minutes.</blockquote>

<p>I'm not sure I wholly agree. Your technical point is correct, of course. Even if right-clicking and saving the online jpeg is disabled, they can take a screen shot. </p>

<p>However, if the images are NOT actually given to the client—if the images are available only on a site with my branding—then I think honest clients are more likely to respect the restrictions that are right there in front of their noses, than they are to respect the EULA that has been accompanying the high-res DVDs I've been giving to brides for the last couple of years. I wonder if anybody has EVER read my license. And it's really well written, too. :-)</p>

<p>But I quite agree that this is a dilemma. I do not want to be like the traditional recording companies who ignored Napster and then iTunes. </p>

<p>Jeff Spirer writes,</p>

<blockquote>I watermark all my photos and let people use on Facebook and other places as long as they leave in the watermark. It creates good will, referrals and I find that a lot of people get quite a bit of happiness out of it. </blockquote>

<p>I assume you're letting them use low-res images, right?</p>

<p>And what kind of watermark are you talking about? I gather you're talking about one of those creative and fairly conspicuous watermarks like, say, <a href="http://neilvn.com/tangents/">Neil van Niekirk</a> uses or so many other photographers?</p>

<p>Will</p>

<p>Odd, you skipped over my point and focused on a minor implementation detail. </p>

<p>What is the value of an image for posting on Facebook? I would suspect that it's under $1 assuming that someone paid for the sitting etc. Unless it's a lot more, like a hundred times as much, why would it cause someone to completely ignore business value and focus on some sort of false pride issue?</p>

<blockquote>Odd, you skipped over my point and focused on a minor implementation detail.</blockquote>

<p>Not odd. Partly inadvertent, and partly that I didn't understand your point. Sorry.</p>

 

<blockquote>What is the value of an image for posting on Facebook? I would suspect that it's under $1 assuming that someone paid for the sitting etc. Unless it's a lot more, like a hundred times as much, why would it cause someone to completely ignore business value and focus on some sort of false pride issue?</blockquote>

<p>I don't want to attribute bad or foolish motives to someone would doesn't want to lose control of their images. </p>

<p>If I could get away with it, at least a part of me would like to refuse to let clients have access to digital images. Back in the old days, photographers didn't (generally) give their negatives to clients. I too would just like to make big money selling prints. Anybody who can do this (and there are those who can and do) has my respect. On the other hand, there's another part of me that—perhaps out of vanity, or perhaps out a sense that it would be good marketing—would like to see my photos splashed all over the Internet. </p>

<p>In any case, the simple fact is, I WANT to share my photos online. I know that my clients want this, and I want to make my clients happy. I am also aware that, for most photographers in my position, it's a digital world. Potential clients who can't see my photos online are not likely to think about hiring me. </p>

<p>All I want to do now is control the distribution of my digital image files insofar as (a) possible and (b) practical. I think it's frankly crazy NOT to have some concern about this. Here on photo.net we've seen lately how some excellent photographers have had their work stolen, and I think we've all heard many such stories. And of course we know that our clients don't pay too much attention to our licensing agreements, not because our clients are thieves, but simply because our clients don't think about these matters the way we do. And it's nearly hopeless to try to educate clients. </p>

<p>*</p>

<p>Here are the strategies I can think of.</p>

<p>For starters, you certainly don't want to allow users to access high-res images online. So you simply don't upload high-res images at all. Or you restrict your web site's display of images to some low-to-medium res version. I think most photographers do this.</p>

<p>You can also watermark your images. Now I don't think how you do this is a trivial detail. You can use a semitransparent watermark that sits across the middle of your photos. Hard to remove, and if you do it right, not too distracting, doesn't wreck viewing of the images. That's what I do in my online proofing and ordering galleries as a means of discouraging folks from taking screen captures. They can look for free; but I hope they will click the Print button occasionally, too.</p>

<p>There are other things you can do that don't make much sense to me. You could take the low-res idea to an extreme and post nothing online but thumbnails. That's possible, but not practical. </p>

<p>If I COULD control posting of images on Facebook, I could make sure that images posted online are properly downsized, correctly cropped, and correctly credited.</p>

<p>So my questions are: first, is this possible? and second, is this practical (in other words, is it a good idea)? So far nobody has addressed the possibility question, so I'm not quite ready to jump to whether it's practical or not.</p>

<p>Will</p>

<blockquote>

<p>All I want to do now is control the distribution of my digital image files insofar as (a) possible and (b) practical.</p>

