The reason runners come to Fotto is that they can find themselves in your galleries in seconds. Understanding how it works helps you shoot and upload in ways that sell.
Two ways buyers search
- Selfie. A runner uploads one selfie on the event page. Fotto compares it against the faces in the photos and surfaces the likely matches.
- Bib number. They type their bib number and Fotto finds photos where that bib was read. Near misses show up too, as "did you mean" style matches, so a bib the camera read as O1158 instead of 01158 still gets found.
Both run across every photographer's gallery for the event at once, so a buyer does not have to browse gallery by gallery. The same search is also on each gallery page, scoped to that gallery's photos.
The buyer always confirms
Face matching only ever suggests. Nothing is auto assigned to anyone. A buyer can add any suggested photo straight to the cart, one at a time. Confirming their matches does two extra things: it unlocks adding all confirmed photos to the cart in one go, and it sharpens the search. Each confirmed photo helps Fotto find more photos of the same face or bib, which the buyer then confirms too.
Note
This means clear, front-facing shots and readable bibs sell best. A face the camera can see and a bib that is not blurred or hidden give buyers more matches, and you more sales.
What happens to the selfie
Runners sometimes ask, so here is the answer you can pass on. Selfie search only runs after the buyer ticks a consent box. The selfie itself is deleted right after the search. Only the face data used to match them is kept, for up to 90 days, then deleted.
You never tag anyone by hand. Upload, and the matching happens automatically as photos process.
Next: watermarks and previews.