Influencer II
One of my absolute favorite things to do on forums, whether it be here on OB or one of the various other forums I'm a member of, is share photographs of adventures and trips. For me, photography is a hobby that I really enjoy pursuing and it goes hand-in-hand with overland travel.
To avoid future broken links, and potential site security issues, OLB recommends using the "attach" feature when creating a post to upload your image to the OLB server. If you would like to collect and host your images from an external site however, here are a few options.
I saw some broken links earlier in the forum, and the poster mentioned that the hosting site (photobucket) had been up and down all day. I didn't realize people were still using photobucket (which seems to always be having problems with downtime... this is not the first, nor fifth, time I have heard of users having trouble with them being down). I figured I'd take some time to write an article for those that are looking into solutions for storing and sharing their photographs, whether they be novice photographers that are just getting into the hobby, or experienced pros that may be evaluating how to best share their content with the public, or folks that aren't happy with their current solutions.
I'm not going to cover every option out there, but I'm going to cover some major players that I have experience with, some other major players that I don't have experience with but that I have heard positive things about, and I'm going to try to cover a mix of free and paid options, as well as some "freemium" options (where an initial amount of space may be given for free, but additional space comes at a cost).
Also, I'm only going to cover options that allow for easy, permanent sharing of the direct image file on forums or to other social platforms (e.g. a permanent link directly do the .jpg), and will allow for storing high quality image files. This excludes platforms like Facebook and Instagram because, while those sites are great for sharing, it's a bit more of a dance to get the direct image link from them (though it can be done), and because they both compress images uploaded to them (especially Facebook - their compression kills resolution and color profiles). Also, most people these days have some degree of privacy enabled on their Facebook account, which is not conducive to sharing on other platforms (and if you don't have some degree of privacy enabled on your account or you're not sure, go review your privacy settings RIGHT NOW. Seriously, stop reading this article and go do it). This also excludes self-hosting websites through a hosting company like GoDaddy, Name(dot)com, DreamHost, Amazon Web Services , Google Cloud Platform, etcetera, as while these are options to permalink to an image file, it's likely over the heads of the less technical crowd.
NOTE: As time goes on, the prices and storage mentioned below may change (likely for the better, as prices of cloud storage space - just like physical storage space - gets cheaper with time).
If you have a particular platform that you like, feel free to write it up as a reply, but please actually write it up, don't just say something like "I use <whatever platform> because I like it." I'm glad you like whatever platform you use, but that doesn't help those that are evaluating options or just getting started.
The options:
The younger crowd (and those that use Reddit) will most likely know about Imgur. Imgur is completely free (and you don't even need to create an account to upload photos in stunning quality (but I would recommend doing so if you are going to use it as a place to store and share your photography, unless you are one of those old or tin-foil-wearing hat folks that is distrustful of the internet - you should be - and spends most of your time yelling into your computer microphone at the government spies that are DEFINITELY watching you, and looking out your back window at the sky for black helicopters that are DEFINITELY following you around). Imgur is a social platform, so you can choose your sharing settings within the site itself, but also share direct links to the images on external platforms without sharing them with the Imgur community itself. It's also an awesome platform for memes, gifs, and all the lolcats on the internet.
Google Photos
Google Photos is included with every Gmail account (or Gsuite account, but I doubt most folks have their own personal Gsuite accounts, unless you've got a small business...). By default, every Gmail account comes free with 15GB of storage, but this storage is consumed by email, files on Google Drive, photos in Google Photos, docs in Google Docs, etc. And, by free, I mean that Google is collecting and selling your information to the guys that are following you around in those black helicopters - LOOK, QUICK! THEY'RE BEHIND YOU RIGHT NOW. By the way, if you do have a Gsuite account, it comes with 30GB rather than the 15GB that a standard Gmail account comes with (I have like 15 Gmail accounts and a 1 user Gsuite account with like 6 other email addresses tied to it - it's like $24/year for the Gsuite account)
Google also gives you options to pay them for additional storage (though they aren't going to stop selling your personal information to the men in the black helicopters just because you are paying them). For $9.99 a month, you'll get 2TB of storage, for $99.99 a month, you'll get 10TB, and for $199.99 a month, you'll get 20TB. Honestly, I think the $9.99 a mont for 2TB of space is a pretty good deal. Yes, you could buy a 2TB hard drive for about the cost of one year of payments to Google for this space, but that hard drive can also get lost, stolen, or die on you... and then what? Yer screwed, that's what.
