Server picture management system with password protected directories?

Question

In a nutshell here is what I am doing.

1. A business will be taking 100's of photos in high resolution to sell at an event.

2. These pictures are for sale for each individual person to purchase their set of photos .

3. I want to upload these images onto the server (maybe via FTP?), and arrange them into directories (by their user number given for the event).

4. Then, give the users a unique username/password to access their set of photos.

My question is, what is the best, quickest, and easiest way of doing something like this? Maybe there is software I can install on the server, or other means of doing things.

So I am looking for easy uploads and some kind of password protection (so users do not share access), and easy access for customers to log into the server and download or hotlink their photos.

Thanks.

Answer 1

My feeling is that the best and easiest way is not to have to reinvent the wheel. I'm not a huge fan of outsourcing but in this case it would make sense. A site like PBase (www.pbase.com) or SmugMug already offer these features. IMHO PBase is probably the best for the task that you describe. Each customer can have a gallery, and you can apply passwords to each gallery so that each person can access only their own. You can have further sub-galleries which can relate to different shoots per customer, and the root password can apply to the sub-galleries.

2 or 3 years ago I may not have recommended PBase since it had some reliability issues but the owners seem to have gotten their act together in a huge way and it's viable enough for this kind of business activity. The biggest downside is that unlike SmugMug you can't have your own domain name directing to PBase galleries the way you can with SmugMug, but there's nothing to stop you from linking from your own site into the gallery that you've set up for the customer on PBase. The PBase display is customisable via CSS so you can reformat it to fit the style of your own site. The cost is only $23 / 1000 meg (storage) per month which is fairly reasonable for what you get; it saves you the problem of having to design hosting and security within your own web site.

PBase and SmugMug aren't the only two options (though I do suggest staying away from Flickr; Flickr's main interest is in applying its pink and blue branding to your photos, PBase and SmugMug are run by enthusiasts who design their sites to show off your photos to their best advantage) and you could certainly search for some other sites which may work for you; the two that I've mentioned are ones that I have personal knowledge of.

You asked for the best and quickest, not the cheapest... and the best and quickest is to use the services of someone who has already done this for you.