Portfolio·Guide
Public vs private work
A Public portfolio is curated for people who have not hired you yet. A Private portfolio is organized for people who have. Trying to make one collection do both jobs is how sensitive frames end up on the wrong path, and how marketing grids fill with work you never meant to sell from.
Before you publish
Four checks before a set goes Public
Consent timing
Proofs or selects before a couple has announced, before a company approved a campaign, or before a subject has seen and approved themselves do not belong on a public page.
Contractual confidentiality
NDA’d commercial, corporate, or product work under an agreement that does not permit public display stays Private until the contract says otherwise.
Payment-gated finals
Delivery masters that should only reach someone who has paid or been granted access belong in Private storage and portal or download flows—not on the public CDN path.
Good work, wrong audience
Permitted, unobjectionable frames can still dilute a public portfolio when they are not representative of what you want to be booked for. That is curation, not law.
Toggle off is not private
The most expensive misunderstanding is treating “Enable public page” off as privacy. That switch only controls whether a `/portfolio/{slug}` page exists for visitors. It does not move files into private storage or take them off the public CDN path used by the media library and site embeds.
If the work is genuinely sensitive, create the collection as Private from the start and upload into it. Do not assume an older unlisted or password-style habit equals Private storage on ArtInStack.
Two jobs, two collections
Public portfolios win the next booking: site pages, embeds, and marketing galleries on the public path. Private portfolios close the current job: client-only masters for portal review, downloads, and delivery after invite or purchase.
ArtInStack is public-first for the CMS on purpose—so marketing stays fast—while Private is a guided create choice for client work. Locks in the library mark what is client-only; the page editor will not embed Private media or Private collections on public pages.
When you still want to show the work
You cannot pull Private masters into a public page embed today. The honest middle ground is a marketing subset: choose the frames you are allowed and proud to sell from, upload them into a Public portfolio (or the public library), and keep the full job in Private for the client.
That is deliberate curation, not a dotted “sneak peek” product path from Private storage. If a frame must stay off the public hostname, it stays in the Private collection.
Default for client jobs
For client proofs, NDA work, and payment-gated finals, start Private and only promote specific images into Public when consent, contract, and brand story all clear. That is the safer failure mode: you choose what becomes marketing instead of remembering to lock down what was sensitive.
For how Private storage, lock icons, and portal delivery actually work, see Private portfolios. For proofing UX once the client is in the room, see Client galleries that convert. For CDN vs Private vs signed downloads, see Asset delivery economics.
Decide before you upload
Public for people who have not hired you yet. Private for people who have. Create the right collection first—do not rely on turning the public page off.
Also in Guides: Client galleries that convert · Asset delivery economics · Commercial contracts in the portal