OneDrive
Not to be outdone by el Google, MicroSoft's OneDrive is included with every Outlook(dot)com account (as well as O365 accounts, but I doubt most folks have their own personal 0365 subscriptions, unless you've got a small business... I wouldn't recommend using the OneDrive you have at work, because when your company realizes that you're spending half of your workday on the Overland Bound forums, they're gonna fire you and then all your awesome overlanding photos are gonna be GONE, just like that tin-foil-hat-wearing guy when the guys in the black helicopter catches up to him). By default, every Outlook(dot)com account comes with 15GB of storage, but as is with Google, this storage is consumed by email, files on OneDrive, etc. Also, it's only free because MicroSoft is reading all of your email and selling your information to the government, and every 4x4 vendor so they can serve you ads and make you spend all of your money on overlanding gear. One cool thing about OneDrive, though, is that Micro$oft will reward you with additional space for referrals (0.5GB per referral, capped at 10GB of additional space).
Also not to be outdone by the Google machine, MicroSoft is kind enough to allow you to pay them money for additional storage. For $1.99 a month, you'll get their "OneDrive Only" option which comes with 50GB of OneDrive space, for $6.99 a month (or $69.99 a year), you'll get their "Office 365 Personal" option which comes with 1TB of OneDrive Space as well as the basic Office suite for your PC or mac (Outlook, Word, Excel, and PowerPoint) and Outlook 2016 for PC or Mac for offline email access. But no one cares about that because WE ARE TALKING ABOUT PHOTO STORAGE, JASON, STAY ON TOPIC.
Dropbox
Allowing themselves to be completely and totally outdone by Google and MicroSoft, at least in terms of free storage and paid storage, is Dropbox. This would be a good option for someone that has recently woken up from a long nap under a rock and just discovered the internet. They give you a measly 2GB for free, and on the individual plans, they want $9.99 a month for 1TB, and $19.99 a month for 2TB. It would honestly be better to sign up for a Gmail or Outlook(dot)com account to get over 7 times the amount of free storage. How is this company still around with Google Drive and OneDrive out there? I think I know one person that still uses Dropbox. If you go with one of their team plans (which requires a minimum of 3 licenses), you can get 3TB for $15/user/month ($45/month) or unlimited space for $25/user/month ($75/month). If you need unlimited cloud storage and have the money to burn, the $75 a month deal doesn't seem so bad, but otherwise their rates are higher than what you'd pay per GB or TB from Google or Micro$oft. They do also give you a bit of a discount if you pay yearly instead of monthly.
ImageShack
ImageShack is a paid photo hosting platform that offers the following benefits on all of their plan options:
For $29.99 a month, you get all of the above features and dedicated support, a dynamic image resizer (who cares), and API access (okay, if you want to be a nerd about it) in their "pro" package. None of those features seem that important to me, unless you're running a business and need to work with the API and need access to support. You also get between 30GB and 1TB of bandwidth per month, which is a HUGE range... seems weird they would include a range like this and not just say "up to 1TB" but what do I know. Views count against your monthly bandwidth.
For $99.99 a month, you get all of the features in the "pro" package, but your monthly bandwidth gets increased to "between 1TB and 4TB" - an even bigger range - in their "premium" package. I still don't get why they don't say "up to 4TB" but, again, what do I know.
All of those prices get discounted if you pay for a year up front, and right now they are running a 50% off the "basic" package (which puts it at ~$19 for the year).
Flickr
Flickr was recently acquired by SmugMug. The plan going forward is that free accounts will soon be limited to 1,000 photos or videos. For $49.99/year you get unlimited space, ad-free browsing, and advanced statistics. That's a little over $4/month, but I'm not sure if that $49.99/year price is inclusive of a price break given for paying by the year. If it is, it would mean we should expect a monthly rate (if one is offered) to be at least $4.99 or so.
SmugMug
SmugMug is a subscription-only photo hosting site with A TON of extra features. It is what I personally use. I will also state that I have no affiliation with SmugMug, I just really like their product.
All plans include:
Prices are as follows:
Well, I have an iPhone X laying beside me, and I'll be getting an iPhone XS next month. I have an iPad Mini 4, and I'm typing this on a MacBook Pro. I also have an Apple Watch somewhere in a drawer because I put a hairline crack in the screen during a mountain bike crash, I have an AppleTV, pay for Apple Music, and pay for 200GB of space on iCloud to backup said devices.
iCloud SUCKS. The "Photos" app on Mac SUCKS. Even though a photo is sitting in the photos app, I can't easily navigate directly to that image file on my Mac's hard drive from the Photos app's UI. Is there a way to get to that image file? Yes. I know how. Is it more of a pain than it needs to be? YES. You know what's easier? To export the file from the Photos app to a location actually known to you (which then results in you having two copies of that image on your hard drive - STUPID. STUPID. I HATE IT.).
