Posting Your Pictures on the WEB

There are numerous ways to post pictures on the web. The first question to ask yourself is “what am I trying to accomplish?”

If you are just sharing with family and friends:

And are not too concerned about ownership you can post your pictures on a social media site like Facebook, Twitter, Google+ or Pinterest. Those pictures will be there forever so upload only pictures resized to smaller. You always own the copyright to the pictures you take unless you give or sell it away, but what will it take to enforce the copyright in a foreign country?

eMail:  For more privacy, you can also just email the pictures to the persons you want to view them.  If you want the recipient to be able to print them, I suggest you try sending them as “Files” as many e-mail programs will re-size pictures. Some e-mail programs will separate the pictures from the e-mail and store them for a limited time on a server.  There will be a link in the message so the recipient can retrieve the full size picture.

 

Or you just want your family or friends to see your photos

there are other ways where there are some privacy features such as Picasa, Flickr, Windows Live Skydrive, and Google Drive.  Skydrive and Google Drive are free websites where you can store and share your stuff including pictures.  Picasa and Flickr are specialized sites for photos and videos.  All offer some free storage.

You may want a more professional web presence to display or sell your photos to a larger audience.

There are more sites that specialize in photography such as Phanfare that hosts the Club Gallery, Photobucket, and Smugmug. These sites store your photos on their web servers.

You can create your own web page

which can display your photographs that can be links to another site or stored on the site itself.  Simple sites such as Weebly, Google Sites and WordPress (all free) provide hosting and templates to set up your own personal web presence.

Hire a web hosting company

to host your own web domain and even assist you in obtaining a domain name for your site. 1&1 Internet which the club uses and here is a list of web hosting companies I found on the web: http://www.hosting-review.com/canada-web-hosting.shtml?gclid=CJeQy6vdjLsCFcY7Mgod02YAdw

I personally would ask some of our members with web sites who they use for hosting and get a recommendation.  (Some member web sites can be found on the “Photo Gallery Page”.

Once you have a web host and a Domain you then create the site yourself using software such as Joomla, WordPress or Adobe Dreamweaver or software provided by the hosting company.  You then have to maintain the site to keep visitors returning.

You can also pay a professional

to create and maintain your site, but be prepared to pay big bucks.

Glossary

Creative Commons:  A licensing method that allows copyright owners to retain their copyright and allow others to share their work under specific conditions. Note: When posting pictures to these sites, be aware of what you are giving up. Read their licensing notes.  Here is some Creative Commons info from Flickr.  “Creative Commons” generally is attached to something that is free to use, sometimes with restrictions. The sites also have “Private” and “Share” areas. That is why you need to read the documentation and pay attention to the check boxes.

Domain: The address of your web page on the World Wide Web.  It is rented to you on a yearly basis (normal) and if you allow it to expire, it can be taken over by other people for any use they desire such as advertising or a sex site.  The more use your page gets, the more likely it is to be taken over should you let it expire. A good web host will take care of this for you.

DNS server: A translation server on the internet that translates the Domain Name into an IP address.

IP address: The actual web address the computer uses for your address.  They present addressing format is XXX.XXX.XXX.XXX but a newer format is being implemented at present.

 

30 Nov. 2013 Notes:

This post is a follow-up to the presentation of the previous meeting.  I did a lot of research in preparation of the presentation and added to that in preparation of this document.  During the investigation I found that a number of sites storing photos are no longer available.  Some sites concentrate on sales of product derived from the photos stored on their sites.  It appears that sites that you pay for are longer lasting and appear more professional.  That said, Flickr and Picasa seem to have been around a long time.  If the site stores your only copy of your work and goes bankrupt, have you lost your work?

From my investigation I suggest you do a thorough research of any service you are thinking about using. I suggest you determine if the information you find is current.  I suggest you read every word in any agreement you accept.  Remember that all these sites are businesses and are there to generate revenue for the business not necessarily for you.

This document is my opinion only and I have barely touched on the resources that can be found on the web.

BoB