Sharing photos and videos?

[ny biker]

I would like to be able to upload photos and videos from my pc, phone or tablet to a website so that they can be viewed by me or others online, and maybe also downloaded to another device. Does anyone do this? What website do you like?

I used to use Picasa years ago, but then Google started messing around with things and integrating it with google plus, which I do not want to get involved with. Last time I looked I couldn't even find the home page to access my photos on Picasa. I also do not want to use google drive. That company is already way too far up in my business -- I don't want any more involvement with them than is necessary on my phone and tablet.

I thought Dropbox might be what I want, but they seem to be all about syncing files across devices. I do not want this. I want to copy files to the website without affecting the original on the pc, phone or tablet, then send a url to others so they can see the pictures.

Should I be using Flickr? Something else?

Thanks!

[rebeccaC]

i use flickr and can easily recommend it. you can share photos/videos with others through a link or use a bbcode to easily post an image to sites like this one, a blog etc. you upload images directly from your computer, phone (BikeDutchess uploads some beautiful iPhone photos), external hard drive etc with the image also staying where it is. there is 1tb of free space. i have 6000+ photos on my main site and have used just 7 percent of my free space.

i have a few flickr accounts....a main one, one for the ride photos i post here and i'll use one for just certain photos i want to share with someone.

eta...on my mac's/ipad i can move the original size of my photo (click/drag) from flickr to any device connected to my mac/ipad or to a photo editor. There are also privacy/permission settings that allows only you to be able to view and/or download the original size and sets the maximum size of an image viewers can see...even with a permission setting if someone can see an image in a browser there is probably a way they can download it. i set my viewers size to 1600 so they can see the detail better but won't be able to print a large image with good resolution.

[Pax]

I use Photobucket, it's free and does a decent job, however they did manage to resize some older pics I'd uploaded, it messed up the quality when I tried to get larger prints (and no longer had the original files for the pics).

For pat sites I'd say Smugmug does a great job, very secure and they save your files on multiple servers across the country so there's extra security.

[rebeccaC]

I'd say Smugmug does a great job, very secure and they save your files on multiple servers across the country so there's extra security.

i always save my photos to external hard drives as i don't want to rely on any online site to be the only place i keep my photos. I remember having problems with flickr when they were going through some design changes a couple of years ago and went to both smugmug and photobucket. Flickr came out of the design changes and with yahoo ceo marissa mayer wanting and backing it to be good it has turned into my favorite for ease of use...... all three are good to post photos to for sharing and viewing. Smugmug has a cost and the other two have free options. Once signed in on flickr you don't see ads and that costs on photobucket though. i think flickr has more of a community feel than the other two and searching for other peoples photos, for technique, inspiration and especially to give you a feel for an area before you go, is easy.

[BikeDutchess]

(BikeDutchess uploads some beautiful iPhone photos)

Aw, thanks, Rebecca! I do love that phone.

I add my vote for Flickr. I've found it very easy to use. Really enjoy following Rebecca's stream as well! You can add some level of security on Flickr too. Certain photos I restrict to family only or friends only. If you want to share those photos with others without making them public, you can create a "guest pass" which creates a special link that allows others to view them.

[Trek420]

I back up the iDevices to iTunes and use Flicker. I like posting pictures direct from iPhone to Flicker. Just another free back up source.

[Sharon N.]

I've used Flickr with success too. Shutterfly also offers unlimited photo storage as well and you can create your own share pages. For example, on vacation I took a lot of photos of my friend's children I wanted to share with her. I uploaded them, created a password protected share page and gave her access to it. She was able to save them to her own Shuttefly photos and download them without compression compromising photo quality, yet the photos were protected from random folks browsing through them.

[ny biker]

Thank you all very much for your input. I signed up with flickr and installed the app on my phone.

But, I guess I'm an idiot. I took photos and videos with my phone this morning and want to upload them to Flickr so that others can see them. For the life of me I can't figure out how to upload anything from the phone using the app. The only option is the auto uploader that will automatically store everything on Flickr, and I do not want that. Also the app keeps closing for no apparent reason.

On the internet, Flickr.com seems more about forcing photos taken by other people in front of me rather than doing anything with my own photos.

Granted I"m tired right now because I got up at 6 am after only 5 hours of sleep, did a bike ride with strong headwinds, had a snack, went to a store, then went to the bike club's annual volunteer dinner, then drove home which included a wrong turn and getting stuck in traffic for the tree lighting at National Harbor despite the fact that it's not even Thanksgiving yet.

But I would expect uploading photos to an app designed to store photos should be a no-brainer.

Meanwhile I will upload the stuff to Dropbox, since that app is not really what I want to use but at least it's easy to figure out.

Sorry if I sound cranky.

[BikeDutchess]

I'm not sure if the app looks different on iPhones vs other phones. I click on the camera icon at the bottom of the app, and if I want to upload a photo that I took with another app, I then click on the rectangle in the lower left corner, and then I select the photo I want to upload from the applicable Album. Does this help? Feel free to PM me and I'll be happy to try & help.

[ny biker]

Thank you, Bike Dutchess. I think the app was not working right when I tried it the other day. The icons on the main page leave me confused, but when I click on the camera icon it does let me access the photos already taken on the phone.

(There is a general trend in websites and phone apps where they use icons instead of words, but it is not at all obvious what the icons are supposed to mean. It makes me feel old and stupid. I do not like feeling old and stupid.)

I ended up creating an account with Shutterfly, too. I was going through old emails to clean out my inbox and I found one with a link to a photo album on shutterfly. I created the account so I could save the photos. Now I just need to figure out how to download them to my pc.

[ny biker]

Sigh. I just uploaded some photos from today's bike ride to Flickr, using the app on my phone. I put them in a new folder. Then when I tried to look at them on my pc, it looked like there were duplicates in the "camera roll," whatever that is. So I deleted them, and now the whole damn folder and all the photos in it are gone.

So, they're on Dropbox now.

I think most people who work on apps and websites need to realize that most people don't have time to play around with things like this and certainly don't have time for tutorials to learn how their sites work. Just make it simple, make it ridiculously obvious how to do things, and test it with people who have non-technical jobs and busy lives.