For example, in MacOS Mojave, in order to get to the original image file for a picture you took via your iPhone that was then "magically" uploaded into the "Photos" app (via iCloud sync), you have to open the terminal, and navigate to ~/Pictures/Photos Library.photoslibrary/Masters/ and once there, you have to further dive into the directory structure within the Masters directory, first by year, then by date, then by day, to locate the original image, and then you have to use "open <whatever the name of the image file is>" to open it in the Finder. Then you find out that most of the images are actually stored as .HEIC files and not JPEGS. All of this is just overly complicated, especially from a company that likes to tout that their products "just work" and often use phrases including "magic" when introducing us to new products.
Okay, rant over! Feel free to ask questions in the thread below, or post up about your favorite image hosting service!
To avoid future broken links, and potential site security issues, OLB recommends using the "attach" feature when creating a post to upload your image to the OLB server. If you would like to collect and host your images from an external site however, here are a few options.
I saw some broken links earlier in the forum, and the poster mentioned that the hosting site (photobucket) had been up and down all day. I didn't realize people were still using photobucket (which seems to always be having problems with downtime... this is not the first, nor fifth, time I have heard of users having trouble with them being down). I figured I'd take some time to write an article for those that are looking into solutions for storing and sharing their photographs, whether they be novice photographers that are just getting into the hobby, or experienced pros that may be evaluating how to best share their content with the public, or folks that aren't happy with their current solutions.
I'm not going to cover every option out there, but I'm going to cover some major players that I have experience with, some other major players that I don't have experience with but that I have heard positive things about, and I'm going to try to cover a mix of free and paid options, as well as some "freemium" options (where an initial amount of space may be given for free, but additional space comes at a cost).
Also, I'm only going to cover options that allow for easy, permanent sharing of the direct image file on forums or to other social platforms (e.g. a permanent link directly do the .jpg), and will allow for storing high quality image files. This excludes platforms like Facebook and Instagram because, while those sites are great for sharing, it's a bit more of a dance to get the direct image link from them (though it can be done), and because they both compress images uploaded to them (especially Facebook - their compression kills resolution and color profiles). Also, most people these days have some degree of privacy enabled on their Facebook account, which is not conducive to sharing on other platforms (and if you don't have some degree of privacy enabled on your account or you're not sure, go review your privacy settings RIGHT NOW. Seriously, stop reading this article and go do it). This also excludes self-hosting websites through a hosting company like GoDaddy, Name(dot)com, DreamHost, Amazon Web Services , Google Cloud Platform, etcetera, as while these are options to permalink to an image file, it's likely over the heads of the less technical crowd.
NOTE: As time goes on, the prices and storage mentioned below may change (likely for the better, as prices of cloud storage space - just like physical storage space - gets cheaper with time).
If you have a particular platform that you like, feel free to write it up as a reply, but please actually write it up, don't just say something like "I use <whatever platform> because I like it." I'm glad you like whatever platform you use, but that doesn't help those that are evaluating options or just getting started.
The options:
- Imgur (free)
- Google Photos / Gmail (freemium)
- OneDrive / Outlook(dot)com (freemium)
- Dropbox (freemium)
- ImageShack (subscription required)
- Flickr* (freemium... er... about that...)
- SmugMug (subscription required)
The younger crowd (and those that use Reddit) will most likely know about Imgur. Imgur is completely free (and you don't even need to create an account to upload photos in stunning quality (but I would recommend doing so if you are going to use it as a place to store and share your photography, unless you are one of those old or tin-foil-wearing hat folks that is distrustful of the internet - you should be - and spends most of your time yelling into your computer microphone at the government spies that are DEFINITELY watching you, and looking out your back window at the sky for black helicopters that are DEFINITELY following you around). Imgur is a social platform, so you can choose your sharing settings within the site itself, but also share direct links to the images on external platforms without sharing them with the Imgur community itself. It's also an awesome platform for memes, gifs, and all the lolcats on the internet.