</blockquote>

<p>I think you're missing that we're in the 21st century. It's all about sharing images. I haven't been asked for a print in over four years, and I shoot regularly. I did one this week of a martial artist, it's for a Powerpoint presentation. I delivered a set of digital files, no watermark. Maybe they will end up somewhere else, but that's where a lot of the market is now. Well over 90% of photos made now are displayed digitally.</p>

 

<blockquote>

<p>Here on photo.net we've seen lately how some excellent photographers have had their work stolen,</p>

</blockquote>

<p>What we've seen on photo.net is mostly photos being taken and claimed as the work of others. That has nothing to do with giving clients digital files.</p>

<p>Here's a 21st century fact - news agencies sell photos to clients in large resolution without watermarks, those get posted online, then they get picked up by people on the web and re-posted everywhere. If the agencies have to live with, the photographers do also. It's not 1929, photographer have to change with the times.</p>

<p> </p>

<p>I use my Facebook fanpage all the time and get a lot of business from it. I post my cleints pictures and tag them in every image. I find, especially in my market - Utah is a very do-it-yourself culture - I would be introuble if I did not provide clients the digital files...just make sure you are getting paid what you think you deserve.</p>

<p>Melissa: Do you post the photos on YOUR fan page? Or do you give them to your client and let THEM post them? Do you watermark the images? </p>

<p>Thanks,</p>

<p>Will</p>

<p>Melissa,</p>

<p>Visited your nice Facebook page and saw a couple of galleries with client photos. Lovely photos.</p>

<p>Couple further questions, if I may.</p>

<p>Do you keep these galleries up there indefinitely? Right now you have only a handful of galleries. Do you cycle them regularly?</p>

<p>Have you given these images to your clients, in addition to posting them online? </p>

<p>Nobody can make a print from Facebook, at least not as far as I can tell. Do you have these photos posted somewhere else as well, so your clients can order prints? Or do you not sell prints online? </p>

<p>Will</p>

<p>William, I also use a facebook fanpage. It is not at the level I wish it were yet, but it is a GREAT tool for getting your photos in front of the eyes of a lot of people.<br>

<br />Here's what you do: create page & give it galleries and YOU post the images. Make sure your clients are fans before you get those photos posted. Post the image, and TAG TAG TAG TAG. Every time you tag a client, THEIR friends will get a notice that a photo w/ the client in it has been posted. This allows your clients to show off pics of them online, and you don't have to worry about handing over digital files.</p>

<p>Now, I am personally using facebook galleries as a small sample online. Right now, 5 images per client, say.<br>

Every image is kept online at SmugMug for proofing and ordering. On facebook, the samples (will soon be) captioned with "see ALL of Jane & Jon Doe's portraits at..." and the full link to smug mug.<br>

I can't help it, I LOVE seeing clients "take" the photo from the Facebook gallery, and make it their profile pic.</p>

<p>Hhmmm...truth be told, I started reading this thread hoping it was dealing with the "Facebook retains ALL images posted, even if the user deletes them later" issue... but since quite a few people seem to actually use FB for uploading client images, HOW do you guys handle this issue? I mean, ALL the images you've uploaded remain within FB forever and can be retrieved without a single problem, even after you remove them - say at the behest of the client. Simply google the question and you'll see a number of posts on how to do it...</p>

<p>Also, though I haven't been able to follow it sufficiently, I know not too long ago Facebook had a specific clause in their Terms and Conditions clearly stating that they retain the right to use any photos uploaded for their own purposes (sorry if I got the wording wrong - the message was clear however!) How do you deal with this?</p>

<i>hoping it was dealing with the "Facebook retains ALL images posted, even if the user deletes them later" issue</i><P>

That's <b>not</b> an issue because those are <b>not</B> Facebook's terms of use. Copied from their terms:<P>

<i>2. Sharing Your Content and Information<P>

 

You own all of the content and information you post on Facebook, and you can control how it is shared through your privacy and application settings. In addition:<P>

 

1. For content that is covered by intellectual property rights, like photos and videos ("IP content"), you specifically give us the following permission, subject to your privacy and application settings: you grant us a non-exclusive, transferable, sub-licensable, royalty-free, worldwide license to use any IP content that you post on or in connection with Facebook ("IP License"). This IP License ends when you delete your IP content or your account unless your content has been shared with others, and they have not deleted it.<br>

2. When you delete IP content, it is deleted in a manner similar to emptying the recycle bin on a computer. However, you understand that removed content may persist in backup copies for a reasonable period of time (but will not be available to others).</i><br><P>

Note that this is not secret, hidden information. I clicked one link (Terms) on the homepage for Facebook (wasn't even logged in), and this information was on the top half of the first screen of their terms. Took about five seconds to find.

