What to do with the 1000 pictures I took at WDW a week ago.

[arthropodtodd]

So I need some advice. Just got back from WDW about a week ago and took my new Rebel Xsi with me. I took only about 1000 pictures (too many of Cinderella's house!). I was posting them slowly up to Flickr, but I have run out of space and they want their $24.95 a year now. So my question is how does or where does everyone else post their pictures so their friends and family can see them and even order prints if they want? Where is a good photosharing site besides Flickr?

Thanks.

 

[lizet313]

I use photobucket.

 

[scoot241]

You might want to narrow down the number of pictures. If you say you took too many of the castle, imagine what someone else is going to say when they flip through 50 of almost the same shot.

I've taken about 1000 pictures on my XSi so far and only posted about 70. Yes, that's a very low ratio but if the photo isn't all that great why post it? And no, I don't even have all 1000 pics; some were so bad I deleted them completely.

I'd like to have a higher ratio as I get better with the XSi. If all 1000 of your pics are keepers then that's great and ignore everything I said.

 

[arthropodtodd]

I have a good number of keepers, a few hundred. But I am still out of space for free Flickr. I plan to keep the extras on the new 500GB Hard drive I bought to store the stuff for now.

 

[arthropodtodd]

I use photobucket.

what do you like and dislike about photobucket? I know some who swear by it.

 

[annnewjerz]

I'd recommend paying the $24.95, or looking into another photo hosting site like SmugMug or Zenfolio to upload your pictures to.

In addition to backing up your photos on disc, hard drive and/or external hard drive---I think that uploading them to a website that keept your original file sizes in tact is money very well spent, which I don't believe PhotoBucket does.

While I do (and lots of others) use FlickR to upload photos that they plan to post on the DIS or any other online forums, to me, $2 per month to have an extra back-up, great customer service and usually better quality prints (from their sites) are all great benefits that come along with paying for service, rather than getting it for free.

HTH!
Ann

 

[handicap18]

I've used photobucket and flickr. I now use smugmug.

Photobucket is very good for easy sharing, but terrible for backup. If you use just the free account they compress the photos a lot. So your 4-5MB size picture file, now becomes a 1MB file on photobucket. Its good for beginners and some simple sharing of photos, but for me, thats about it.

Flickr is a little better. Your limited to 5mb file size with the free account and 10mb file size with the pay account. What I don't like about Flickr is their privacy and security. It is not good. Not good at all. They have been known to offer the files in their site to companies that are looking for photos to use in advertising. They do not tell you this. Even though they have a check box that says you don't want this done. They still do it (at least as of about 6 months ago they were). They deny it, but then peoples photos show up in advertisments and other things that the owner of the picture never was asked about or knew about. I just read to many articles and stories about this happening and got out of flickr. I, personally, didn't like that.

So I went with smugmug (though zenfolio was another one I considered and almost went with).

With smugmug and zenfolio you have to pay yearly. They have 3 levels of accounts. Standard, Power and Pro. I'm currently using the Pro account on smugmug because I wanted to see how this would work out with my DS's baseball team. I'm the "official" photographer. I put the pictures in an unlisted, private, password protected gallery. Then I have a right click protect on each photo. I have turned on the Buy option and then with the pro account I set my own prices.

There is no limit on the number of photos you can upload (I currently have over 5,000 on my smugmug) and there is no traffic limit (on photobucket if a picture gets viewed to much in a month, it then gets blocked for viewing for the rest of that month {with the free acct}) and I'm pretty sure there is no file size limit (if there is I haven't hit it).

From what I understand, zenfolio is pretty much the same.

With free you get what you pay for.

 

[seashoreCM]

Make a copy of each picture, resized (or cropped) to about 800x600. Upload that copy. Otherwise people either have to pan and scan the picture back and forth to see it all (very annoying to have to do) or not bother to look at more than 800x600 worth of the picture.

(Actually many monitors are 1024x768 but the Internet Explorer or other browser margins take up some of that space and also some people don't have monitors with that resolution.)

This resizing also makes the picture files smaller so more will fit in your Flickr allotment. Remove the bigger pictures from Flickr as you upload the smaller copies. Keep the original pictures on your computer or on some other on line archiving service.

Some photo hosting services shrink the picture to fit an even smaller rectangle when showing it to viewers saving them the need to slide it back and forth. This also eliminates any benefit of uploading a higher resolution in the first place. So you could downsize the pictures yourself to that lesser resolution (typically 640x480) before uploading and conserve even more space in your account.

