Photo and Video Sharing

Gooch · Post by **Gooch** » Mon Feb 08, 2010 10:49 am

Folks,

I'm interested in what people here like to use for photo and video sharing sites. I'm using Flickr right now but it has a 100mb limit and the max picture size is 1024X768. I don't mind paying a little to free up the limit ($25) but I was wondering if I should try another site that would be a improvement or let me post higher rez pix. I have used Picasa a little and Vimeo/Youtube for vids.

Recommendations?

Many Thanks for the advice

cardiver · Post by **cardiver** » Mon Feb 08, 2010 10:52 am

Gooch wrote:Folks,

I'm interested in what people here like to use for photo and video sharing sites. I'm using Flickr right now but it has a 100mb limit and the max picture size is 1024X768. I don't mind paying a little to free up the limit ($25) but I was wondering if I should try another site that would be a improvement or let me post higher rez pix. I have used Picasa a little and Vimeo/Youtube for vids.

Recommendations?

Many Thanks for the advice

Why not stick with Picasa?

Gooch · Post by **Gooch** » Mon Feb 08, 2010 11:02 am

I guess I didn't realize Picasa allows you to upload full rez pix. I was just checking that out and you can specify a slow upload/max size when you upload them.

One thing about Picasa I don't quite understand is their software. It like scours your computer for pix and tries to take control. Maybe I don't have to use that to use the site (?). Or maybe I just need to use it more and get used to it.

cardiver · Post by **cardiver** » Mon Feb 08, 2010 11:19 am

I think that you can choose what it looks for on your computer. You can definiely dl your pics at full rez if you want to. I do that with the pics that I decide to edit and save on line. They also just lowered the price of extra space on line when you need it. I think I paid 5.00 for 20 mb of space when I ran out of free space.

trevorrowe · Post by **trevorrowe** » Mon Feb 08, 2010 11:26 am

Funny you ask. I'm actively developing a video/picture sharing website for scuba diving. It's not ready for primetime, but its comming along pretty well. Some of its key features:

* bulk uploading of videos and pictures
* url shortening service
* creating albumbs and slideshows
* uploader will be able to access any original files as uploaded
* rss syndication of photo / video streams

Some of the other ideas I have:

* dive / trip reports
* posting content to nwdiveclub (yeah, i'm lazy)
* tagging (location, taxonomy, etc)
* more, more and more

I am mostly doing this for myself. I want a place to share/store/backup my photo collection. I figured if I am going to write this for myself, why not allow other divers to use it? This doesn't solve your problem right away, but when I launch the website, I hope you stop by and give it a try and leave some feedback.

spatman · Post by **spatman** » Mon Feb 08, 2010 4:12 pm

i'm really interested to see your creation, trevor. got a rough idea when it will beta?

dwashbur · Post by **dwashbur** » Mon Feb 08, 2010 4:13 pm

I use photobucket, and the only size limits I've run into are with videos.

Scubie Doo · Post by **Scubie Doo** » Mon Feb 08, 2010 4:43 pm

I use myphotoalbum.com. I like it because you get:

1) Max up-loadable file size = 200MB
2) Unlimited storage (for $20 per year)
3) High res photo upload
4) Personalized albums
5) Quick and easy uploading
6) Album sharing to Facebook

When I opened an account I received 20 free prints. I went ahead and ordered them and created some cool hanging photos for the bathroom. The prints came out great.

I am sure there are some other good options. I would love something specific to divers.

trevorrowe · Post by **trevorrowe** » Mon Feb 08, 2010 5:30 pm

spatman wrote:i'm really interested to see your creation, trevor. got a rough idea when it will beta?

I'm working with a designer friend of mine right now to add some flair to the site. I am capable of creating web-applications, I am not capable of making them look any better than my high-school yearbook picture (yeah, not pretty). I'm working on her schedule for the design, but I could probably push something to a web-accessible staging area here in a few weeks that would be "functional".

lamont · Post by **lamont** » Mon Feb 08, 2010 5:47 pm

The way to go on this is to just host a photoblogging site yourself and upload+mirror the images on the site to Amazon S3. There's no minimum cost, and the amount that I have on S3 right now is costing me $0.04/month.

