We have a family Flickr site, it is unlimited & I pay for it. Yet it doesn't get used by everyone. One reason is the uploader can be slow & a hassle if you upload large size pix. But, I need large size pictures for my digital scrapbook pages, plus larger size pictures are a better quality all around, esp. if you want to print them.
I do not use Flickr as my back up & I don't recommend that you do. I have all my pix saved on an external hard drive, that hard drive has another external hard drive that is a back up, and I also have Carbonite, a cheap online back up. But Flickr works well for sharing & if you are on a trip, etc. Mainly because it saves the pictures in various sizes (including original) & it also allows for the uploading of video.
As I said I need large, good quality pictures for my scrapbook pages & when I do photo manipulations. An article in December Issue Photoshop User Magazine (1st of a 3 part series) explains about image resizing. "The Pixel (size) is the Thing" written by Dave Cross on Page 64. You can get the magazine at the bookstore – or you can become a National Association of Photoshop Professionals (NAPP), like me, & get the magazine & lots & lots of extras & discounts. It really helped me to understand how to resize a picture (not just click & drag). If you are interested I would check that article out. (See bottom of post for links on how to become a NAPP member.)
But this isn't about sites, it is about pictures. So let's get down to business:I do not use Flickr as my back up & I don't recommend that you do. I have all my pix saved on an external hard drive, that hard drive has another external hard drive that is a back up, and I also have Carbonite, a cheap online back up. But Flickr works well for sharing & if you are on a trip, etc. Mainly because it saves the pictures in various sizes (including original) & it also allows for the uploading of video.
As I said I need large, good quality pictures for my scrapbook pages & when I do photo manipulations. An article in December Issue Photoshop User Magazine (1st of a 3 part series) explains about image resizing. "The Pixel (size) is the Thing" written by Dave Cross on Page 64. You can get the magazine at the bookstore – or you can become a National Association of Photoshop Professionals (NAPP), like me, & get the magazine & lots & lots of extras & discounts. It really helped me to understand how to resize a picture (not just click & drag). If you are interested I would check that article out. (See bottom of post for links on how to become a NAPP member.)
- Set camera pix size
Since each camera is a little different, get out your manual and look up image quality. You should be able then to scroll through the options and select a larger picture size.
- I am not going to explain pixels, etc. to you as there are lots of articles on the internet & free articles, just think of it like this. The MORE pixels you have the better your picture quality when you print it. The LESS pixels you have, the less information you have to work with if you ever want to use that photo for anything. Your print quality will not be good and your image will not enlarge well.
I do photo composites & digital scrapbooking & I sometimes use photos taken by my family members. I have gotten a variety of picture qualities from them, when I ask that the original .jpg be e-mailed to me. Here are some examples – please note that size of the photo & then read the pixels & file size noted. Each is placed on the exact 12x12 background (from Scrapgirls.com) and there has been no retouching or resizing when I created the document. The pictures are the exact same size as they were when I took them or received them.
The pix here are from various sources – a cell phone, downloaded from Facebook, downloaded from an album type web site and then e-mailed to me from a camera set on its lowest quality setting:
The next is a picture at high quality from a 7.1 MP point & shoot camera:
Finally a photo at high quality from a 10MP camera:
As you can see, the size difference alone is dramatic. You can always reduce a picture and still retain some quality, but enlarging one with very few pixels isn't a pretty site.
- The only drawback of having a high quality pictures is storage size. But today that is easily remedied. The price of external storage is cheap. I do not keep any of my photos on my computer for storage, as I said above, I keep them on external hard drives.
I also have a Pro Flickr account (there are others, I like Flickr). It comes in really handy when I travel. Every night I upload all the pix I took that day to Flickr. That way, just in case anything bad happens, my pictures are at least on Flickr and can be recovered from there if need be. I don't retouch them or anything at that point.
After a photoshoot I download immediately all the pix on my card. I use Adobe Bridge – it does video too, &/or Adobe Lightroom – but there are many out there & your computer probably came with one too.
I have my program set to put my photos in the file I want and also to create a back up file on my C: drive. (I only do that because Carbonite does not back up from external drives.) Then once I have checked to make sure ALL my pictures have made it off of the card, I reformat the card & it is ready to use again. The first of every month, after I make sure Carbonite has backed up the files in my back up folder on the C: drive, I move them onto ANOTHER external hard drive (that I keep in a separate location from my computer), then I delete those pix off of my C: drive.
You can also get thumb drives that hold several gigabytes now, so you can use them as your external storage and back up also. I would still check the integrity of these devices every quarter or so. Hard drives have been known to fail.
So it costs me $55/yr for Carbonite & $25/yr for Flickr. But I feel safe that my pictures are going to be around if someone were to come in my house & steal all my equipment or there was a house fire, etc.
- The only drawback of having a high quality pictures is storage size. But today that is easily remedied. The price of external storage is cheap. I do not keep any of my photos on my computer for storage, as I said above, I keep them on external hard drives.
Carbonite (if you contact me with your e-mail address, I can get you an extra month free, but you must do so prior to downloading the free trial)
So please - check & see if you have your picture quality set to the highest your camera will allow. Why have all those megapixels if you aren't going to use them??? And don't forget - get them off of your camera card & back up back up back up! You will thank me someday.
