Frequently Asked Questions
From Doc
Below are the answers to the questions we’re asked most frequently by our customers. If you do not see your question listed here, you can search the help pages by typing keywords into the box at left or contact any one of our Support Wizards at support@phanfare.com.
Q: How much does Phanfare cost?
A: Phanfare has a free 14-day trial. At any time during the trial period, you can upgrade your account to our premium membership for $49.95 a year or our pro service for $99.99 a year.
Q: What file types and file sizes do you accept?
A: Phanfare currently supports the following image formats up to 20 MB in size:
jpg , gif, psd (single layer 8 bit/channel), tiff , bmp, or png . In addition, PRO subscribers have the option to purchase RAW storage blocks if they wish to upload RAW image files. For videos, we currently support the following formats: avi, mpg, mov, wmv, .mp4 or .m4v. For premium customers, individual videos must be less than 10 minutes in duration and under 2 GB in size. For pro customers, videos must be less than 20 minutes in duration and 2 GB in size. If you don’t see your file format listed, please see accepted file type and sizes for more information.
Q: I understand that I get my own URL at yourusername.phanfare.com when I sign up for Phanfare, but I already have my own domain name. Can I use it with Phanfare?
A: Phanfare pro customers can set up a CNAME in their domain and point it to their Phanfare site. Alternatively, any customer can set up a straight redirect from their domain to a Phanfare site URL. You can not frame a Phanfare page so you should not set up any type of masked forwarding or your album pages will not display properly.
Q: Do viewers have to register to see my albums?
A: No. When you sign up for Phanfare you get a Phanfare URL at [yourusername.phanfare.com]. You can share by simply communicating this URL to others. You can opt to put a site password on the site that visitors to your URL would have to enter to view your albums. No registration required.
Q: Is there a way to share a single album with just one person, showing them nothing else?
A: Yes. Phanfare supports external links to albums that hide the rest of your Phanfare site from the recipient. You can use Phanfare’s email tools to send an invitation to an album via an external link, or you can get the external link from Phanfare’s tools and email it using your own email software. . The person receiving this URL cannot navigate to your other shared albums from the link. Note that an album can be published to your site or private and either way, you can get an external link to the album allowing a viewer to see just that one album.
Q: I love my Phanfare slideshow. Can I burn it to a DVD that will play in a DVD player attached to a TV set?
A: No. Downloaded Phanfare slideshows are executable files that run on a Mac or PC to display your show. DVDs that play in players attached to DVDs are authored differently and the content is a video, not an executable. You can download a Phanfare slideshow to your computer and burn it to a CD or DVD, but it will only play on a computer and the resulting disk will be a data disk. The Phanfare slideshow is not a video. It remains on our feature request list and may be something we consider as a future merchandise offering.
Q: If I place an order today for prints, cards and/or a book, when will I receive it?
A: Processing time varies by type of merchandise as. See our processing time help page to determine when you should receive your order. If you do not receive an item within the guidelines listed there, please contact support with your email address, the order number and information, and we will make it right.
Q: I see you offer prints, books, and cards? Do you plan to add other items like calendars?
A: Yes, we do expect to expand our merchandise offerings in the future.
Q: Once I upload my videos, do I need to do something to get them to convert to Flash for easy viewing?
A: No. Phanfare automatically converts your video clips into multiple Flash and H.264 renditions. Once converted, we will serve your viewers the appropriate rendition based on our auto-detection of their bandwidth speed and Flash Player version for smooth viewing. The rendering will usually only take a few minutes, but it can take several minutes to an hour depending on queue volume and will be longer if you're uploading many clips at one time. If it has been more than 5 hours and you have a clip that hasn’t converted, please check to make sure it fits within our accepted file types and sizes and if so, contact support with the URL for the album, and we will try to determine the cause of the problem.
Q: Can I tag photos within Phanfare or import my tags from another program?
A: Phanfare has not yet implemented tagging, but it is on our short-term development radar. Currently, you cannot import tags from other programs. However, we do have search capabilities so if you include the keywords in your image filenames, captions or album descriptions, you can search your site to find images or albums matching those keywords.
Q: Is there a way for someone to add pictures directly into my account? Can I transfer an album from someone else’s Phanfare account to mine?
A: You can set up a mobile email address within Phanfare that you can give to others so they can email images directly into a special album in your account. You can then move or copy those images to other albums if needed. There is no way to transfer an album from one Phanfare account to another. You will need to download the contents of the album and then upload them directly to your Phanfare account.
Q: Can I embed images or videos posted on Phanfare in my own site? Can I embed an album slideshow or actual album?