The problem is finding software that is compatible. I've been working with wordpress and hacking up the nextgen photo gallery plugin to make it support S3. There is an S3 plugin that works on images with wordpress out-of-the-box, but doesn't have some of the nicer features of the photo gallery.

Unfortunately I got going on this project, but for the past few weeks I've been derailed by trying to study for a CCNA.

Dusty2 · Post by **Dusty2** » Mon Feb 08, 2010 6:06 pm

Janna and I and several other people use Smugmug. It's a great site with lots of fun ways to customize your site and a great looking interface to set up really nice looking galleries. Have a look at my site and Jana's. It's really simple to use and thy have great customer service white real American people answering your questions and usually pretty fast.

nwscubamom · Post by **nwscubamom** » Mon Feb 08, 2010 6:21 pm

My preference is Smugmug. I've been using them for about 3 years now. There are various account levels (none are free), and the account I have (Power) allows unlimited uploads, video, no size limits, right-click protection, privacy settings, etc. I like the fact there are NO ads, and the user interface is not frustrating like I find many of the other accounts are. I often visit other people's sites to view their photos and get frustrated with the viewing interface. And your photos look WAY better on black (but they have tons of creative background templates if you don't like black) They also have easy to use tools to make posting photos in forums like NWDC really easy. (I usually host mine on Smug, then link to it there from here).

Smugmug was designed by professional photographers, has a community feel to it, has excellent customer service and is used by many many professional and amateur photographers.

On NWDC, divers who use Smugmug are: JanK, myself, Dusty, BiodiversityGuy, dphershman, and I'm sure there are others I can't think of off the top of my head right now.

If you are interested, you can PM me (or any smugmug user) and they can get you a $5 off coupon code, which will also net them a $10 off voucher towards their next renewal. Smugmug does offer a free trial (a week or two weeks or something like that).

Hope that helps!

- Janna

trevorrowe · Post by **trevorrowe** » Mon Feb 08, 2010 7:36 pm

lamont wrote:The way to go on this is to just host a photoblogging site yourself and upload+mirror the images on the site to Amazon S3. There's no minimum cost, and the amount that I have on S3 right now is costing me $0.04/month.

I do web-development professionally. The small company I work for uses amazon webservices for all of our hosting platforms (EC2, EBS, SQS, S3, etc). Of all their offerings I'm most impressed with SQS and S3. That said, I don't personally pay the bill. Amazon webservices (especially ec2) are pretty expensive. S3 isn't bad until you start talking about hundreds of gigabytes.

lundysd · Post by **lundysd** » Mon Feb 08, 2010 10:55 pm

This seems to be a common problem -- there's very little in between the flickr-esque sharing sites and the full blown hosted website unfortunately. I've currently got a pro account at flickr, but I'm growing increasingly wary of getting my photos stolen (basically it's nearly unavoidable if you want to show medium-sized images on flickr).

I've purchased a URL and am hoping to set up my own site, but the last web development I did was over a decade ago, and hence it's slow going. I'd be glad to trade some UW photo expertise for a relatively simple site that can show off my work if anyone is interested

If anyone else finds a decent alternative with a decent amount of customizability, by all means let me know -- I just haven't found it yet :(

Scott
www.flickr.com/photos/lundysd

Gooch · Post by **Gooch** » Tue Feb 09, 2010 7:15 am

That's another good point- not that my pix are up to it yet. How can you watermark your pix? Is there software for that that won't break the bank and is easy to use? I've noticed a couple of threads about picture theft.

trevorrowe, I would love to try out your new site when it's ready. I'm thinking I will try Picasa again for now, but their software for uploading and editing is still bothering me a bit. I need to tame it

trevorrowe · Post by **trevorrowe** » Tue Feb 09, 2010 7:39 am

Gooch wrote:That's another good point- not that my pix are up to it yet. How can you watermark your pix? Is there software for that that won't break the bank and is easy to use? I've noticed a couple of threads about picture theft.