<p>@ Maria M.: Thank you for that excellent suggestion and for the details that I needed. Your reply is pretty much the answer I was looking for. </p>

<p>Do you leave stuff up on Facebook for a long time, or do you frequently or regularly (say, every month or two) replace older content with newer, fresher photos? It seems to me that replacing stuff could cause problems. If somebody is using your photo of them as their profile photo, and you delete it, wouldn't that cause them a problem? And I'm not aware of a way in Facebook to tell that somebody has linked to one of my photos as their profile.</p>

<p>Will</p>

<p>William,</p>

<p>I think the key is to post photos on facebook before you hand over digital files to clients. That way, your photos are up and spread virally before your clients can post anything without crediting you. (I've noticed that this is not intentional. They don't mean to slight us usually by not giving credit... it just never crosses their mind. They're happy to have their pics and want to share them.) What I do... (or have recently started doing anyway, and need to get better at doing more consistently) ...is post some of the glory shots from a wedding, mostly of the couple, up on a facebook page. As Melissa said, tag the clients in them, and all of a sudden, all of their friends can see those photos, and see where they came from. I've done this a couple of times, to try it out, and every time I've done it, I've gotten a wonderful response from both clients, and their facebook friends.</p>

<p>Also, since you are a zenfolio user, zenfolio lets people post photos from their gallery right up onto facebook. What's nice about this is that when they do that, a link to your zenfolio site goes with those photos. So effectively, the client posted a few of their favorites, and there's a link to your zenfolio page for people to see (and buy if they so choose) prints of them.</p>

<p>And yes, the plan is to leave those photos there indefinitely, unless facebook limits the number of photos. For what it's worth, I don't know that they do.</p>

<p>Vlad, </p>

<p>Thanks for your follow-up to Maria's answer with the excellent tips, which I will definitely make use of. Thanks also for mentioning that zenfolio plays nicely with Facebook. I will check that out, too.</p>

<p>Will</p>

<p>Will, I haven't had the FB page up that long, so I don't have large, unmanageable galleries yet. My hubby & I prefer small galleries, showing only our very best. Smugmug can be used to show an entire wedding, and 2nd favorites.<br>

I will, likely, pull images out when they get to be a year old, or my sample galleries get so big, it takes 15 min to flip through. Meanwhile, I have the galleries set so that the newest are always at the front, never the back.</p>

<p>As for knowing my photo has been used for a profile pic.... Well, my most recent bride (& the first for full facebook tagging) was our favorite babysitter. Therefore, i spotted it pretty quick as we are friends :) I received a notice on a pic she used from my personal page, but I don't know if I got a notice on the one she pulled from our fan page, I just may not have noticed. <br>

(The only reason she had a pic sitting on my personal page is because it was funny, I wanted it up so her hubby's unit-mates would see it, but it certainly isn't one I would normally show off.)</p>

<p>For my work(which is still budding, by the way) I post a 5 picture preview from any wedding or portraiture session I perfrom on Facebook, with the photos tagged. These photos are selected to be edited and posted the first night after the session, and are indicators of a small sampling of the final product to be delivered to the client. <br>

When the client gets the prints and CD, they're free to do what they want, but I also charge for time and services; not prints(aside from the basics that they order in the package). In my contract, I retain photographic rights for self-promotion and display, and printing/license rights go to the client. <br>

Think of it this way: Napster revolutionized the way that music was distributed to the people that loved music, but stopped the record labels in their tracks because the RIAA tried to control it instead of embrace it. If record labels moved quickly to embrace peer music sharing like Apple did, they would have been much better off. Instead, they fine 15 year old kids more money and legal fees than convicted murderers. Seriously, go look up the numbers. Consequently, if you try to control your images online, you're going to find it more trouble than what it's worth, when you should instead be embracing the networking power of Facebook and the like.</p>

<p>Vlad Khavin wrote: </p>

<p> </p>

<blockquote>

<p>Also, since you are a zenfolio user, zenfolio lets people post photos from their gallery right up onto facebook. What's nice about this is that when they do that, a link to your zenfolio site goes with those photos. So effectively, the client posted a few of their favorites, and there's a link to your zenfolio page for people to see (and buy if they so choose) prints of them.</p>

</blockquote>

<p>Vlad,</p>

<p>I checked this out. Actually there seem to be a couple different ways to connect Zenfolio with Facebook. From Zenfolio, there's a button I can use to create a post on Facebook that links to a Zenfolio gallery. Same as if I went to Facebook, clicked into "What's on your mind" field, wrote "Here are some photos" and added a link. The other method is to use the Zenfolio Export to Facebook command, which I assume is what you were thinking of.</p>

