Users viewing your galleries can leave comments and rate your photos, which are only viewable by you. Logged in users can choose between thumbs up/down or a neutral rating.

Overview

PhotoShelter allows anyone who has a free account to leave comments and rate images within a gallery. Unlike consumer-based websites, in PhotoShelter, only photographers can view comments left by others.

This allow you to shoot a job on spec, for example, and allow editors to review your take and mark which images they like, and leave a corresponding comment and rating. There is no requirement to leave a comment on every or any image.

For example, when you send out a gallery invitation, the user has to login to view the images. At that point, they will see the image and caption information. Under the caption there is a link to leave a comment, and familiar thumbs up/down icons.

The user can click the link and type in a comment. On subsequent visits, they can update that comment. Only the user and the photographer can view the comment. It is not displayed to anyone else.

The gallery thumbnails indicate how many comments an image has.

You will see a list of comments by all users, or you can select a single user's comments while you move through the images in a gallery.

Thumbs up/down ratings

Instead of using ambiguous stars or color codes, we chose to use familiar thumbs up/down icons to clearly denote which images are keepers and rejects. Clicking on the icon will automatically set the rating. There is no need to press any submit buttons. The icon will light up with a green background when the preference is set.

Alternately, the user can choose the middle icon as a "neutral" rating.

How do I view comments and ratings?

When you click on a gallery in your "My Galleries" section, the thumbnail will indicate how many comments/ratings an image has. Click on the image, and then click the "comments/ratings" tab under the image to view what users have left for you.

When you are viewing the comments for a specific image, you will see a select list of all users that have commented on any image within the gallery. You can select a name to restrict comments to a specific user. This is an easy way to view comments from a single editor, for example, rather than an aggregate.

Is there a way to delete a comment?

No. Since no one but the photographer can see the comments, we decided against allowing deletion of comments.

Is there a way to leave a general comment about the entire gallery?

No, you can only leave a comment for individual images.