As photographers, we need a professional way to share photos with our clients after the shoot is done. We might also want to share photos with people other than our clients. For example, guests at a wedding or event, or participants for high volume photography (such as at a marathon or school event).
The best way to do this is by creating a link to share your photos. You can easily distribute the link or generate a QR code to display around the event venue, so that guests can scan the QR code to access the photos.
In this article, we’ll first walk through how to create a link to share photos using Google Photos, which is a popular service with a free plan. Then, we’ll talk about the limitations of that approach, and suggest a better alternative for photographers.
Start by creating an album in Google Photos.
Next, add a title to the album, and add your photos if they are ready.
In some cases, you would want to create your album before the event, so that you can share the link or QR code during the event. Just make sure to upload your photos to the correct album after the event.
Next, click on the share icon.
Finally, click on “Create link” and copy the link that is created.
That’s it, you can now share your photos with a link on Google Photos!
Limitations of Sharing Your Photos With Google Photos
While Google Photos is good for the basics, it has its limitations.
- There is no easy way to instantly upload your photos while you shoot. Hence, you can only upload your photos after the event, which is too slow. People are the most excited to receive their photos while the event or wedding is happening, not days or weeks after it’s over. By delivering your photos slowly, you miss the window of opportunity to generate excitement and interest in your business.
- It’s too much work for guests to find their own photos, because they have to scroll through the whole album to pick them out. It’s also too much work for photographers or clients to send only the right photos to each guest.
- Anyone with access to the album can see all of the photos, which can be a privacy concern. For many events, it’s not appropriate to publicly share all of the photos, and better privacy controls are needed.
- Google Photos lacks the option to control download sizes, and it doesn’t offer an automatic way to generate versions of your photos at different sizes. This feature adds convenience for your clients and guests, allowing them to download smaller versions suitable for sharing on messaging apps or social media.
An alternative to Google Photos is Honcho. It is built by photographers, for photographers—and addresses the limitations of Google Photos.
Sharing Your Photos With Honcho
With Honcho, you can easily create a link or QR code to share your photos. In addition, it addresses Google Photos’ limitations in the following ways:
- Honcho helps you share your photos instantly, during the event. This is done by uploading photos from camera to cloud (by tethering the camera to your phone), while you shoot.
- Honcho helps you share the right photos with the right people, with AI-powered face recognition. Your guests can easily find their own photos by uploading a selfie. Honcho then matches the right photos with the selfie and delivers them in a personal gallery for each guest.
- Honcho gives you privacy controls, to allow you to share your photos widely while safeguarding everyone’s privacy.
- Honcho automatically generates different photo sizes, so you can offer high resolution and lower resolution downloads for different purposes—such as sharing on social media.
The concept behind Honcho is simple but powerful.
It helps you deliver your photos instantly, during the shoot. This maximizes the impact of your photos because you’re sharing them when people are the most excited to receive them. And by allowing anyone to find their own photos with AI-powered face recognition, you share the right photos to the right people.
When you start using Honcho in your business, you will see the impact on your bottom line:
- You get to charge higher prices because you’re offering a value-added service.
- You stand out from the competition, making it easy for your clients to choose you instead of them.
- You generate loads of leads while you’re shooting your events, because guests are coming up to you to ask about your service.
For the rest of this article, we’ll show you how to use Honcho to create a link to share your photos, and more. You can also create a free account and start right away.
In addition, you can join our affiliate program and earn up to USD$88.50 for every new customer that you refer to us. That’s a generous commission!
Upload Photos Instantly, From Camera to Cloud
Honcho allows you to upload photos instantly as you take them, creating an online gallery that’s simple to share with clients and guests. By connecting your camera to your smartphone via the Honcho app (available on iOS and Android), the app automatically detects your camera and uploads each photo to the cloud as soon as it’s captured.
Once uploaded, your photos can be accessed from any device, whether it’s a phone or a laptop, using the mobile or web app. Honcho employs wired tethering for fast and reliable transfers, compatible with any standard data cable, enabling high-resolution images to upload in about five seconds.
