Photos

[John Terefenko]

Being photobucket has become a grab as much as they can site, has anyone offloaded their photos from there and placed on another free site?? If so how did you do it and what other free site is reliable to store photos and share on web sites?? Thanks in advance.

[John K Jordan]

I don't personally know of one (I don't use them).

Do you just want space to store photos or are you looking for free photo-specific services? Or are you looking for for a web site to host photos so you can provide a URL instead of uploading or sending a file?

I guess it depends on how many photos you have. Google drive gives 15 gig of free space. Asking Google for "what cloud storage is free" will give you some options, perhaps not photo specific. But couldn't any free site suddenly pull a Photobucket and hold your photos hostage and start charging?

I prefer to keep all of my photos on local drives with multiple backups. Besides the access time over the net, I don't think I could find enough free space to hold my photos. Of course, I'm a card-carrying photo maniac. I just did a search and found over 58,000 jpgs on my drives, almost all of them photos I took myself over the years. (Those from 30yrs of employment are archived offline!) Some files are small but unedited shots from the cameras are 3-5 megs each. I keep photos on fast 500 gig solid state drives for quicker access.

JKJ

[John Terefenko]

Not sure if I can answer your questions but yes any free site can do exactly what Photobucket did. But they gave no warning they would do this. Just one day decided to make money. Many people have used them for years such as myself for 9 years and have many photos on different forums that now are gone. Another of your questions is easy. When you have most of your photos on a site like that you can see them right away and actually set up different albums so even easier to find. Just click and copy and paste. That is what makes it easier instead of setting up photo albums on every site you visit such as this one.

[Mike Kreinhop]

I use Flickr as one of my image hosting sites. For now, it's free and allows unrestricted sharing. However, there are low cost image hosting options, such as Smugmug and Zenfolio, that offer unlimited storage and sharing.

[Keith Outten]

No matter where you go the company that hosts your pictures online has to have a source of funding. Whether its advertising or fees the cost of commercial bandwidth is seriously more expensive than what you pay for your personal access to the Internet and someone has to pay. A business cannot continue to provide free services witout funds, not for long anyway.

Those of you who are running ad blockers are just putting off the costs of access to your favorite web sites. When the advertising views drop below a certain point the funds stop and free stops pretty quick. Ask me how I know this is true?

[John K Jordan]

...any free site can do exactly what Photobucket did. But they gave no warning they would do this. Just one day decided to make money. Many people have used them for years such as myself for 9 years and have many photos on different forums that now are gone.

...When you have most of your photos on a site like that you can see them right away and actually set up different albums so even easier to find. Just click and copy and paste. That is what makes it easier instead of setting up photo albums on every site you visit such as this one.

You make a good argument for not using free photo-hosting sites!

If organization is the reason to use a photo-hosting site I can't see how it is useful to me. I already organize my photos into albums on my local drives and can very quickly find any photo and view it with a click. When I want to use one in an email or document I can copy paste, drag and drop, or "insert image" and for forum use I can upload with a click. I can also view, organize, create documents, and otherwise use all the photos without internet access. An example: I sometimes start a woodturning demo with a slide show - with my laptop I can prepare the pictures in the car or anywhere. Before I post a photo I usually spend a few seconds to crop and edit as needed and reduce the image and file size to make it internet friendly - I save the smaller version in the organized albums ready for posting. This is all so quick and easy: as my piano teacher was fond of saying, "everything's easy once you know how."

I don't use a link to my photos on a forum since, as you well described, linked photos can disappear without warning. Even photos linked from a person's personal web page can disappear permanently if that person quits maintaining the web site or passes away or something. Some archived messages and threads are almost useless now because of dead photo links.

The over-riding point for me is putting photos in someone's hands removes the control from mine. I keep nothing in the "cloud". A server crash, a natural disaster, a computer hack, a hosting service mismanagement, or as discovered, a sudden change in policy and business model can cause instant loss - all without warning. My personal photo archive is important to me and I want to keep control in my own hands rather than the mercy of others. Having relied on my data for my living for 30 years I trust no one and backup everything myself to multiple storage devices. (Macrium Reflect is incredible) Something my mother said applies here, at least for me, "if you want something done right, do it yourself."

BTW, there is nothing that guarantees that any forum, even this one, will be here in the future. I know from past experience that providing a free public forum is not free! Without a wealthy supporting benefactor each site has to pay for itself. I personally support the forums I frequent with my $$ even if they don't require it. Some, like SMC, have distinct advantages for contributing even a tiny amount, they ask just 50 cents a month here! http://www.sawmillcreek.org/payments.php I'd feel a big loss if one day SMC and the entire archive of messages (with photos) suddenly disappeared for financial reasons.

JKJ

[Jim Becker]

I used PhotoBucket for years and gave them the "heave-ho" after then changed their policy earlier this year. I was already paying them about $40 a year for expanded storage, but wasn't in any way, shape or form going to pay them $400 to be able to link to my photos. Since I have a Microsoft Office 365 subscription, I have a Terabyte of storage available there, so I moved my photos into that system and use that now when I want to link to things. It's not free, but I'm already paying for it, so I essentially lowered my cost. Google and Amazon have nice storage capabilities, but the linking part is problematic. I use Amazon strictly for cloud backup purposes for that reason.

