IWeb and full resolution pictures for download

Question

I finally got a good camera and wanted to share those glorious 12MP (3-4MByte) pictures via iWeb. I'd not paid much attention before now, but iWeb is fond of "optimizing" and reducing the size of pictures in order to save space and improve upload and download times. Even if you uncheck "optimize" in preferences, and select "download full resolution" in the photo inspector, I've found that some times you get the full multi-megabyte picture, then for reasons unknown to me, most other pictures have been reduced from 1/4 to 1/10 the original file size and the resolution has been reduced, say form 3000x4000 pixel to 768x1024 (seems arbitrary ...).
How to deal with this. Nothing direct that I can find: uncheck optimize works for a bit, them reverts; full size download refers to the size after such "optimizing." I think it's a bug, but maybe others think it's a feature.
My indirect work around: use your public folder on idisk in me.com. Create a folder structure to mirror your iWeb picture album structure to simplify life for your guest. Password protect it if you want some privacy.
Then go ahead and let iWeb optimize, and select the download size you want (maybe "medium" is fine for some users, for example).
But include on each picture or album page a hyperlink to your me.com public folder: the link will look something like https://public.me.com/<your me.com name here>. If you've specified a password, it will be requested when someone uses the link. I don't think there is any finer grain hyperlink available to your public folder - for example, to the sub folders you create to mirror your album structure.
The public idisk options are in preferences in idisk on iWeb.
If you only want to share a few pictures, it may be easier for the user to share individual file with a similar hyper link set up for each one using link outside the picture container object (can't be inside), or for each picture on the detail page (the comment, such as the image name, can be made a clickable element (hyper link). If you have tens or more pictures to share at once, this method is pretty inconvenient.
The sharing options for individual files are available when you select file via idisk in me.com
So, there it is. Hope this suggestion helps someone.
Eddie O
PS: Yes, I've offered feedback to Apple about this lack of flexibility in iWeb.

Answer 1

If you only want to share a few of the larger files zip them and put them in a folder titled Pictures in your iDisk/Web/Sites folder. Then create a thumbnail or text hyperlink to them at http://web.me.com/MMeAccount_Name/Pictures/FileName. That way they will immediately download when the link is selected.
A viewable version of the photo can be placed on the page and linked to the larger zipped version on your iDisk.
OT