Flickr is one of the most popular online photo management sharing applications in the world. Flickr was launched in February 2004 by Ludicorp and quickly became the world’s most popular repository of images and photographs.
Flickr was one of the earliest Web 2.0 applications available. Flickr is not only popular for sharing personal photographs, but the recent blogging community has started using Flickr as a photo repository. As of November 2007, Flickr hosts more than two billion images and is fueled by its organizational tools.
Using your digital camera to upload photos to the web is simple. Managing them is also easy, but for a beginner, it can be a little hard to understand. Most computers come with photo management software. If your computer doesn’t come with software, you can easily load the software that came with your camera.
Photo sharing can be broken down into two groups: free online photo sharing and charged-based photo sharing. Many of the sites that offer free photo sharing allow limited space and overwhelm the user with advertising information. A paid site typically offers services directly to the consumer and reduces the amount of advertising and sale of goods. Paid sites usually hold more photos and allow you more “guest passes” than a free membership will.
A number of photo sharing sites have begun printing photos for the user and mailing the photos to the user. Printing photos at home is considered time consuming, costly and offers lower quality. Usually you will upload your photos to the online photo sharing web site and edit your photos. Once your photos are satisfactory, you can go ahead and order prints and gifts and have them shipped directly to your home.
Keep in mind that the primary goal of many photo sharing web sites is to sell you back your own photographs in the form of prints and gifts. The online album you create probably will not allow your friends and family to download the individual photo you have sent. The images can also be deleted if no purchases are made.
Depending upon the photo management software your camera comes with, you could be looking at an easy task, or a complex application that is quite different from your other camera or from other photo management software you have used in the past.
Uploading your photos to Flickr is easy. If you start with a free Flickr account, you can upload 100MB worth of photos each month. This is a bandwidth limit, not the actual amount of space you have with Flickr services. On the first of each calendar month, your bandwidth allowance will be reset by Flickr. You cannot reduce your bandwidth amount by deleting photos. If you start hitting your monthly bandwidth limit, you should upgrade to the Flickr Pro account. Another option you have is to shoot your photos in a smaller resolution or resize them to be “web friendly.”
Flickr has five ways in which you can upload your photos:
• The Flickr uploadr
• The iPhoto, Aperture, or Windows XP plugins
• Upload web page
• Email
• Third-party desktop programs
Fortunately, Flickr has a wide range of uploading tools available for both Mac and Windows. Emailing your photos to Flickr is an easy method to get your photos uploaded. You will have your unique email address that you use and you can send photos to your Flickr photostream or upload them to your Flickr photostream and automatically have the pictures posted to your blog. In order to do this, you can go to Flickr’s help page and configure your email settings.