If you offer film developing with scan-to-digital, photo scans, slide scans, or restoration jobs, you CAN (and should!) upload the finished work to a customer's account.
As of TODAY (May 15, 2018), here are 2 options:
- GOOD - "Just viewing" Method: Create an account on your regular PF site with a general email or use the photographer's upload for a PF proofing site, and upload the scans to albums on that, then share the album (go to Collection Settings > Privacy).
- Pro: No account lookup needed. If you needed to protect the images from download, you could turn on the watermark which would turn off the download button. Or, if you wanted them to be able to download, they could.
- Con: The album isn’t in an account and they always need the link to access it.
- BETTER - "Consumer owns the scans" Method: Even better – upload the scans right into the user’s account on your regular PF site. If they don’t have one, you create it for them. If they do have one, you can grab a temp password from myLab (go into the acct, click Generate One-Time Pass, that temp pass is good for a 1 hour window). Log in, then upload, just like consumers do. Tips: Standardize how you title the albums so they know what it is...their last name and the date...something to set it apart from personal uploads. They can always change it. Fill in the description too. Make sure to use Large upload so the biggest version is there for them to print with. You can even give them a special coupon code to encourage printing their new scans.
- Pro: The scans are part of the person’s account, and it’s easy for them to use to order from. And, anything to get members into your site is good. They can also download the images if they want.
- Con: You have collect the email beforehand (and ensure it's right), then look up (or create) the account. There is no way to prevent them from downloading the full res, since that watermark setting is one they would have access to turn on/off. You have to communicate with them by hand once it's done (there's not an email trigger for this).
Coming soon... (late summer 2018), we have this tool in the works:
- BEST - "Consumer owns the scans and it's EASIER for lab staff" Method / aka Pro Uploader Tool—This tool will basically allow you to do #2 above, but from a lab interface, not a consumer one…so a bit more privacy protection for the consumer, the account setup/lookup is less manual, upload will be done from a backend tool, not through consumer interface. There may be a notification component…not sure if this will be in the initial release.
- Don't want to miss this release? Let me know, I will email you directly when we release it. rachel@photofinale.com.