So what is the deal with Flickr?

Is it like snapfish, webshots, and all those other photo uploading programs?

I have been recently using snapfish cause you have unlimited uploading (I think) and also you can make photo albums for like 20 bucks and you can get prints for like 12 cents.

Whats the hype with flickr? I am looking for a program to basically back up my photos, I have already copied to dvd and have on my harddrive, but extremely paranoid about losing them...can you access the photos off of this program?

thanks

Well, I like flickr, but it's been a few years since I've tried something else. Previous services (ophoto, Future Shop) that I've tried primarily exist to sell prints, and aren't that great at sharing. The one other sharing site I looked at recently (photobucket) had storage limits, even with a paid subscription, and had a messier interface.

The things I like about flickr are its ease of use, hackability, and general "shariness". I think if you're using flickr for anything but a trial run though, you really do have to pay them. The free version is too restricted.

The things I really like are having easy access to several sizes of photo, as well as an online backup of the original photo. And it's set up so that I can link to the photo from off-site, and that's okay with them, so, I can upload my original photo, have a nicely sized photo for online viewing, and post it directly on my blog without any trouble.

I've also used the "assign a license" feature, which allows other people to find my photos when searching for content that they can use for their own purposes, which results in my pictures turning up in interesting places. That isn't a good option for people who want to make money off their pictures, but it works for me.

From a user perspective, you can easily find countless photos on almost any subject by searching flickr. I appreciate that too, it helps me get excited about upcoming trips.

Lets see...for uploading from the road, you don't need any software, but there is software you can install which speeds things up if you have a lot to do.

To access photos off of flickr, you can view them individually, fine for individual pictures, but not so hot for downloading the whole set. There are programs which hack into the flickr API that let you download in batches, and that's what I did when I got home from my last trip.

If you only have a free account, only 200 pictures will come up under your username (though other pictures can still be linked directly, or found by tag searching). Again, though, for anything more than a trial, a paid subscription is a must. I have around 1000 photos on there now.

Anyway, I'm raving. There may be other services that are cheaper than Flickr, possibly some that even match up in terms of features. But I haven't found them yet, and I remain a very satisfied Flickr customer.

I give a nice little vote for Flickr as well...I've tried others but found Flickr the most feature packed, easy to use and accessible way to have my pics online.

The resizing is a huge bonus and nice that it lets you keep the original size as well. The upload limit of 2GB a months (with paid sub of $25 a year) hasn't been a problem and I'm uploading constantly while on the road!

You can easily organise the pics into sets for easy consumption, tag them for easy refernce and get at any of your pics pretty quickly!

for me it has everything I want and has made my life on the road easy to share with others!

I would say it depends on what you want.

I use flickr, but am not the biggest fan. I don't find it very intuitive. However, while they do sell prints, it is in a different realm than snapfish/shutterfly/ofoto. Flickr is about social networking. It is about sharing and community. It isn't really about selling the prints (although they are moving into that), cards, etc. I consider them for different purposes.

PS...I don't know that you can redownload your pics at the original size, but don't quote me on that. But...damn, that's a lot of backing up you're doing.

quote:

PS...I don't know that you can redownload your pics at the original size, but don't quote me on that. But...damn, that's a lot of backing up you're doing.

You can, I've done it. But you do need an outside piece of software to do it, it's not exactly the main function of Flickr.

I've tried Flickr and Photobucket, but Smugmug is far superior. Yes, it is a pay site, but for every referral you make, you get $10 off your renewal (so three successful referrals and it's free). The discounts even apply if all your referrals are completed during your free trial.

Why is Smugmug so great? Sense of global community, professionals and amateurs, high proportion of travelers, 24/7 insanely fast help (once it was less than 3 minutes), attractive minimalist design, optional customization of site, privacy options, member forums, direct access to those running the site, access to inexpensive but top-notch prints, unlimited photo size, unlimited uploads, unlimited bandwidth, and so much more.

That's just my two cents.

One thing I like about Flickr is the ability to geotag photos. I have a GPS hooked up to my DSLR and put lat/long data on each photo I take.

Flickr will read the geotagging data and put all the photos on a map.

I use Flickr and think that it's great. I can't say that I use all the services connected to it, but it resizes for me and I can dump photos there and get them back later. I have downloaded them and reloaded them back onto my camera for goodness sake. I haven't checked anything else out there, but this works well, so why would I look for anything else? And it is a great site to try to fine "WHere Is This Place?" clues.

D

I'll cast my vote for Flickr as well. I've been using their service for a couple of years and I couldn't be happier.

They recently removed their limitations on monthly upload limits. So now, premium members get unlimited storage AND unlimited uploading. For about $25US/year, I believe.

Also, if you need to batch download your photos again, you can use a free software app called Downloadr.

ok, forgive me for what is probably a REALLY stupid question but I am fairly new to the world of digital photography.
My husband & I are going to be embarking on our RTW this fall and have been checking out the various photo share sites.
But my big question is how do you download the photos? At home we just download from the camera directly to our laptop.. but we will have our laptop on our trip so what is the procedure.
Any advice please?

sorry sorry.. REALLY stupid me in that I didn't read all the way down the page to see downloadr. Thanks! Will check it out

Downloadr is for getting the photos off Flickr and back onto your hard drive, not for getting the photos off the camera.

I found the easiest way was to get a card reader. (You pop the memory card out of the camera, stick it in the reader, and then it just mounts like a USB stick). Almost all internet cafes use Windows XP, so you can just plug in and don't need a special driver the way some cameras do, and then it's easy to take the photos and put them on the internet.

thanks for clearing that up! Sounds like the easiest way to do it.

Flicker is nice as I've been using it for quite sometime now I found that it meets all my needs and highly recommend it.

I use it for the social network thing so I'm not sure what are your needs from it.

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