In our system there are a couple of different ways to allow your site visitors to download individual images for free. The first way is through user-specific permissions added to the gallery settings, and the second way is through a more general download setting associated with the individual categories within your galleries.
Restricted Downloads (Permission-based Downloads)
Within each gallery is a preference labeled "Permission to Download Individual Images."
Any email address that you provide in this area will be given permission to download the number of images that you define for them here. Your clients can download the same image as many times as they wish, it will only count as one towards the download limit.
There are a couple of settings that go along with permission:
- Restrict Downloads to Specific Categories - When this box is checked, the site visitor will only be able to download images from the categories that are specifically setup as being downloadable. More information about the category permissions will be provided in the "Open to Everyone" description found below.
- Download Limit - If your client is only allowed a certain number of free downloads you can use this option to control that. Leave this at No Download Limit if they have no restrictions on how many free images they can download.
- Apply Watermark - When this box is checked, your watermark will be applied to the downloaded images according to your predefined watermark settings.
Please Note: Because this setting allows your visitors to download the original, full-resolution image files, be sure to upload a large image as your watermark file before enabling this option. You can upload your watermark file through the Marketing » Logo & Branding page.
You can provide as many different email addresses as you would like in this area, and each email address can be given its own download limit and watermark setting.
Open to Everyone
Downloads can also be enabled for all of your site visitors, through category-specific settings.
To access the categories associated with a gallery, do the following:
- Navigate to the Photos » Galleries page.
- Find your gallery and click on the Photos option for the gallery.
- Select the Manage Categories option in the Photos droplist.
Once you're viewing the list of categories within the gallery, click the setup icon for your category, and select the Settings option.
Within the settings for each category there's an Allow Downloads option, which can be set to either:
- No - The images in this category cannot be downloaded as free individual image downloads.
- Yes (No Watermark) - The images in this category can be downloaded as free individual image downloads, with no watermarks applied to them.
- Yes (With Watermark) - The images in this category can be downloaded as free individual image downloads, but your watermark will be applied to the downloaded images according to your predefined watermark settings. Please note: Because this setting allows your visitors to download the original, full-resolution image files, be sure to upload a large image as your watermark file before enabling this option. You can upload your watermark file through the Marketing » Logo & Branding page.
When the download setting is enabled, all of your gallery visitors will be able to download the individual images from within the category, for free. ❶
❶ Some Important Notes
If one or more email addresses have been given download permissions through the permission-based download settings described above, the following changes come into effect:
- Only the defined users will be able to download the individual images. No other gallery visitors will be given the option to download the individual images for free.
- The settings provided in the gallery settings will override the category settings. For example, if the "Restrict Downloads to Specific Categories" setting is left unchecked, images from all of the categories will be downloadable regardless of what the "Allow Downloads" category setting is set to.
How Your Clients See It
Any of your clients that have permission to download the individual images for free will see a Download icon on their images when they are hovered over. Clicking the icon will cause the image to be downloaded to their device.
Viewing the Downloaded Images Log
Every time an image is downloaded from one of your galleries, the download is logged. To view the download log for any of your galleries, do the following:
- From the main menu, click Photos » Photo Galleries.
- Locate the gallery that you're interested in viewing the download log details for.
- Expand the Visitors menu, and select the View Visitor Stats option.
- Scroll down the page a little bit until you see the Image Downloads table. If there are any numbers displayed within the Image Downloads table, clicking on the numbers will show you exactly what was downloaded, and when it was downloaded.