trevorrowe, I would love to try out your new site when it's ready. I'm thinking I will try Picasa again for now, but their software for uploading and editing is still bothering me a bit. I need to tame it

I've been playing around with watermarking. It wasn't a featured I planned for launch, but its something I can understand people might really want. I'll have to put a fire under my bushel and get cracking on getting it launched.

nwscubamom · Post by **nwscubamom** » Tue Feb 09, 2010 8:45 am

You guys were talking about watermarking - and I know that's one of the builtins for Smug, but out of my pricerange:
http://www.smugmug.com/photos/photo-sharing-features/

- Janna

cardiver · Post by **cardiver** » Tue Feb 09, 2010 9:36 am

I tried Smug Mug last night and it is SLOOOOW to upload photos. I had highlighted 36 photos to upload from Picasa and into Smug Mug. It took over 2 hours and only downloaded 20 of the pics........... And 150.00 a year just to get hd video?

nwscubamom · Post by **nwscubamom** » Tue Feb 09, 2010 10:18 am

Very strange! I uploaded a bunch last night as well and it zipped right through them.

SeattleYates · Post by **SeattleYates** » Wed Aug 11, 2010 3:45 pm

This is an old thread, but a timeless topic, and since I'm new, thought I'd throw in my $0.02.

Another big vote for Smugmug!

Getting rid of the ads alone is worth $3.33 a month (40 bucks a year), and unlimited storage of hi-rez photos makes it a bargain! Other reasons it's worth the money: http://www.smugmug.com/photos/photo-sha ... -compared/

For most people, the $40 or $60 a year plans are plenty, but I personally upgraded to the "Pro" plan ($150/yr) when people started wanting to buy prints of my stuff (all profits go to charity). I then paid a guy a couple hundred bucks to customize my Smugmug site to make it look totally custom-programmed (if you click on my site below, you'll have a hard time telling it's a Smugmug site, but it is!).

Oh, and to address the earlier post, I find their upload speeds (even for big files) are generally really good, although all bets are off if they're doing work on their site.

whatevah · Post by **whatevah** » Thu Aug 12, 2010 12:25 am

SeattleYates wrote:This is an old thread, but a timeless topic, and since I'm new, thought I'd throw in my $0.02.

Another big vote for Smugmug!

I switched to smugmug recently (still transferring my galleries and setting things up), but so far I am liking it a lot! I gave up a couple of things that I liked about my old photo hosting service but smugmug is better in many other ways.

Tangfish · Post by **Tangfish** » Thu Aug 12, 2010 12:10 pm

Flickr is dead to me now. I was a Pro user for a long time. Now that their platform is so "open" to "sharing" there is literally no way that you can completely prevent third parties from framing your photos. For example, just hit the 'users' tab on this site and enter in your flickr username:

http://flickriver.com/

SeattleYates · Post by **SeattleYates** » Thu Aug 12, 2010 1:07 pm

Tangfish wrote:Flickr is dead to me now. I was a Pro user for a long time. Now that their platform is so "open" to "sharing" there is literally no way that you can completely prevent third parties from framing your photos. For example, just hit the 'users' tab on this site and enter in your flickr username:

http://flickriver.com/

WOW, I'm not even ON Flickr, and if I just type in my NAME, about half way down is my grinning shark photo (from who knows where!), and some photos with me in them taken by Eric Cheng (founder of Wetpixel)! :angry: That site must pull in photos from all over the internet!

Tangfish · Post by **Tangfish** » Thu Aug 12, 2010 2:13 pm

Yep, total BS, that's why I don't post photos to sites like flickr and Facebook now. Sad, really.

SeattleYates wrote:
Tangfish wrote:Flickr is dead to me now. I was a Pro user for a long time. Now that their platform is so "open" to "sharing" there is literally no way that you can completely prevent third parties from framing your photos. For example, just hit the 'users' tab on this site and enter in your flickr username:

http://flickriver.com/
WOW, I'm not even ON Flickr, and if I just type in my NAME, about half way down is my grinning shark photo (from who knows where!), and some photos with me in them taken by Eric Cheng (founder of Wetpixel)! :angry: That site must pull in photos from all over the internet!

Northwest Dive Club