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Digitial Photo On Line Storage; Who uses it, What do you recommend?
Topic Started: Sep 11 2011, 08:12 PM (307 Views)
Reynard Ridge
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Storing digital photos on any kind of memory device is becoming impossible, due to size and number of photos. We've decided to go with on-line storage to make it easier for everyone in the family to access, plus reduce memory drain on daily use computers.

What do you use? Why did you chose that service? What does it cost?

Many thanks!
Edited by Reynard Ridge, Sep 11 2011, 08:14 PM.
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RNB
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I have photos stored in Photobucket....it is/was free. I can't compare it to others since I have not checked out any of them. But I know there are many good ones. I picked Photobucket at the time because I needed a place for folks to view a bunch of pictures from an event and someone recommended them. I, too, would like to hear from other folks.
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Onelanerode
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My brother, who got his master's in Canberra, spent some time in Hong Kong and Burma, and then came back to the States for a year's fellowship in Seattle, uses Picasa. A few years later, following trips to New Zealand, Thailand, Vietnam and another to Burma, he's still using it ... he's got something like 600 photos in various albums in his account. Sometimes I think without Picasa I'd never know what he was doing, lol.

My husband is currently using SmugMug. I'm not entirely sure if that's free though.
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kady05
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I use SmugMug. It's not free, but I had a coupon code for half off or something so I took advantage of it.
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buryinghill2
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I use Flickr. It's free up to a certain point, which I don't think that I will ever reach. I don't have anything to compare it to, so it's hard to say much. I do know that it is the largest online photo storage site available. I have really enjoyed all the groups, I have joined around ten. I am in the process of trying to improve my photography, so I have learned a ton on Flickr.
Also, I need Flickr contacts. :)
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FlashGordon
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I use Shutterfly. The uploads can be kind of slow... but I have been using it for 5 years, have 80 odd albums, and I like it. I had a major hard drive crash a few years ago and was so thankful that I'd stored my photos on Shutterfly, since I lost everything on my computer.

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Reynard Ridge
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buryinghill2
Sep 12 2011, 04:25 AM
I use Flickr. It's free up to a certain point, which I don't think that I will ever reach. I don't have anything to compare it to, so it's hard to say much. I do know that it is the largest online photo storage site available. I have really enjoyed all the groups, I have joined around ten. I am in the process of trying to improve my photography, so I have learned a ton on Flickr.
Also, I need Flickr contacts. :)
Interesting. I use both Flikr and Picassa, but never considered them for storage. No one yet has mentioned the first two that I was going to look into: Google and Amazon. ...although, is the Google site Picassa?

...ah, and look what Google says: "Google+ provides unlimited storage for photos, which are automatically resized to 2048 pixels. Videos up to 15 minutes in length are also free." NO go there! If I wanted them resized, I would use a smaller crappier camera.

I need to put out a call for J4J ... :teehee:

Just random guessing, I am thinking I have more like 25-30,000 photos to upload. And they are seriously high density files for the most part, particularly in the past two years since Mr. RR got his SLR. :rolleyes:

What's important to me is longevity. I want to buy into a service that is going to be there forever. :teehee: <--like, AOL? :rofl:

Edited by Reynard Ridge, Sep 12 2011, 05:41 AM.
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Reynard Ridge
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Oh, and to be clear, I expect to pay for storage. We're not talking 14 photos from Cousin Irene's wedding here, we're talking massive volumes of space. We are moving to the internet because our hard storage units have given up the ghost.
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jn4jenny
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Hi RR! Very clever of you to page me from Facebook! :clap:

So am I reading this correctly? You need

--no resizing your image to something smaller than the original
--a painless interface for bulk uploading
--vast amounts of storage space, preferably unlimited
--a company that's been around long enough that they're likely to stay around
--preferably some kind of data backup service rolled into the package
--you're willing to pay but not willing to lose your shirt (so paying $5 per year for every 20 GB of storage at Google probably sounds very unappealing)

With that list of needs, I'd say you really only have three choices: Flickr Pro, Photobucket Pro, and Smugmug. You'll probably end up at Smugmug but I'll describe the other two first.

Flickr Pro has many advantages, but its key disadvantage is that it will compress any of the four formats you upload (.jpg, .gif, .png, .tiff) into JPG after the upload. Ask Mr. RR how he feels about this. He might care and he might not.

Flickr Pro gives you unlimited storage space and unlimited uploads at $24.95 per year. The maximum size of any individual image upload = 20MB and maximum image resolution is around 30 megapixels. Flickr has been in business for ages and you can expect them to be around for a long time to come. They also have great photo upload applications, especially for people who are uploading in bulk, and their interface is simple enough for any Luddite to use. They maintain their own Desktop Uploader program, which means that it stays up to date and consistently works with their web site. They also have a great community of other photographers and hobbyists, so if DH likes to chitty-chat about his photos, Flickr Pro will make him happy.

Other than the JPEG thing, there is one other disadvantage to Flickr Pro that I think is pretty minor: there's no easy way for someone visiting Flickr to buy a print of your photo or a novelty item with your photo on it. So for example, your relative in Nebraska can't go "Oh what an adorable picture, I should like to order a print of that" and simply click a button to order a print picture. They'd have to download the picture and then use some other service, perhaps their local drugstore chain, to print the photo or novelty item.
Relevant sites:
http://www.flickr.com/tools/ and http://www.flickr.com/upgrade/

Then there's Photobucket Pro, which is also $24.95/year with unlimited storage. Like Flickr, you get unlimited bandwidth and storage. You can store individual images up to 20 MB in size. Unlike Flickr, there is great integration of "order prints/novelty items/etc." into the Photobucket interface. Photobucket also has excellent integration with social media sites like Facebook and Twitter. Accepts upload in the formats of gif, jpg, jpeg, png, bmp (although a bmp will get converted to jpg).