Google Photos
Google Photos is included with every Gmail account (or Gsuite account, but I doubt most folks have their own personal Gsuite accounts, unless you've got a small business...). By default, every Gmail account comes free with 15GB of storage, but this storage is consumed by email, files on Google Drive, photos in Google Photos, docs in Google Docs, etc. And, by free, I mean that Google is collecting and selling your information to the guys that are following you around in those black helicopters - LOOK, QUICK! THEY'RE BEHIND YOU RIGHT NOW. By the way, if you do have a Gsuite account, it comes with 30GB rather than the 15GB that a standard Gmail account comes with (I have like 15 Gmail accounts and a 1 user Gsuite account with like 6 other email addresses tied to it - it's like $24/year for the Gsuite account)
Google also gives you options to pay them for additional storage (though they aren't going to stop selling your personal information to the men in the black helicopters just because you are paying them). For $9.99 a month, you'll get 2TB of storage, for $99.99 a month, you'll get 10TB, and for $199.99 a month, you'll get 20TB. Honestly, I think the $9.99 a mont for 2TB of space is a pretty good deal. Yes, you could buy a 2TB hard drive for about the cost of one year of payments to Google for this space, but that hard drive can also get lost, stolen, or die on you... and then what? Yer screwed, that's what.
OneDrive
Not to be outdone by el Google, MicroSoft's OneDrive is included with every Outlook(dot)com account (as well as O365 accounts, but I doubt most folks have their own personal 0365 subscriptions, unless you've got a small business... I wouldn't recommend using the OneDrive you have at work, because when your company realizes that you're spending half of your workday on the Overland Bound forums, they're gonna fire you and then all your awesome overlanding photos are gonna be GONE, just like that tin-foil-hat-wearing guy when the guys in the black helicopter catches up to him). By default, every Outlook(dot)com account comes with 15GB of storage, but as is with Google, this storage is consumed by email, files on OneDrive, etc. Also, it's only free because MicroSoft is reading all of your email and selling your information to the government, and every 4x4 vendor so they can serve you ads and make you spend all of your money on overlanding gear. One cool thing about OneDrive, though, is that Micro$oft will reward you with additional space for referrals (0.5GB per referral, capped at 10GB of additional space).
Also not to be outdone by the Google machine, MicroSoft is kind enough to allow you to pay them money for additional storage. For $1.99 a month, you'll get their "OneDrive Only" option which comes with 50GB of OneDrive space, for $6.99 a month (or $69.99 a year), you'll get their "Office 365 Personal" option which comes with 1TB of OneDrive Space as well as the basic Office suite for your PC or mac (Outlook, Word, Excel, and PowerPoint) and Outlook 2016 for PC or Mac for offline email access. But no one cares about that because WE ARE TALKING ABOUT PHOTO STORAGE, JASON, STAY ON TOPIC.
Dropbox
Allowing themselves to be completely and totally outdone by Google and MicroSoft, at least in terms of free storage and paid storage, is Dropbox. This would be a good option for someone that has recently woken up from a long nap under a rock and just discovered the internet. They give you a measly 2GB for free, and on the individual plans, they want $9.99 a month for 1TB, and $19.99 a month for 2TB. It would honestly be better to sign up for a Gmail or Outlook(dot)com account to get over 7 times the amount of free storage. How is this company still around with Google Drive and OneDrive out there? I think I know one person that still uses Dropbox. If you go with one of their team plans (which requires a minimum of 3 licenses), you can get 3TB for $15/user/month ($45/month) or unlimited space for $25/user/month ($75/month). If you need unlimited cloud storage and have the money to burn, the $75 a month deal doesn't seem so bad, but otherwise their rates are higher than what you'd pay per GB or TB from Google or Micro$oft. They do also give you a bit of a discount if you pay yearly instead of monthly.
ImageShack
ImageShack is a paid photo hosting platform that offers the following benefits on all of their plan options:
- Unlimited space (WOOHOO! But, there's a drawback coming)
- 25MB file size per image (D'OH! There's the drawback)
- Privacy controls
- Direct linking
- Embed photos on other websites (this can be done with most other photo storage platforms that provide direct linking, so kind of pandering to the less technical crowd here)
- Ad and spam free (COOL!)
- Image stats (Cool... If you're selling your photos, I guess)
- Watermarking (Ummm. Okay? You can do this easily in Lightroom, Photoshop, or any number of free image editors, like GIMP)
- Automatic backups (I certainly hope they are backing up the data that you upload to their servers... This seems like a stupid thing to advertise. But hey, they're probably targeting the advertising to a less technical crowd than me.)
