Tuesday, June 03, 2008

photography ransom


The last time I added photos to Flickr, I started getting the following message:
__________________________

Hey JW05! About your photostream...

You've run into one of the limits of a free account. Your free account will only display the most recent 200 things you've uploaded.
Anything beyond 200 will remain hidden from view until you either delete newer items, or upgrade to a Pro account.


Nothing has been deleted, and if you upgrade, they'll all come back unharmed.

_______________________________

... So basically, Flickr, you're taking my photos hostage until I get a Pro account? I thought you were cooler than that, but there it is: "We haven't done away with them yet, and if you give us your money, we'll give them back unharmed."

Not cool.


That said, I've been considering getting a Flickr pro account. With tags, it'd a pretty good way to organize my photos, and it's nice to have a back-up of them (especially until I get an external hard drive, but even that's not always a perfect solution). My photos mean a lot to me, and while I'd lose a lot of stuff if my computer shut down, I would probably miss those the most. I do have a lot on Facebook, a few on Flickr, less on Picasa Web Albums and even a scant few on the old Photobucket, which would be better than nothing, but these sites shrink the pictures, don't allow me to upload too many at a time, or are too new/old to me for me to have used much.


So, weigh in: is Flickr Pro worth it, especially when I plan to get an external hard drive soon anyway? Honestly, I'm a little put off by this new limit thing. Yes, I spose it was nice of them to give me space to host 200 photos for free, but I still didn't know it would happen and it disappointed me. Technically, they're still storing my photos, but I haven't added any more pictures because I don't want more to 'disappear.' I feel like Flickr and I are in a stalemate, and I don't like it. That said, they've been good to me in the past and they're a big, solid company that shouldn't go anywhere (with my pictures) anytime soon.

My other major consideration is Picasa, mostly because I use their photo editing software (which is free and awesome- thanks, Google) and if I bought more storage with them, it appears as though it would also add storage to my Gmail account (not that I need it). Plus, I can edit photos, and within the Picasa program (without ever opening an internet browser) upload them to my web albums.

Maybe some other time I'll post pros and cons of each option, but for now I'm looking for general online-photo-storage advice. Should I say screw it all and just burn everything to CD's? Do you have a favorite service, or any particular features I should look out for?


1 comment:

Renee Leyburn said...

I've never really used either program so I don't really have much of an opinion on this, but one thing did occur to me: Would Flickr give you unlimited storage with the upgrade to Pro? Or would they wind up sticking you with yet another ultimatum at a later date? The answer to that might sway your decision one way or the other.