photosharing

Transcript: Online Photo Sharing in Plain English

leelefever — Wed, 9 Jan 2008 14:50:10 -0500

The following is a transcript of the Common Craft Show video: Online Photo Sharing in Plain English.

When asked what should be saved in a fire, along with family and pets, people often choose photos. If photos mean a lot to you, it's time to learn why keeping them on the web makes sense.

This is online photo sharing in Plain English

As you know, cameras and photography have changed. What used to appear on paper, now appears on computers and phones. No matter the format, we still love our photos and now they they have new powers.

First, let's be practical.

These days a fire may not be your biggest worry - a computer failure can destroy 1000s of memories. You can avoid this by keeping your photos backed up on the internet. A number of sites make it inexpensive and easy for you to upload your photos for safe keeping.

Now, because photos can be uploaded to a web site, all sorts of cool things are possible.

To make our point, lets looks at the old way...

You visit the Grand Canyon and take beautiful photos. You get them developed and a few days later add them to a photo album that sits on a shelf. Few people see them and it's a pain to find a specific photo in all those albums. BOOOO.

Now, let's look at the new way with a popular service I use called Flickr.

You visit the Grand Canyon and take beautiful photos with a digital camera. Once you're home, you move the photos onto your computer and then upload them to the Flickr website. You just click upload, find the photos on your computer and upload them to the web for safe keeping. Ahh, sweet peace of mind. YAAAY

But it doesn't stop there. You need to make sure that it's easy to find photos in the future. Along with adding titles, you can add keywords or tags that describe the photo. You might use tags like grandcanyon, arizona, park, scenery, 2007 to describe this photo. Each of these tags becomes a way for you to find photos in the future. Just click a tag and 1000 photos becomes 5 related ones.

Now, once your photos are online and findable, it's time to look at another fun part of online photo sharing - the actual sharing.

You can choose to make your photos public or private - it's up to you. Private is like a photo on your wall - few see it. But public is like taking your photos to a party - they become a representation of you and offer a way to make friends.

So, try sharing your online photos with the public. Here's what to expect:

Friends and even strangers may leave comments on your photos.
You can see which of your photos are most popular

You may even discover that you're more motivated to take photos because you want to share them with the world.

So, photo sharing sites like Flickr do two things really well:

1) They keep your photos safe, organized and findable
2) They make photo sharing fun by making photos social

At the very least, back up your photos online, but if you're ready for fun, open your photos to the world and start to feel the love.

You can get started at Flickr Webshots or Photobucket.com

I'm Lee LeFever and this has been online photo sharing in plain english on the common craft show.

Photo Products to Watch in 2008

leelefever — Tue, 8 Jan 2008 21:01:04 -0500

2008 is shaping up to be a interesting year to try out new things when it comes to digital photos. From photo transfer technology, to wall hanging, to photo sharing services, here are a few things I'll be using in 2008.

Eye-Fi

I consider Eye-Fi a magical piece of photo technology. It makes it possible for me to upload photos to Flickr (or other services) and to my computer directly from my camera using my wi-fi network - no wires, no card readers. Once it's installed, you just shoot a photo and within seconds the photo magically appears on the web and my computer.

Update: I use Eye-fi on my home wi-fi network - when I arrive home, the camera starts uploading as long as the camera is on. I set it to upload to Flickr as "private" and then change permissions as needed.

For SD memory cameras, you just replace your SD card with the 2gb Eye-Fi SD card and load the software on your computer. Once it's set up, the Eye-Fi SD card makes it possible to transfer photos automatically. If you don't have an SD camera, you can use the Eye-Fi card with a Compact Flash adapter too. I first heard about Eye-Fi from Anastasia of Juxtaprose and this year, it was a Christmas gift from my Mom. Thanks Santa!

Fotoflōt

Last year I gave Flickr's photo printing service a try and was impressed. I get so used to seeing photos online that I forget about how they look on a wall. Just recently I came across fotoflōt - which takes photos and wall mounting to a new level.

Two things I love about fotoflōt:

1. Frameless design and photo protection. They print your photos on high quality photographic paper and then fuse it to 1/8" thick acrylic. This makes them low reflection, low glare and high durability. I printed some of our travel panoramas.

2. Magnetic wall mounts. Each fotoflōt comes with a wall mount that makes the photos modular. Once the mounts are in place, you can have a number of fotoflōt photos and switch them out in seconds.

Right now, fotoflōt is working directly with Smug Mug, a photo sharing service. In fact, in order to use fotoflōt I had to upload my photos to Smug Mug first. This may change soon.

