You have full control. As the owner of the categories, albums and photographs, you have full control over who can view them.

Your photos can be found by search or browsed through on other public pages such as the BlueMelon's most popular or recent sections. Photos and albums with a privacy mode other than public do not show up in public Search or in the public pages. Any visitor to our site can see your album or photos by either searching for the right title or description, or by scanning the "Recent Photos" and "Popular Photos" sections in the right time. This is only true for albums or photos with public access.

Photos have at least the album's privacy settings. You can specify who can access each individual photograph or you can apply privacy settings to an entire album. When applying a privacy setting to an album, the privacy is set for the photos in it as well unless you explicitly restrict the privacy mode even more for a single photo or a set of them.

Set everything up quickly with privacy inheritance. You can set the account privacy mode by going to "Settings" >> "Control Panel" >> "Access Control". By default, this privacy mode is inherited to categories, and from categories to albums. If you wish to set other than the account privacy mode to an album or category (and let the other privacy mode be inherited from there), you can do so by going to "Tools" >> "Album / Category Settings" >> "Access Control".

The Public privacy mode is the default privacy mode. Any visitor can view photos, albums or categories designated as "Public". A privacy setting of an album is implicitly shared by the photos contained inside. For example, if you create a public album, all the photos in this album will have a privacy setting of "Public" as well.

The Private privacy mode means that only you can view these items. Only you, as the owner, can view the photographs, albums or categories designated as private. You have to login to our site for the system to recognize you and show you your private photos or your private albums. No one else can see them unless you explicitly send them an e-mail invitation.

The Unlisted privacy mode means that your items will not be listed but can be accessed by those who know the URL. Unlisted albums, categories or photos will not be shown to the visitors who browse your account. However, anyone knowing the item's URL can see the content as if it were public.

The Password Protected privacy mode can be applied only to albums or categories. As the name suggests, it creates a lock on your chosen album or category thus preventing others' access to it. Your visitors are able to see the name of the album or category, but they cannot access the content.

Where do they enter the password? When someone tries to reach your locked photos, they can recognize such an album by the “Password protected” label. Any visitor who knows or guesses the password can view items locked by that password. While you are logged in, you are not required to enter passwords for your own albums.

How do I set the password? You can change the password in the album settings or category settings at any time. If you forget the password you set, you can see it there while you are logged on.

I want just some people to view my photos: do I make the album 'unlisted' or 'password protected'?
That depends solely on how you want them to access it: when using the "unlisted" access mode, you need to provide everyone who you want to access the photos with the link to the unlisted album - whoever should obtain the link will be able to view the album ; when using the "password protected" access mode, you need to give them just the link to the album or your homepage and the album password. Either way you decide who gets the link in the former case and the password in the latter.

I can access my password protected albums without being asked for the password
You are logged into your account and BlueMelon never asks the album owner for the passwords, whence you have full access to your albums and photos. If you want to see your albums as a visitor, you need to log out or use the "Visitor View" available at the top of every category or ablum page.