With few exceptions, I'm uploading images here to SMC when I post at this point; the linking thing is largely for incidental things or for displaying images on the various forums I participate in that require linking. (they don't host photos internally by policy)

[John Terefenko]

You make a good argument for not using free photo-hosting sites!

If organization is the reason to use a photo-hosting site I can't see how it is useful to me. I already organize my photos into albums on my local drives and can very quickly find any photo and view it with a click. When I want to use one in an email or document I can copy paste, drag and drop, or "insert image" and for forum use I can upload with a click. I can also view, organize, create documents, and otherwise use all the photos without internet access. An example: I sometimes start a woodturning demo with a slide show - with my laptop I can prepare the pictures in the car or anywhere. Before I post a photo I usually spend a few seconds to crop and edit as needed and reduce the image and file size to make it internet friendly - I save the smaller version in the organized albums ready for posting. This is all so quick and easy: as my piano teacher was fond of saying, "everything's easy once you know how."

I don't use a link to my photos on a forum since, as you well described, linked photos can disappear without warning. Even photos linked from a person's personal web page can disappear permanently if that person quits maintaining the web site or passes away or something. Some archived messages and threads are almost useless now because of dead photo links.

The over-riding point for me is putting photos in someone's hands removes the control from mine. I keep nothing in the "cloud". A server crash, a natural disaster, a computer hack, a hosting service mismanagement, or as discovered, a sudden change in policy and business model can cause instant loss - all without warning. My personal photo archive is important to me and I want to keep control in my own hands rather than the mercy of others. Having relied on my data for my living for 30 years I trust no one and backup everything myself to multiple storage devices. (Macrium Reflect is incredible) Something my mother said applies here, at least for me, "if you want something done right, do it yourself."

BTW, there is nothing that guarantees that any forum, even this one, will be here in the future. I know from past experience that providing a free public forum is not free! Without a wealthy supporting benefactor each site has to pay for itself. I personally support the forums I frequent with my $$ even if they don't require it. Some, like SMC, have distinct advantages for contributing even a tiny amount, they ask just 50 cents a month here! http://www.sawmillcreek.org/payments.php I'd feel a big loss if one day SMC and the entire archive of messages (with photos) suddenly disappeared for financial reasons.

JKJ

To defend my point against your points is basically ROOM you need to be able to store that many photos and when you start with videos it adds up quickly. I get the point about nothing is free. But I can put up with the ads that Photobucket was showing. It is the no warning part. I never had posted anything that is that important anyway. I am not an important person as many of you are. But there are times I may get a question regarding something I shown a few years ago and now all the photos I had there explaining what I di back then are gone and I can not remember what I had for dinner last night. So it makes it tough. I get the backing things up too because any computer can be hacked at any time no matter what safety features you think you have. We try to prevent such things. Maybe what I will do is get some seperate hard drive or storage disc to keep just photos.

[Ken Fitzgerald]

My wife used to be a camera queen. I have a 400lb. fire resistant safe in our basement just to store her photos, photo CDs and a very small amount of documents. To store her photos, I also have 2 standalone disk drives one is 2 terabyte and one is 4 terabyte. The smaller one is full and the larger one is approaching it.

John, maybe the financial stress suddenly became enough, they had no choice to change business patterns or go out of business. That happens. As Keith pointed out the bandwidth costs could have been increased by their carrier that Photobucket had to immediately either increase their costs or decrease their requirement for bandwidth to stay in business. I am not defending them as I didn't have a dog in that fight but am merely expressing a possibility.

[John Terefenko]

My wife used to be a camera queen. I have a 400lb. fire resistant safe in our basement just to store her photos, photo CDs and a very small amount of documents. To store her photos, I also have 2 standalone disk drives one is 2 terabyte and one is 4 terabyte. The smaller one is full and the larger one is approaching it.

John, maybe the financial stress suddenly became enough, they had no choice to change business patterns or go out of business. That happens. As Keith pointed out the bandwidth costs could have been increased by their carrier that Photobucket had to immediately either increase their costs or decrease their requirement for bandwidth to stay in business. I am not defending them as I didn't have a dog in that fight but am merely expressing a possibility.

Ken that defense probably does not hold water because now more and more people like me are leaving completely so those ads they had running are now not being seen by that much less eyeballs. So they are not getting the money to run the site from us. So now what do they do?? I do understand it cost money to run a site but also to gouge people is not ethical either.

My problem is anytime I get into a conversation on any forum and want to show photos I was able to click a certain place PB and copy and paste. I could see all photos in various albums so knew where to look easily. Now if I have to put in a hard drive and search for photos it gets to the point I do not want to participate in the conversation as much. Just frustrating and looking for an alternative.

