As promised, some hosts:.

Shutterfly - unlimited uploads but no ability to download the high-res image. If you want your files back you have to order the custom cds. This is quite a hassle if you just want one file back but on the other hand it seems like a great back up solution if you don't want to pay upfront fees like you would do with Flickr. Problem is I don't know if the file they send you on the CD is the same as your original, and you would only find out way too late if you lost your originals and try to reorder (or I suppose you could test it out first). You can share images in collections/albums. You cannot prevent others from printing your images if they know where your URL is however, so this is a concern..

Snapfish - seems pretty much like the above. Free to upload, pay to download. You can pay to download individual files electronically or have a CD made, so slightly more convenient than the above. Once again, you can't stop people from printing your images in high-res..

Flickr - the free service isnt so great as you are limited in number of uploads and you can't download in high-res. The paid service ($25 a year) gives you unlimited ability to do everything. Expensive but no limits on bandwidth, uploads or downloads, and your images can be protected from third party saving or printing. And a great community - this maybe the best host but also the priciest!.

Picasa - from google. 1 gb max for the free account, if you pay more you get more, but for $25 you only get 7gb a year compared to unlimited in Flickr. Seems like a no brainer here. Also you don't have the ability to protect anything..

Fotki - seems to have the same basic features as Flickr at a higher price. Hmm... The free account isn't great (50MB)..

Imageshack - seems to provide free hosting, but I have not investigated this one yet. Please let me know if you are in the loop about this, or wait for me to try it out and post .

PBase - same cost as Flickr but for less space. Hmmm.....

That's all I can think of for now. Right now it seems if you want everything Flickr is the way to go, but if you want free you have to put up with something, either lack of security, file size restrictions, download restrictions, or some other handicap...

MWCT wrote:.

Picasa - from google. 1 gb max for the free account, if you paymore you get more, but for $25 you only get 7gb a year compared tounlimited in Flickr. Seems like a no brainer here..

Also you don't have the ability to protect anything..

Not true! In Picasa web albums you can have private galleries:.

Http://picasa.google.com/support/bin/topic.py?topic=10770.

And also can prevent gallery images from being downloaded..

Http://picasa.google.com/support/bin/topic.py?topic=10771..

Thanks Iggier, that brings Picasa up a notch since it means professionals can use it to store their works. The price thing still needs working out; between $25 for unlimted vs $25 for 7gb, it still seems illogical... actually I just found another site, photobucket:.

Photobucket: free accounts 1mb image size, 1024x768 max res, and 1gb total storage, pro accounts 2mb image size, 2240x1680 max res, and 2gb total storage. $25/mnth for the pro..

This has the immediate and obvious disadvantage of the 2mb image size limit since I have photos that are larger than that, and it gives even less storage space than Picasa. Honestly I am amazed that in the online business model, where you can search dozens of image sharing sites simply by typing in a google search, there can be such a great difference in price and value...

Isn't free - but they are unlimited everything. Printing is pretty cheap too..

MWCT wrote:.

Comments please on the very best place to store and sharephotographs on the Web..

Ideally, the host should provide the following services, in noparticular order:1. Unlimited storage2. Ability to store high resolution/full size images3. Unlimited bandwidth4. No charge to download pictures5. Printing service for low cost6.

Ability to hide private galleries from everyone and also toshare galleries with only friends8. Ability to prevent others from downloading or printing picturesunless you allow them to9. Reliability - you want the host to be around in 5 or 10 years!(Since primarily you would be using this service to backup yourdigital photos)10. Community - an intangible... some hosts have communities and alarger user base.

In the next post I'll list some hosts I know..

Http://public.fotki.com/wibble/public_display/.

Image control:Zoom outZoom 100%Zoom inExpand AllOpen in new window..

You do not mention Zenfolio which ticks all your boxes except 10:.

Http://www.zenfolio.com/zf/features.aspx.

I have been using it for 6 months and have no complaints..

They provide a quality interface and it is worth paying a bit more for that..

Best features:.

Dynamic page presentation. The programme checks your screen size and gives you a larger screen image if you have a higher res monitor..

A really professional looking presentation of your photos..

If you want you want to subscribe use my referral code and save yourself $5. Referral Code: Z9N-T5C-MR4.