SmugMug

Either way, it gave me a reason to try out SmugMug and I'm impressed so far. SmugMug is a bit more professionally oriented (and expensive) than Flickr, and I'm not a pro, but here are a few things I dig about SmugMug.

Photos really do look good on SmugMug. Maybe it's the black background or pixie dust, but I love how my photos look there.

Nice options. I like the new Picnik integration on Flickr better, but SmugMug provides a few options for online photo editing. If you become a power user (59.95/yr), you can even upload videos to your account.

Build a store. If you become a Pro user (149.95/yr) you can make SmugMug a platform on your domain. This means that I could use SmugMug to create LeesPhotoStore.com and sell my photos. They keep 15% and handle support and technical details.

The SmugMug attitude. I love their story of passion, family, being small and living a dream.

So these are a few products I plan to use this year. Maybe you have more?

(My Flickr account)

Photo Products to Watch in 2008

leelefever — Tue, 8 Jan 2008 21:01:04 -0500

Fotoflōt

2. Magnetic wall mounts. Each fotoflōt comes with a wall mount that makes the photos modular. Once the mounts are in place, you can have a number of fotoflōt photos and switch them out in seconds.

Right now, fotoflōt is working directly with Smug Mug, a photo sharing service. In fact, in order to use fotoflōt I had to upload my photos to Smug Mug first. This may change soon.

(My Flickr account)

Photo Products to Watch in 2008

leelefever — Tue, 8 Jan 2008 21:01:04 -0500

Fotoflōt

2. Magnetic wall mounts. Each fotoflōt comes with a wall mount that makes the photos modular. Once the mounts are in place, you can have a number of fotoflōt photos and switch them out in seconds.

Right now, fotoflōt is working directly with Smug Mug, a photo sharing service. In fact, in order to use fotoflōt I had to upload my photos to Smug Mug first. This may change soon.

(My Flickr account)

Photo Products to Watch in 2008

leelefever — Tue, 8 Jan 2008 21:01:04 -0500

Fotoflōt

2. Magnetic wall mounts. Each fotoflōt comes with a wall mount that makes the photos modular. Once the mounts are in place, you can have a number of fotoflōt photos and switch them out in seconds.

Right now, fotoflōt is working directly with Smug Mug, a photo sharing service. In fact, in order to use fotoflōt I had to upload my photos to Smug Mug first. This may change soon.

(My Flickr account)

Photo Products to Watch in 2008

leelefever — Tue, 8 Jan 2008 21:01:04 -0500

Fotoflōt

2. Magnetic wall mounts. Each fotoflōt comes with a wall mount that makes the photos modular. Once the mounts are in place, you can have a number of fotoflōt photos and switch them out in seconds.

Right now, fotoflōt is working directly with Smug Mug, a photo sharing service. In fact, in order to use fotoflōt I had to upload my photos to Smug Mug first. This may change soon.

(My Flickr account)

Photo Products to Watch in 2008

leelefever — Tue, 8 Jan 2008 21:01:04 -0500

Fotoflōt

2. Magnetic wall mounts. Each fotoflōt comes with a wall mount that makes the photos modular. Once the mounts are in place, you can have a number of fotoflōt photos and switch them out in seconds.

Right now, fotoflōt is working directly with Smug Mug, a photo sharing service. In fact, in order to use fotoflōt I had to upload my photos to Smug Mug first. This may change soon.

(My Flickr account)

Photo Products to Watch in 2008

leelefever — Tue, 8 Jan 2008 21:01:04 -0500

Fotoflōt

2. Magnetic wall mounts. Each fotoflōt comes with a wall mount that makes the photos modular. Once the mounts are in place, you can have a number of fotoflōt photos and switch them out in seconds.

Right now, fotoflōt is working directly with Smug Mug, a photo sharing service. In fact, in order to use fotoflōt I had to upload my photos to Smug Mug first. This may change soon.

(My Flickr account)

Photo Products to Watch in 2008

leelefever — Tue, 8 Jan 2008 21:01:04 -0500

Fotoflōt

2. Magnetic wall mounts. Each fotoflōt comes with a wall mount that makes the photos modular. Once the mounts are in place, you can have a number of fotoflōt photos and switch them out in seconds.

Right now, fotoflōt is working directly with Smug Mug, a photo sharing service. In fact, in order to use fotoflōt I had to upload my photos to Smug Mug first. This may change soon.

(My Flickr account)