You can also adjust the upload resolution, choosing between full-quality images or smaller, compressed versions at 640px on the longest side, with smaller files uploading almost instantly.
What makes Honcho stand out is its simplicity: no additional hardware is required. Unlike other tethering solutions, such as CamRanger, which often rely on extra equipment to maintain connection range, Honcho only needs your camera and phone. This setup offers virtually unlimited range, allowing you to move freely around the venue without worrying about losing connectivity.
With Honcho, you can share selected photos with a link, or allow guests to find their own photos in the online gallery with face recognition.
In the Honcho app, select the photos you want to share and tap on the Share icon. A link is automatically created, and opening the link will lead you to a gallery with just the selected photos.
You can share the link with your guests, or let them scan the QR code to view and download the photos.
Face Recognition
Share the link to the online gallery with the guests, where they can view all of the photos from the event. If privacy is a concern and you don’t want the guests to view all of the photos, we provide a solution in the next section.
Guests can tap on the Find Me button and upload a selfie. Honcho automatically finds just the person’s photos and creates a personalized gallery, by matching the photos to the selfie with face recognition.
This is especially convenient if you do not want to generate different links for each person. Just direct everyone to the online gallery, and they can easily find their own photos within seconds.
As previously mentioned, face recognition can simplify photo sharing by allowing guests to access an online gallery. All they need to do is upload a selfie to find their personal photos.
The downside? Everyone in the gallery can see all the photos, which may raise privacy concerns.
Honcho offers a clever solution to this problem: it blurs all the photos in the gallery. Only the photos found through face recognition are unblurred, ensuring that each guest can see only their own photos.
This approach lets you share the entire gallery while maintaining privacy—everyone gains access to just their own photos.
Automatically Generate Different Download Sizes
With Honcho, you can customize your download sizes, offering both high resolution and web size downloads. For each download size, you can set the resolution of the photos—for example, 3600px on the longest side for high resolution downloads. Honcho will automatically generate the different sizes for you.
This allows you to offer downloads for different purposes, which is convenient for your clients and guests. They might only require web size downloads for quick social media sharing, while the high resolution versions are useful as marketing assets.
Bonus: Play Live Slideshows to Engage the Audience
We believe photography should go beyond capturing moments at an event or wedding—it should create an engaging, immersive experience. Every feature we design is crafted to enhance your photography service, making it unforgettable and impactful.
A live slideshow is one of the best ways to deliver this immersive experience. Displaying photos on a large screen captivates the audience, sparks conversations, and elevates the event’s atmosphere.
It’s also a powerful way to showcase your work in real time. When someone in the crowd needs a photographer in the future, who do you think they will remember?
Honcho makes it simple to start a live slideshow. Just open the online gallery, click “More,” and select “Slideshow.” No additional software is needed.
You can manage the slideshow directly from the mobile app, or an assistant can moderate it from a laptop, viewing photos live without any manual transfers. Depending on your workflow, you can choose to publish new photos automatically or hold them until you’re ready to share.
Conclusion
If you’re looking for a basic way to create a link to share your photos, Google Photos is a good option. It’s free and gets the job done.
However, as photographers, we believe we should be going beyond the basics. The traditional method of sharing photos days or weeks after a wedding, event or high volume shoot misses crucial opportunities—to create excitement, enhance the experience, and grow your business. Sharing your photos instantly during the event delivers a much more powerful impact.
Honcho offers a powerful alternative to Google Photos, enabling you to do just that—and more. With features like face recognition, guests can easily find their own photos, while the live slideshow elevates the event experience.
Today, photography is about more than just capturing moments; it’s about creating memorable experiences. If we focus only on taking photos, we risk becoming irrelevant—especially as high-quality smartphone cameras are everywhere.
Now is the time to rethink how we can deliver memorable experiences through photography. By providing added value for clients, you not only grow your business but also stand out in the industry.
Sign up for a free Honcho account today and discover how it can transform your photography business.
In addition, you can join our affiliate program and earn up to USD$88.50 for every new customer that you refer to us. That’s a generous commission!
