A Question About Buying Art

I'm thinking of starting to buy and/or sell art, and I want to make sure I actually know how it works before I do. When you buy art from another player, I'm guessing (please correct me if I'm wrong) you download the image to your computer, then you upload it to your character website and whatnot. But I'm not completely sure if you download the image directly from the forum post, or if the artist sends you a link that you download, or if it just depends on the artist. I assume they send you a link to prevent people from easily stealing art, but you never know. Sorry if this doesn't make sense or is a stupid question.

Personally, i will send the recipient a link to the art. I cant speak for everyone else, but most times i've gotten art i have recieved links to them. 

Okay, thank you!

It depends on the artist and the type of art it is, really.

For example, characters are often shown as part of a sheet, and when you purchase one the artist sends you the link to the full-size image.

When I do custom art I always send links privately, but for tag/sig recolour sales, I post all of the recoloured images right in the topic for everyone to pick up. Those images tend to be in bulk so it's simpler to post them all together rather than having to message every buyer.

This was great info for us new players and a great question! Thanks for posting this and thank you to the ones that replied wonderful help! Have a great day!

I personally don't send links I post them on the forum for pick up and than you right click it save it to your computer and than go from there 

Everything that River said :)
Some artists will still send bulk art (tags/sigs/etc) priveately to their respective owners, but generally it is easier to just upload it to the original art topic where everyone ordered from to be picked up. 
Sometimes for bigger art pieces if it gets posted on the forum there will also be a link to go to the full size picture to be saved, but you don't see that very often as larger pieces are usually custom so it's just directly messaged to the person.