A. You can get the URLs you need from within Phanfare to embed images or videos from your Phanfare albums in other sites. There is no way to embed a slideshow. We do have RSS feeds so if you have downloaded a widget online that you can embed in your site and will display images from an RSS feed, it should work. If you find a widget that works for you, please let support know so we might be able to recommend to others. If you are a developer, you can write your own widgets based on the Phanfare API.
Q: If I don’t want anyone to download my images or be able to order prints, can I turn these features off within Phanfare?
A. You can decide on a per-album basis if you want visitors to be able to download your original high-resolution images or order prints through Phanfare. Viewers may still be able to save the low resolution version we are displaying or use a screen capture to grab your image. Therefore, if you are truly worried about safeguarding your images, we recommend you watermark the images prior to upload. Phanfare does not currently offer a watermarking feature.
Q: Is there a way for me to sell my own prints through Phanfare?
A. No. Currently prints & gifts can only be ordered through Phanfare. Some photographers opt to remove the order prints link entirely, autocaption their images by filename, and simply put contact information in each album description detailing how to contact them to place an order.
Q: Is there a way to transfer my images to a different printing vendor?
A. If you are looking just to print your images through a company other than Phanfare, you will need to download the images from Phanfare and then upload them to the vendor of your choice. We hope you will consider trying Phanfare’s integrated printing option as we offer high quality merchandise. Viewers can download your images (as long as you have left this option on) by clicking download image from the right side menu on the album page.
Q: I am trying to change the email address on my account but it says that there is already an account under that email? How do I merge the accounts together?
A. If the account under the email address you want to use has any albums, you will need to login to that account and download them. There is no way to merge any albums or contacts from multiple accounts. Once done, you can contact support and ask us to remove the account under the email address you want to add to the other account. Once complete, you can login to your account, go to settings and change the email on your existing account to the appropriate address.
Q: I am getting an error message when I try to use one of the Phanfare desktop clients? What should I do?
A. First, check out our Troubleshooting page to see if any of those suggestions fix your problem. If not, contact support with your account information, computer type, operating system (such as Vista, XP, Mac Tiger, etc.), and the exact error message, and we’ll try to get the issue resolved as quickly as possible.
Q: Do you support album passwords?
A. No, Phanfare only supports password protecting your entire site. However, we have other options for allowing you to share certain albums with only a segment of your viewers. You can share an unpublished album via email invitation or by posting or sharing a special link to it. Only those who are invited or have access to the link would then be able to view it.
Alternatively, Phanfare Pro customers can use our subsites feature to publish one of more albums to it's own subsite. Subsites can be open or password protected.
Q: I see you have an iPhone application? Do you have a similar application for the Blackberry or other smartphones?
A. Currently, we only offer a standalone application for the iPhone and the iPod Touch. However, if you use your device's browser to go to www.phanfare.com, you'll be able to view your albums using our lightweight mobile web version. (navigate to http://m.phanfare.com. You can also use our Email Upload feature to email pictures from your phone directly into your Phanfare account as well. We continually evaluate trends in smartphones and may write dedicated application for other platforms in the future.
Q: I’ve been using Phanfare a while and I liked the feature where I invited people to be friends, family or members of a group and they received automatic notifications when I posted new albums. Can I still use Phanfare this way?
A. Yes, but we’ve changed the workflow slighty. You must go into album options once any album is created and specifically publish the album to friends, family and/or groups.
Q: I created an album but it doesn’t appear on my site URL? Why not?
A. The most likely reason is that the album has been created but not yet published. See publishing an album for more information. If the album says published but you still don’t see it, please contact support.
Q: Can I set Phanfare up to sync automatically with a folder on my computer so that if I add a photo to My Pictures it adds it automatically to Phanfare or if I modify a picture in that folder or program, it changes on Phanfare, too?
A. No. Phanfare does not autosync to any folder or program. You must choose which albums, images, and videos you want to add to Phanfare and use one of our many import options or plugins to add the photos to your account. If you add an image to Phanfare and then modify that image outside of Phanfare, you will need to re-add it to Phanfare if you want the modified version to be stored and displayed in your account.
Q: Can I use Phanfare or install Phanfare desktop clients on multiple computers?
A. Yes. You can use Phanfare or have Phanfare’s desktop clients or plugins installed on as many computers as you would like. You should avoid, however, being logged in AND actively uploading or making changes to the same account at the same time from multiple computers as this will likely cause errors.
Q: Once I pick a site URL, can I change it?
A. Yes. You can change your site URL at anytime. However, anyone who goes directly to your old URL to view your site will not be directed to your new URL. Embedded links will continue to work, however, even if you change your username.