I don't know if you are aware if this but in September, the option to make individual photos private was added in an update to FTM2012 - see http://blogs.ancestry.com/ancestry/2012/09/25/another-bonus-...
- "If you’re like me, you have personal media items like birth certificates and photos of living family members that you don’t always want to include in your online tree. Now you can keep media items private on an item-by-item basis when you sync (or export) your tree."
- "If you’re like me, you have personal media items like birth certificates and photos of living family members that you don’t always want to include in your online tree. Now you can keep media items private on an item-by-item basis when you sync (or export) your tree."