Blocking The Print Feature On Facebook To Protect Your Photos

Do you know how easy it is for your friends in Facebook to print out your photographs at a local big box store such as Walmart or Target?

In Facebook, one of the best ways to grow is to take your photos, put them into a new album on your page, then tag them with your clients name. They will now feed into their news streams as well, and can potentially bring you in business down the road. Friends flock together and have similar tastes and requirements, so it’s a perfect way of marketing. But you have to keep three things in mind.

1. Be properly compensated BEFORE you release them on Facebook

2. Keep your image size small – a 300 pixel, 72 DPI print isn’t going to print well no matter where your client takes it.

3. Understand your rights to your images greatly diminish when you release them to any online social site.

And now once again, Facebook is making things a little easier for the average member, and a little more difficult for the photographer.

If you’ve tagged a client in a photograph, your client now has access to printing that photo at any of the big box locations – Walmart, Target, Walgreens, Shutterfly. With just a couple of clicks, they can see their albums and any of their friends albums in the application, select an image and hit print. It will be ready and delivered to them in no time. Unless you opt out of this feature.

Tagging is good for showcasing, but gives them access to your photos through the Facebook print feature at many labs, including Walmart, Walgreens, etc.

• Walmart
• Target
• Walgreens
• Shutterfly

Visit these pages, and under the application click the Block Application button. You will then opt out of this application, which means your clients will not see your name if they try to use this application.

Did we miss any? Any other photo apps out there that we need to block as photographers?