How to Lock and Protect Original High-Res Photos
The Client Review Pain Point: Screenshotting Low-Res Grids
Every professional photographer has faced this: you upload a wedding gallery for client selection, and instead of choosing their favorites or paying the final invoice, they take screenshots of the low-resolution grids, share them on Instagram, and ghost you. Worse, sending open Google Drive or S3 links allows clients to download high-res unedited originals before making their final payment.
Albumya solves this by separating and securing your media assets into a multi-tiered system. Your original high-resolution photos are completely locked from public client links, while clients view fast-loading watermarked thumbnails and web-optimized large images for full-screen slide views.
How the Security System Works
Upload Your Original Images
Open any folder in your client workspace and drag-and-drop original JPEGs or PNGs. The system securely saves the original file to a protected S3 directory that is locked against direct client URLs.
Automated Thumbnail & Watermark Generation
During upload, Albumya automatically builds a compressed web-optimized thumbnail (under /thumb/ prefix) and overlays your custom watermark text. These thumbnails are used to display the photo grid card.
Optimized Full-Screen Lightbox View
When a client clicks a photo to preview, the system streams a medium/large size version (under /large/ prefix) containing a translucent watermark. The client is prevented from accessing the high-res unwatermarked original.
Unlocking and Downloading High-Res ZIPs
When the invoice is cleared, right-click the folder and click 'Download Folder' (or 'Download Selected Photos' if they are starry selected). The background queue worker streams the originals from S3, packs them into a ZIP, and delivers a secure download URL to your notification bar.
The client workspace page never makes API requests or renders image sources directly pointing to the original S3 key. The client view is entirely locked into `/thumb/` and `/large/` directories, preventing browser inspectors from extracting your master high-resolution assets.