Digital camera hints: http://www.cockam.com/digicam.htm

 

[zackiedawg]

Seashore's recommendation is mine too - After first culling my photos for those that I feel are the best of the best for sharing with others, I then make resized copies at 800x600 and post those to my PBase account. Anyone that wants to see them will see them with fine enough resolution to enjoy and get the details, and if they were to view on a TV they'd be at approximately DVD resolution, which should be crisp enough...yet you also get the inherent security, in that large prints or publishable or stock sale quality is not possible from that size - anyone trying to steal your photos can't do much with them (don't think that ANY online security will prevent someone from getting your pic - if they want it, they'll get it...period...so give them something they can't do much with).

For my close relatives or friends, who may want to make their own prints or maybe view other photos which may not have been the best shots, but were personal and involved them...I'll burn a CD or DVD of photos and mail it to them, so they can load onto their computer, make prints, edit, or do whatever they want with them.

That would be my suggestion - get an online pay account that will run you $15-30 per year, and just upload smaller res versions of your pics for everyone to enjoy in a slideshow, that are safe from profitable theft, aren't too big for anyone's computer to view, and if anyone wants the bigger photos, send them a CD/DVD. With the smaller res, you can fit thousands and thousands of photos on a typical $20-30 annual account.

But do try to think about what you are posting for others - if it were you, and they were someone else's photos, how many of them would YOU want to go through? Sometimes, you may find that what is a keeper for you doesn't mean it needs to be posted for others - I may come home with 25 castle shots that I consider all keepers...but I may only post 2 or 3 of them online - because I figure none of my friends or relatives are likely to want to go through 25 castle shots! And for any outside visitors to my site, same thing - I try to be sparing of duplicate shots for each trip I post. Overall, I may have 25 castle shots in my galleries, but there are usually no more than 2 or 3 from each trip. My home keeper gallery has all 25 for me to enjoy!

 

[Miller1412]

I like Shutterfly, and you can make as many websites for sharing as you want. People can download them and right now they are offering free digital prints for uploading your pics.

 

[oregondaddyof2]

I use Flickr, and I bought the Pro account for $25... Works really well, easy to use, and keeps the quality of the photo...

 

[WillCAD]

I have my own web storage space now, but I used to use DotPhoto and was pretty happy with it.

 

[jmskinner]

I started using Smugmug after my computer crashed and I lost a lot of my pics. Also have them on a notebook drive.

 

[Gdad]

I use Smugmug for my Someday-I'm-gonna-get-it-together-to-look-like-a-professional-website site and I use Flickr for my Sharing-family-and-friends-and-fun-stuff-online-website site.

Personally though I really prefer Flickr. I love the social aspect with all the groups- and I think 25 bucks a year for unlimited photos and video is a pretty good value to be honest.

 

[tjl1388]

With smugmug and zenfolio you have to pay yearly. They have 3 levels of accounts. Standard, Power and Pro. I'm currently using the Pro account on smugmug because I wanted to see how this would work out with my DS's baseball team. I'm the "official" photographer. I put the pictures in an unlisted, private, password protected gallery. Then I have a right click protect on each photo. I have turned on the Buy option and then with the pro account I set my own prices.

There is no limit on the number of photos you can upload (I currently have over 5,000 on my smugmug) and there is no traffic limit (on photobucket if a picture gets viewed to much in a month, it then gets blocked for viewing for the rest of that month {with the free acct}) and I'm pretty sure there is no file size limit (if there is I haven't hit it).

From what I understand, zenfolio is pretty much the same.

With free you get what you pay for.

+1 for smugmug. I love it. I do a good bit of sports photography and it is seamless...the less I have to deal with people the better. I'm a Disney person, not a people person.

 

[JR6ooo4]

Make a copy of each picture, resized (or cropped) to about 800x600. Upload that copy. Otherwise people either have to pan and scan the picture back and forth to see it all (very annoying to have to do) or not bother to look at more than 800x600 worth of the picture.

(Actually many monitors are 1024x768 but the Internet Explorer or other browser margins take up some of that space and also some people don't have monitors with that resolution.)

This resizing also makes the picture files smaller so more will fit in your Flickr allotment. Remove the bigger pictures from Flickr as you upload the smaller copies. Keep the original pictures on your computer or on some other on line archiving service.

Some photo hosting services shrink the picture to fit an even smaller rectangle when showing it to viewers saving them the need to slide it back and forth. This also eliminates any benefit of uploading a higher resolution in the first place. So you could downsize the pictures yourself to that lesser resolution (typically 640x480) before uploading and conserve even more space in your account.

Digital camera hints: http://www.cockam.com/digicam.htm

on my smugmug site you can choose what size you want to view, or what size you want to post on a forum or email... etc.

that way I can send the original file for the few who want a poster size print.

My pro account does have a bandwidth limit, but with some 60-80 cast members and their family and friends all viewing my photos of their shows... I have never even hit the halfway mark.

if you use this code EDfLfDAAygNVM you will get $5 off one year subscription. and I get a little somethin' also. hehehehehee

Mikeeee