Chris Elliott.

*Nikon* D Eighty + Fifty - Other equipment in Profile.

Http://PlacidoD.zenfolio.com/..

Register your own url with a host that has unlimited or very large space available and then it's up to you how uou use it. As well as having your own web site, which is fun, you can store what you like and it is not readily available to everyone , unless you give them the address.Jules.

MWCT wrote:.

Comments please on the very best place to store and sharephotographs on the Web..

Ideally, the host should provide the following services, in noparticular order:1. Unlimited storage2. Ability to store high resolution/full size images3. Unlimited bandwidth4. No charge to download pictures5. Printing service for low cost6.

Ability to hide private galleries from everyone and also toshare galleries with only friends8. Ability to prevent others from downloading or printing picturesunless you allow them to9. Reliability - you want the host to be around in 5 or 10 years!(Since primarily you would be using this service to backup yourdigital photos)10. Community - an intangible... some hosts have communities and alarger user base.

In the next post I'll list some hosts I know..

Black moles do not destroy information...

Wow agreed thats a nice interface. If I were a professional photographer looking for an online gallery without having the expense of actually buying web space from an ISP, that $40/yr looks really good. It's more expensive than Flickr (which I am currently using) but we can all agree Flickr's interface sucks big time. I mainly use Flickr for storage though, so my priority is also low cost...

Agreed Jules, I think if you are a pro thats ultimately the best way to go. Besides, it's a good customer service image to have your own URL rather than say to someone that you are using a free/paid online gallery. That being said, one huge disadvantage to using your own host (unless it's a remote host owned by the ISP) is of course that you lose the offsite protection. If you are diligent about doing backups and so on it might not be a problem but I think most of us are pretty lazy about that!..

MWCT wrote:.

7. Ability to hide private galleries from everyone and also toshare galleries with only friends.

Having albums or galleries that aren't universally visible is probably universal..

Being able to share galleries with other individuals (usually by e-mail address security through obscurity, essentially) is also extremely common, if not universal..

However, once you share a link or an album password to an individual, there's no real way to stop them from disseminating it further unless, say, the service lets you place other requirements like limiting it to specific people authenticated with site memberships. Is this a problem?.

8. Ability to prevent others from downloading or printing picturesunless you allow them to.

Anything that's viewable is downloadable and printable. Period. You have, after all, transmitted all the data necessary for them to be able to view it which includes a copy of the image and any and all decryption keys..

If you don't want somebody to able to download the full resolution image, the only answer is to make sure that they can't see the full resolution image. The simplest way is to not upload or share the full-res image...

Actually that's one of the advantages of some services like Flickr, where they put a transparent mask over the image, so that if you tried to right click to save the image, you save the transparent mask and not the image itself. Its really quite ingenious. Also with some services, you can choose to prevent people from downloading the full size image. Of course to be doubly safe, you ought to put a small copyright notice. Of course, stock photo web sites don't fool around and they put their copyright all across their images. Sometimes I wonder if thats carrying it too far, but maybe they do know their business...

Flickr's superimposing of a blank is trivially broken, as they provide the 'protected' image in it's normal form..

1- the image is downloadable and cacheable2- the actual URL of the image on the static servers is trivially determined.

Ex..

Http://www.flickr.com/photos/goyaboy/540729861/.

Nominally might be a "protected" image page, with right-click going tohttp://l.yimg.com/www.flickr.com/images/spaceball.gif.

But... my browser has already cachedhttp://farm2.static.flickr.com/1143/540729861_d842c29b69.jpg.

Which is the "protected" image. If I wanted to, I could have hotlinked that image into this post..

Firefox/Tools/Page Info/Media is quite useful..

View Source on any browser would also have shown it, with a tiny amount of searching (searching for the ?v=0 suffix among all image URLs containing the number 540729861, for instance)..

If you want to prevent people from printing or reusing, you pretty much have to obliterate the motivation ex. using unremoveable watermarks in awkward places, or only providing uselessly small resolutions...

MWCT wrote:.

9. Reliability - you want the host to be around in 5 or 10 years!(Since primarily you would be using this service to backup yourdigital photos).

