Photo sharing - with limits...

[kerensky]

Hi all, I have a question about photo sharing websites, not bead related, but personal photographs of my family that I would like to share with my relatives spread around the globe.

We had a special family event last Sept for our children,  and a lot of photos where taken by us and our friends, I would like to upload these to a photo sharing platform and share these with my friends and relatives for them to enjoy.

I am worried about privacy issues though, I really don't want these photos to be available for general consumption, I would like them to remain private amongst a small group of people that I give permission to. I would like to permit some people, access to download and print photos, but not all.

Can anyone point me in the right direction for a site that will allow me to do this.

Many thanks in advance

Kerensky.

[Dickie]

Flickr is your friend

You can either set users as friends or family, or if they are not already Flickr users, you can create special access URLs that allow "anyone" with the URL to see those pictures but otherwise they remain private to the world as a whole.
Another nice thing about that is that you can even turn off the special link if you no longer want people to have access, you can create and delete them as often as you like.

[Dickie]

Just remembered they are called Guest passes

http://www.flickr.com/help/sharing/#168

and

http://www.flickr.com/help/sharing/#2184

[Magpie]

Adding to Dickie's comment. You then need to add your family as family or they'll not be able to see them. So add them as a contact as you'd normally do, then it'll ask if you want to set them as family or friend as well. Click on whichever is appropriate.

[Trudi]

You can also use Picasa  (Run by Google) - and you can choose who to share the link with and can keep it private!

[Zeldazog]

I am sure you can have private albums in Photo-bucket too, although I can't remember exactly how it works.

[Dickie]

Adding to Dickie's comment. You then need to add your family as family or they'll not be able to see them. So add them as a contact as you'd normally do, then it'll ask if you want to set them as family or friend as well. Click on whichever is appropriate.

AFAIK Guest passes can be given to anyone, even people who don't have a Flickr account.

[kerensky]

Thanks very much everyone for the replies.

For some reason I thought that Flickr and Photoshop had a clause in their terms and conditions that allow general viewing of any photos uploaded to their site, if they choose to publish or use them.

I know that you can use apply permissions to files/ folders etc, but I am not sure that this gives you total privacy over your images, once you have agreed to use their portal.

Does anyone know if this is the case?

[Zeldazog]

Can't remember with Flickr, but with Photobucket, I am sure you have to give a password or something specific to access the album/image - and I know the set of images I uploaded three years or so ago *still* say private...

[Dickie]

As far as I know... private is PRIVATE,

I boomin' hope so as well.

[kerensky]

Did some trawling through the net last night, and it does look as though you can make and keep them private on both sites, though it is possible to bypass this with a hack, but hey, the images are not that interesting... so it should be ok.

Ta very much everyone.

[lyzzydee]

You can upload to photobox and share the link with whoever you like, its stays private to you and them