- Mobile App (Cool! I haven't personally used it though, so it could be awesome, or it could suck)
For $29.99 a month, you get all of the above features and dedicated support, a dynamic image resizer (who cares), and API access (okay, if you want to be a nerd about it) in their "pro" package. None of those features seem that important to me, unless you're running a business and need to work with the API and need access to support. You also get between 30GB and 1TB of bandwidth per month, which is a HUGE range... seems weird they would include a range like this and not just say "up to 1TB" but what do I know. Views count against your monthly bandwidth.
For $99.99 a month, you get all of the features in the "pro" package, but your monthly bandwidth gets increased to "between 1TB and 4TB" - an even bigger range - in their "premium" package. I still don't get why they don't say "up to 4TB" but, again, what do I know.
All of those prices get discounted if you pay for a year up front, and right now they are running a 50% off the "basic" package (which puts it at ~$19 for the year).
Flickr
Flickr was recently acquired by SmugMug. The plan going forward is that free accounts will soon be limited to 1,000 photos or videos. For $49.99/year you get unlimited space, ad-free browsing, and advanced statistics. That's a little over $4/month, but I'm not sure if that $49.99/year price is inclusive of a price break given for paying by the year. If it is, it would mean we should expect a monthly rate (if one is offered) to be at least $4.99 or so.
SmugMug
SmugMug is a subscription-only photo hosting site with A TON of extra features. It is what I personally use. I will also state that I have no affiliation with SmugMug, I just really like their product.
All plans include:
- Your own customizable website (WOW!)
- Unlimited photo AND VIDEO uploads (WHAT!?)
- Responsive design - adapts to mobile devices, tablets, and monitors (NICE!)
- Free mobile app to edit, archive, and share on the go (MIND. BLOWN.)
- Fully hosted, unlimited traffic (WAIT, YOU'RE TELLING ME IT'S GETTING EVEN BETTER?)
- Ad and spam free (WOOOO!)
- 150MB max photo size (NOW WE'RE TALKING. RAW FILES BABY. RAW FILES.)
- 3GB max video size (NOICE!!!)
- 1080p video quality (EXTRA NOICE!!!)
- 20 minute max video length (ADDITIONAL NOICE!!!)
- Embed photos and videos on other websites (this can be done with most other photo storage platforms that provide direct linking, so kind of pandering to the less technical crowd here)
- Add photos and sync your entire library from Lightroom (AWESOME. I've tested it. It works nicely.)
- View detailed stats and analytics (Cool, I guess)
- Utilize robust SEO tools, including meta tags and XML sitemaps (NERD ALERT!)
- SmugMug Perks - great deals from SmugMug partners (I did not realize this was a thing. I wonder what these deals are and who they are partners with...
Prices are as follows:
- Basic - $5.99 a month (or, if billed annually, $3.99/month)
- Power - $8.99 a month (or, if billed annually, $5.99/month)
- Portfolio - $23.99 a month ($14.99/month)
- Pro - $41.99 a month (or, if billed annually, $29.99/month)
Well, I have an iPhone X laying beside me, and I'll be getting an iPhone XS next month. I have an iPad Mini 4, and I'm typing this on a MacBook Pro. I also have an Apple Watch somewhere in a drawer because I put a hairline crack in the screen during a mountain bike crash, I have an AppleTV, pay for Apple Music, and pay for 200GB of space on iCloud to backup said devices.
iCloud SUCKS. The "Photos" app on Mac SUCKS. Even though a photo is sitting in the photos app, I can't easily navigate directly to that image file on my Mac's hard drive from the Photos app's UI. Is there a way to get to that image file? Yes. I know how. Is it more of a pain than it needs to be? YES. You know what's easier? To export the file from the Photos app to a location actually known to you (which then results in you having two copies of that image on your hard drive - STUPID. STUPID. I HATE IT.).
For example, in MacOS Mojave, in order to get to the original image file for a picture you took via your iPhone that was then "magically" uploaded into the "Photos" app (via iCloud sync), you have to open the terminal, and navigate to ~/Pictures/Photos Library.photoslibrary/Masters/ and once there, you have to further dive into the directory structure within the Masters directory, first by year, then by date, then by day, to locate the original image, and then you have to use "open <whatever the name of the image file is>" to open it in the Finder. Then you find out that most of the images are actually stored as .HEIC files and not JPEGS. All of this is just overly complicated, especially from a company that likes to tout that their products "just work" and often use phrases including "magic" when introducing us to new products.
Okay, rant over! Feel free to ask questions in the thread below, or post up about your favorite image hosting service!
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