Disadvantages: Photobucket has a very aesthetically pleasing interface, but IMO it's harder to navigate than Flickr and may take a little getting used to on your part. As someone on Twitter once said, "Flickr is like an art gallery. Photobucket is like a landfill." Photobucket has this idiotically complicated feature in their Pro account where they store your original-size image but display a smaller one that's more "Internet friendly" for visitors. And I say WTH is the point of sharing my fancy DSLR photos if my buddies can't see them in all their original glory? I also find Photobucket Pro's online Java-based bulk uploader very frustrating (and it's limited to 250 photos at a time), and there is no desktop uploader application like Flickr has. I consider this last issue a deal-killer for your situation. It's all fun and games until the uploader doesn't work.

Which brings us to SmugMug, the most expensive of the three proposed solutions but probably the best match for your needs. Smugmug is really geared to the serious amateur or professional photographer. Maximum image size is 24 MB (notice: that's bigger than Flickr Pro or Photobucket Pro which limit you to 20 MB), maximum image resolution is 48 megapixels (compare to Flickr's which is about 30 megapixels--Photobucket does not specify their maximum megapixels). Smugmug accepts images in .jpg, .gif, and .png format and will not auto-convert to JPG. Their basic account ($40/year) offers unlimited storage and unlimited traffic. They offer lots of download options so that if you ever want to move your photos from Smugmug back to a physical storage medium, they make it easy to get the data back off their site. Their online bulk uploader is slick and works consistently well, and there are dozens of third-party apps for desktop uploading, integrating Smugmug with your favorite photo editing program or web browser, and even stuff to auto-send crap between Smugmug and Facebook:
http://help.smugmug.com/customer/portal/articles/84267-hacks-and-apps-third-party-uploaders-downloads-migration-tools-and-utilites

The Smugmug interface is also relatively easy to use, and even their $40/year basic plan offers some really slick customization templates for your photo albums. Finally, Smugmug makes it super easy for visitors to buy prints or customized items of your photos. Spend some time looking around at Smugmug.com and I think you will like, you will buy: http://www.smugmug.com/
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TarynJ
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Something to consider... do you need online photo albums, or a more general cloud-based storage system? If you're just looking for private storage the options could be different :) (Says she who works in the Telecom industry for a cloud-based service provider :innocent: )
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Reynard Ridge
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:clap: Oh, J4J, you are full of awesomeness!

I shall copy, paste and forward this to Mr. RR for his review.

Although, now for TarynJs question, we don't need to stinking coffee cups with our photos on them. None of our relatives, Nebraskian, Washingtonian, North Carolinian care a flying fig out our stupid photos. What we want is all four of us in the immediately family can access them, add to them, use them, from anywhere.

However, I like the idea of a site that thinks about photos and helps me keep them "in order." We do keep them in monthly buckets, as opposed to "trip buckets," but an ideal site would let me cross reference trips between months, so I can sort by trip if I need to. So, simple storage might be too simple? :huh: I don't know anything about it, so if you have any insights, please share.
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TarynJ
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Yup, then you do need a solution beyond basic storage. I tend to burn stuff to DVD or use a local back-up, so I defer to J4J...!
Edited by TarynJ, Sep 12 2011, 12:00 PM.
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jn4jenny
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Hi Ellen - Flickr and Smugmug could both handle your curatorial needs using their albums and tags/keywords features. More on tags/keywords:

http://www.flickr.com/help/tags/
http://help.smugmug.com/customer/portal/articles/93291

I think Flickr is more friendly than Smugmug when it comes to tagging. It's not that Smugmug can't do it, I just think Flickr makes it less painful because of the way they built the Flickr Uploadr. With Flickr you can apply the tags as you are uploading, and you can easily apply them in bulk to lots of photos at once. So for example, all 14 photos of Cousin Irene's wedding can be given the same tag of "ireneswedding" so that you can easily amass them later even though you sent 7 of those photos to a set called "Bachelor Party" set and 7 others to a photo called "Irene's Wedding Ceremony." You'd just either search your photos for "ireneswedding" or click on it in your existing tags list, and voila, there's all 14 photos.

With Smugmug, you have to upload the photos first and THEN go back and bulk apply the keywords. Awkward.

Watch how easy it is to sort things into sets and tag stuff as you're uploading photos in Flickr Uploadr:
http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=OzKSp13wG0E

and of course, you can change the tags and stuff anytime after you upload.

Finally, Flickr uploads the "when you took this picture" date and attaches it to your photographs. So as long as you had the clock on your camera set correctly, you can go into the "Archives" portion of your online interface and see any photo taken in any given month and year. If you didn't, you could get around this by tagging all your photos with the month and year that you took each photo. I haven't spent enough time on Smugmug to know if it's got that feature.

Smugmug has a 14-day trial. Flickr doesn't have a "trial" but you can play with their free account (300 MB upload limit per month) and see how you like it.

What a horribly disorganized post this was. Sorry, long day at my desk!
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Reynard Ridge
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I am a flikr user, and have been for years. The limiting factor is not being able to store our photos in their gi-normous original size.

But I signed up for the 14 day free trial for Smugmug and will let you know how it goes. I uploaded a few photos and will see how it goes! I do think this solves our problem, though.
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