Sharing photos with, for example, family and friends can be done via a range of cloud services. However, there are security risks involved. If you want to keep the reins in your own hands, take a look at the Photo Station app for your Synology NAS.
Managing and sharing photos can be a daunting task. It is in any case unwise to save all your photos on a computer or laptop. If something goes wrong with that (or the device is stolen on the way) you will lose all your photos in one go. A NAS is then a lot more practical, especially if you provide a mirrored RAID configuration in terms of disks. And preferably also use an external copy for regular backups. Synology NAS all run on an operating system (DSM) that displays a desktop environment in the browser. One of the optionally installable (and free) apps is Photo Station. If you then ensure that your complete photo collection is placed in the photo folder, your photos will be a lot more insightful from now on. And if desired, shareable with friends and family. You can create accounts for them. Make sure you are logged in as Admin on your NAS and start Photo Station (found in the start menu). In Photo Station, click Institutions to the left. On the newly opened page, click User Accounts and then Create user. The requested information speaks for itself. Choose a strong password, of course, especially if your NAS is also shared on the internet via port forwarding, for example. If you do not want a certain user to be able to publicly view photos and photo folders, make sure that the option Allow this user to publicly share photos and videos remains switched off. click on Save and the user is created.
More options
In the Settings window you will find many more nice options. Such as, for example, the (still experimental) facial recognition, which can be switched on under photos. If you want it, Foto Station also offers blogging options, you can activate it via blog in the menu on the left. If you want users to also upload their own photos and manage them on your NAS via Photo Station, click on the left General and toggle the option Enable Personal Photo Station servicen on. Only do this with people you trust 100% and possibly make agreements about how many photos will eventually be placed on your NAS. When you're done making settings, click on the left Back, after which you will see the user interface of the program again. In our example, albums already exist in it; click on an album to view the photos it contains. By the way, such an album is simply a subfolder of the photo folder! You can also create your own albums in Photo Station again. Or quickly share photos with others. Direct editing capabilities are also provided, but use is made of external cloud services. So watch out for that, privacy and all that. If you still want to use it, click on a photo to enlarge it. Below the photo you will find below Editor the available services. Furthermore, a download button is also available with an opened photo. Click on the cross at the top right to return to the photo folder. Nice is the link Slideshow at the top, this will start an automatic show of all photos present in an album. Your browser automatically switches to full screen view; You can escape again by pressing the Esc key. Last trick: Synology also has a free mobile app for use with Photo Station for both Android and iOS: DS photo.