[Keith Outten]

John,

The eyeball views you mentioned have been going down for the last couple of years because people use ad blocking software. Advertising banners are now being viewed at a fraction of what they were a couple years ago. When the views drop the advertising funds drop and free becomes an impossible option. Get used to it, its going to happen more frequently all over the Internet.

.

[John Terefenko]

John,

The eyeball views you mentioned have been going down for the last couple of years because people use ad blocking software. Advertising banners are now being viewed at a fraction of what they were a couple years ago. When the views drop the advertising funds drop and free becomes an impossible option. Get used to it, its going to happen more frequently all over the Internet.

.

Keith again I say what did they accomplish by putting such a ridiculous fee. People are not going to pay $400 a year to store photos. They leave and what did they gain. That is my point. I understand it takes money to run a site and nothing is for free except one person's opinion. I believe I must get an external source to store photos but be able to sort them easily and be able to link them to the computer easily. I do not want to have to sort through a bunch of links to post a photo. I will work it out. Thanks all for the posts.

[Keith Outten]

Honestly I can't say what the expectations are for raising prices to such a high level in one step. We can assume that their losses have been very steep and they are now forced to raise fees very high or face severe financial problems. I know from personal experience that the statistics kind of creep up on you very quick if your not paying strict attention to your advertising numbers. Advertisers are very difficult to attract and they will often leave unexpectedly with just an email sent to announce their changes in marketing strategy.

I can say that if you host pictures for someone who is not paying for the service and they are using software to block advertising you haven't lost anything when they leave. Even if their pictures are very popular with large groups of people if those viewing their pictures are blocking advertisements its a losing proposition.

Those who have been operating servers on the Internet for a long time know that its a losing battle trying to promote advertising when its so easy to install free software that negates your efforts. You can't fight the battle when it costs you money to pay programmers to develope a system that defends from the blocking software and two weeks later another free version of the software is out that kills your efforts. I think that most commercial services are now accepting that changing from free access or steep raises in fees is their only option. Nobody is going to win, even the hosting companies that people move to who are still offering free or inexpensive services will have to make adjustments based on huge numbers of people moving to use their services. Ultimately I expect that they will eventually fail because you cannot give your services away and still be able to pay the bills if advertising income is off the table.

[Jim Becker]

I can say that if you host pictures for someone who is not paying for the service and they are using software to block advertising you haven't lost anything when they leave. Even if their pictures are very popular with large groups of people if those viewing their pictures are blocking advertisements its a losing proposition. .

That's very true, Keith. Unfortunately, this also caught all of us that were already paying annually for storage (my PB plan was about $40 a year) and we suddenly lost the ability to link to our photos from other sites unless we ponied up $400. If it was a hundred...well, maybe to avoid the issues of changing and so forth, but not $400. This really hit the forum world very hard because unlike SMC, many forums do not provide the ability to store content locally and require linking to display images. In my case, this rendered my BLOGS from our adoption completely meaningless and I had to take them down. It would have also affected some of my websites if I hadn't already shut them down for lack of time and interest.

I also agree that ad-blocking is going to have profound effects on how content is made available, even at the grassroots level. Magazine, "TV" and news sites are already detecting and disallowing access when ad-blocking is detected and I suspect that's how things are going to start happening with many other content sources including forums, particularly for folks who are not willing to pony up small amounts of money to participate and benefit. I mean...SMC only asks for six US bucks and it's personally disappointing to me that so many don't bother to contribute to this great resource. But I'm speaking to the choir (leader) here...

[John Terefenko]

Honestly I can't say what the expectations are for raising prices to such a high level in one step. We can assume that their losses have been very steep and they are now forced to raise fees very high or face severe financial problems. I know from personal experience that the statistics kind of creep up on you very quick if your not paying strict attention to your advertising numbers. Advertisers are very difficult to attract and they will often leave unexpectedly with just an email sent to announce their changes in marketing strategy.

I can say that if you host pictures for someone who is not paying for the service and they are using software to block advertising you haven't lost anything when they leave. Even if their pictures are very popular with large groups of people if those viewing their pictures are blocking advertisements its a losing proposition.

Those who have been operating servers on the Internet for a long time know that its a losing battle trying to promote advertising when its so easy to install free software that negates your efforts. You can't fight the battle when it costs you money to pay programmers to develope a system that defends from the blocking software and two weeks later another free version of the software is out that kills your efforts. I think that most commercial services are now accepting that changing from free access or steep raises in fees is their only option. Nobody is going to win, even the hosting companies that people move to who are still offering free or inexpensive services will have to make adjustments based on huge numbers of people moving to use their services. Ultimately I expect that they will eventually fail because you cannot give your services away and still be able to pay the bills if advertising income is off the table.

Again Keith you are defending them. If you raise prices to stay in business but the prices are so steep no one buys into it how did you save your site???? Makes no sense at all. If there are desperate people that have their business tied into that site then maybe it is possible to keep a few people but is that enough to offset the costs of losing so many. A small fee would have gone over alot better and the income probably would have outweighed the small that need to stay. I think there is something else behind this move and someday it will come out.