Photo Privacy versus Album Privacy

I've been using a Gallery script called Piwigo with little success. It's templates are almost 100meg, plus it can crash and destroy itself and parts of the server.  However, it has a system similar to what I discussed.

Multiple uploads were fine, but after uploading you were immediately asked who could see what for each of the photos, even they were all in the same directory. Unlike Piwigo itself, the user system was fantastic.  It shipped with the following:
Basic User
Friends
Family
Admin

If you selected Family, it showed all the photos in the directory unless they were for admin's eyes only. I thought family was great, because there's stuff the family may want to see, but friends don't.

I think Admin is an improvement on "Me Only" because I don't encourage members to use my site as a place to hide their private photos.

I did discuss this with the previous moderator once and he said I could extend privacy levels because they were just numbers. Unfortunately it was something I wasn't able to maintain as the versions changed. This still only applied to albums of course.

I realise there's no such thing as a perfect world, but many of us Dolphin users will remember that the photo module was one module that was never updated. Many threatened to do so, but no one ever did. Deano has made a few changes which are fantastic, but the module still needs work. I've made suggestions in the past and maybe this is something additional that could be considered.

It would prevent multiple uploads or when doing multiple uploads then have it default to me only.  I like the idea of privacy on the album because it is simple; no need to specify privacy on each photo.  I see your point though.  Suppose I took a holiday to the seaside and during the holiday I visited a beach and posed in a rather skimpy bikini.  Those photos I want to share with a select few.  Of course I would just create a special album; "Seaside for Special Friends Only," set the privacy to "special friends" and put those photos in there.   You do have a valid point but I am not sure about setting privacy on individual photos.

This isn't  a suggestion at this stage. I'm presenting it for discussion first.

Cheetah allows you to create public albums and albums you can share with friends only.

Let's consider some instances where this doesn't work, or where it may not be the best solution.

1. Some members have so few photos, or they don't understand the album system, so they put them all in the same album. Maybe the album includes one or two photos in the set that the member will want to share with friends only. There should be some way to do this.
   
   
2. A person takes a series of photos during a trip. Some of the photos are a little private and they would like to restrict them to viewing by friends only. To make this possible under the current system, the person will have to slit the photos up and put some in the public album and others in a friends only album. That means two albums for the same trip - one public, one friends only.

If a person could nominate who saw what photos as they were being uploaded, they could keep all the photos together in the same album. When a visitor looked at the photos, they would see some some, or they would see the lot, depending on their privacy status.

This would reduce the number of albums needed and allow members to present their photos in a far more logical manner.

(I'm on a social site where this happens. When I upload the photo, I'm asked "Who should see this photo?" - Everyone or Friends Only?)

Your thoughts please.