<p><br />But I've run into a small snag. This affects only the possibility of linking Zenfolio and Facebook (so anybody who doesn't use Zenfolio and who is lurking in this thread can stop reading, because this doesn't matter to you).</p>

<p>On Facebook, I have my personal account, where I share my daily doings, favorite recipes and youtube video's, etc., with selected family and friends. In other words, my private account. This is also where I share personal photos of our latest family picnic or trip to the zoo, photos I do NOT want to share with the world at large.</p>

<p>In addition, there is the Facebook page for William Porter Photography (WPP). The latter is open to anybody. And this is where I put photos for clients and prospective clients to see. As far as I can tell, the WPP page isn't a separate account; it's a child of my personal account. </p>

<p>Now, if I access Facebook directly, the WPP page will let me upload photos into their own galleries, and these photos will be visible on my public WPP page. But when I export from Zenfolio, photos get uploaded not in my WPP page's galleries, but in the galleries for my private/personal William Porter account. Which isn't what I want. Do you know of a way to get around this?</p>

<p>I looked for help at Zenfolio but so far have not found info that addresses this issue. If nobody here knows the answer off the top of their head, I'll post this as a question in the Zenfolio forums. </p>

<p>Thanks,</p>

<p>Will </p>

 

<p>I wasn't up on the "facebook" thing until the last few months. We've had to retroactively add people using a different method than what I'm about to explain, but our working system is this:</p>

<p>We have a business page on facebook. A client comes in and we advise them to make us their friend on facebook. After they place their order, <strong>we </strong>post 1 image from which they've ordered onto <strong>our</strong> facebook page. The image is cropped appropriately with the long edge being 600 pixels. We place a fairly prominent watermark in the corner.* Once we post it, we "tag" the person in the photo (and the parent if they've requested it). Once you tag someone, it shows up on their wall (their main profile page) as a thumbnail. If someone clicks it to see it bigger, it shows the full size version that resides in <strong>your </strong>album on <strong>your</strong> facebook account. This is how it can draw business back to your site. One thing to remember- once its posted, its out there. It is too easy to save it in different ways that breaks the link back to your portfolio. The way I look at it, I would rather have my watermarked image out there even if it doesn't link back than to have a crappy scan floating around and them telling people where it was made.</p>

<p>*We do a lot of volume, so to keep the process streamlined, we inform people that it will be posted about the time their order is ready. When I'm in the persons folder retouching, I simply save the retouched image from which to order their print, then crop (which is saved as a fb preset), run an action that converts the profile to sRGB and adds our watermark, stops to allow me to move it around, then continues to flatten it and save as a 80 jpg. I simply put it in their "to order" file, labeled as "filename-fb.jpg" then upload it and tag it. </p><div></div>

<p>I've done a little "research" both at Zenfolio and at Facebook. An engineer from Zenfolio seems to provide the answer to my problem: Facebook's API doesn't permit external apps like Zenfolio to load photos into a business fan page, only into a personal page. I've posted a question in the Facebook help forums seeking confirmation of this but that appears to be the case. </p>

<p>This just means that, when I want to put some photos in a gallery associated with my business fan page, I have to do it "manually". </p>

<p>Will</p>

<p>Jen, thanks for the details about how you do it. Nice photo, too.</p>

<p>*</p>

<p>I'm doing a big portrait gig this weekend (Mothers Day weekend!) at the Dallas Arboretum. Done this for them for the last several years. Lots of work but lots of fun, too. I'm wondering how I could get Facebook involved here, in a way that would benefit me and my clients.</p>

<p>I have my little field studio set up at the Arboretum. Clients come up, pay for the sitting, and fill out a form with their contact info, and I take a photo of THAT before I start the actual session. In the past, this form has mainly asked for name and email (plus phone as a backup, if email doesn't work). I'm thinking, perhaps this year I'll ask if they are on Facebook. Does knowing that help me? Or should I instead send them away with a slip of paper that instructs them to find my photography page on FB and click the Like button? </p>

<p>Will</p>

<p>If you ask them if they are on facebook, you are going to have to search for them one by one, decide if it is actually the right person, add them, wait for them to respond, then you'll be able to tag them. </p>

<p>If you have them find you, they will add you, you will have to accept them, then you can simply browse your friends or fan list and tag them in their pictures. </p>

<p>We use the second way simply because we don't have time to search for hundreds of seniors. </p>

<p>Feel free to email me if you have any questions.</p>

<p>Jen</p>

<p>I would also STRONGLY suggest that you STRONGLY encourage them to <strong>find you</strong> on facebook & fan you, so they'll see a small sample of their photo pop up when they're ready.</p>