Their first impression on me was pretty bad. I was appalled that they make you join Yahoo first. If this is a way to get more people to like Yahoo, it certainly didn't work on me. I find them even more annoying than I already did, and have decided to not even go look at their main page to see what exactly I'm annoyed about. Ha! It would have been so much cleverer to make Flickr and Yahoo accounts interchangeable - same result, far less irritation.
Next surprise? You can CHEAT like there's no tomorrow. I just thought I would add a little border to my pictures, perhaps a little caption underneath. I've cropped pictures before myself. With Flickr? You can make photos sharper, brighter, crop them, change them any way you want. (At least, you can after the editing software has finished loading - it takes forever.) I already knew I shouldn't believe anything I see online, but shit it's much worse than I thought. I'm sure this is all common knowledge and I was being naive, but I'm shocked nonetheless.
Another thing that shouldn't surprise me was how much they are trying to push their paid services. The free upload limit is tiny (less than 100 of my photos a month) and a lot of editing tools are "premium" ones, yet they are displayed all the time to tempt you to buy the full service. It's annoying because you have to scroll through all the paid options to get to the free ones. And because it makes the whole site feel very unwelcoming if you don't upgrade.
Then there's the difficulty of getting the pictures actually into Blogger. Flickr will let you link your Flickr account to your Blogger account, but I couldn't get it to do more than one picture at a time. Then I had a problem getting Blogger to load pictures from Flickr directly. I worked it out in the end, but it sure was an exercise in staying calm under pressure. (I may have failed that one, actually.)
I tried out some of the features. We went for a walk in the park this morning, so I used the spoils of that expedition for the pictures. Enjoy, but remember they are a big fat lie! -- I promise I won't lie pictorially in the future now I've discovered this. Or if I do, I will tell you about it.
How do you all deal with pictures? Can you help me with some software or websites I should try or avoid? I'm a novice, so go easy on me.
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It all depends on what you want out of it. Flickr is great for sharing and networking, and if you're serious about it, you will need the paid service-which is reasonably priced considered you have unlimited storage (no unlimited service comes free). I don't use the paid service and only use it for photos I want to share on my blog. (I don't really store masses of pictures online anyway.) I have a photobox account which I like - you can print pictures and the capacity is good and increases with each order. Cheaper than Flickr and you can also share albums. Photobucket is similar to this, snapfish too.
ReplyDeleteHowever, I prefer to store my pictures on computer and external harddrive, and I also prefer software on my computer to make things such as photobooks (I'm quite happy with photosmart by Blurb, but photobook do software for computers too).
Bottom line of my ramble: think about what you want out of it and get the best deal for that.
Flickr isn't all it's cracked up to be, in my opinion. I pay for a premium Photobucket account, so I can host larger images I use for design work, and have unlimited storage for other stuff.
ReplyDeleteAs far as editing software, well... I don't do a whole lot of editing.
I love the flickr/fuckr bit - I had similar problems and it took me AGES to get it sorted
ReplyDeleteGosh. I'm so unsophisticated that I'm completely happy with my pictures uploaded from my computer where I put them from my camera. And you know what? I think it'll stay that way.
ReplyDeleteSo no. I have no advice for you. Sorry! I'm a technotard!
yeah, not all of us can be ROCKET!! but sometimes we like to try... I had this fun CD that came with an old scanner like 10 years ago, Greetings Workshop... like the Hallmark thing, right? The best time I've ever had with software. User friendly and made some REALLY cool shit. Alas, it is for windows 98...
ReplyDeleteLike Ms Moon, I'm a technotard. Upload from my camera, and it still takes forever when I'm at dial-up home in the village. Gives me time to have breakfast, water the garden, or whatever. Multi-tasking.
ReplyDeleteyeah i could not take flickr anymore because I wanted to upload way more than they would let me to use on my blog. So I use photobucket, which is super fast in the upload. I do not know much about their editing stuff because I have photoshop and lightroom and edit and then upload. But yeah I had the same problems with flickr.
ReplyDeleteAvoid Kodak Gallery like the plague. I couldn't get the Boots site to work either (probably not relevant to you).
ReplyDeleteHm. I don't use Flickr, or wait, no, see, I have a Flickr account that I never use. I have iPhoto and am sort of learning how to use it. My goal is to take better pictures eventually. Someday.
ReplyDeleteI use Photobucket. Free account serves my needs. I have a personal one and a blog one.
ReplyDeleteNever really tried Flickr.
Fukcr mAde me LOL!
:)
Excellent title!
ReplyDelete@cartside - I suppose I should get a bit less cheap. :-) The one time I paid for an online service, I stopped using it that week. After coughing up for a lifetime license.
ReplyDelete@Badass Geek - I will try Photobucket - thanks.
@Kathryn - I suppose it may just be a matter of getting used to it.
@Ms. Moon - A technotard - that's funny. I've just been wanting to add a little bit of text to the frame of a picture - at least now I know how to do that.
@Laura Lee - I probably have some stuff already on my laptop - I can just be really software-phobic at times.
@Pueblo girl - Dial-up? You poor thing.
ReplyDelete@mountainmomma - It does seem like a very small limit.
@Iota - Thanks, I will avoid both.
@Aunt Becky - iPhoto - I bet that goes with an iPhone. (Dream, dream - call me, Steve Jobs - I will mention my iPhone on my blog ALL.THE.TIME if you give me one.)
@Insomniac Mummy - I am trying that. Today.
@Lorna Harris - Thanks. :-)
Well I do love your pics of the leaves, the autumn walk in the park feeling, the classic truth that leaves have fallen from trees long before any of us knew how to take pictures of them... I guess that makes enjoying that flkring "lie" a guilty pleasure (something that usually needs to involve sex, violence or food)!
ReplyDelete