If you're relying on someone online to provide your photo back-up, maybe you need to rethink your storage strategy. Big HDDs are cheap storage these days and are as error-proof as anything we've yet invented - not infallible, but a much better bet than using someone else's unsecured server. And much much better than optical (CD/DVD)..

Rob.

If you're bored...http://braveulysses.deviantart.com/gallery.

'Have the courage to be ignorant of a great number of things, in order to avoid the calamity of being ignorant of everything.' Sydney Smith (1771-1845)..

MWCT wrote:.

If you are diligentabout doing backups and so on it might not be a problem but I thinkmost of us are pretty lazy about that!.

In that case, you don't deserve everything you lose. If you're serious about keeping your images, you will back them up. Especially if you've lost any due to not doing so.Rob.

If you're bored...http://braveulysses.deviantart.com/gallery.

'Have the courage to be ignorant of a great number of things, in order to avoid the calamity of being ignorant of everything.' Sydney Smith (1771-1845)..

This is still a mechanical solution that is more of ease of access and not a real backup. I want to get one of these also but would never totally trust these to "back-up" my data. You still need tape/cd/dvd that can be stored (duplicates) off-site. You want these pictures to to be available for decades maybe more. I would definately think my childrens children will want to see the pictures of thier families..

For me I think DVD backups in duplicate (one in my house/one in my parents). I think the key is to start backing up early and often and develop a system so you know what is backed up.D80Nikon AFS 24-120mm 3.5-5.6 ED IF VRNikon AF 50mm 1.8 DSpeed Light SB-60072mm ExpodiscNew to Photography...

BraveUlysses wrote:.

MWCT wrote:.

9. Reliability - you want the host to be around in 5 or 10 years!(Since primarily you would be using this service to backup yourdigital photos).

If you're relying on someone online to provide your photo back-up,maybe you need to rethink your storage strategy. Big HDDs are cheapstorage these days and are as error-proof as anything we've yetinvented - not infallible, but a much better bet than using someoneelse's unsecured server. And much much better than optical (CD/DVD)..

Your solution is incomplete. A reasonable backup solution (as recommended by ISACA) requires the following:.

1. Duplicated data. That means your "backup" isn't the only copy..

2. Offsite storage. Your backup needs to be in a separate physical location from the production copies. Generally, the further away the better. Same computer = almost useless. Same house = better but not good (think fire, tornado, mud slide, etc.).



3. Testing backups. This is always overlooked. A backup is useless if it doesn't work. You need to validate both the copy works and that you can recover from the backup in a reasonable amoutn of time (reasonable determined by need)..

Using HDD is a good solution if you store those hard drives outside your home. e.g. safe deposit box, etc. Of course the further away you store those drives, the harder it is to test them for reliability..

Image hosts are good because they are far away (usually at least), but difficult to verify you can recover your images due to network and other limitations..

Personally, I use a solution consisting of both. Multiple copies stored locally on different hard drives and copies stored at Smug Mug. far from a perfect solution but it meets my needs based on my appetite for risk, value I place on my photographs, and knowledge of risk mitigation and controls..

Joe.

My craptacular photos: http://www.pbase.com/pyogenes/favorites.

Any perceived rudeness, condescending tone, or insults are not intended, but rather the result of my inability to properly express myself with the written word...

Exactly, the value of hosting sites is offsite data storage. To be more precise, cheap and convenient offsite data storage..

As I used to work with computers, I'm pretty well rehearsed with measures that one can go through to secure data. The solution that one uses has to be cost effective and practical. In the end the worst data backup plan is the one you don't use because it was too bothersome to implement. If you are a photography professional with images worth thousands of dollars, you might consider having some kind of insured storage facility offsite to where you are living. If you're a photography hobbyist, like I am, sites like Flickr provide an excellent source of backup simply because, in the case of a disaster (fire at your house) you can quite easy download your photos again, at a minimal cost. I for one am not going to be paying thousands of dollars for a third party backup solution (they exist), and for me, going to store a copy of my photos at my parent's (which is a good solution btw) isn't practical because I simply don't visit my parents that often..

Of course, simply trusting a third party especially a host like Flickr where there is NO AGREEMENT THAT YOUR DATA WILL STILL BE AVAILABLE at any future date is sheer folly. You want your own backup solution like a CD/DVD read only. Do not trust flash drives and such as backup, because they have a limited lifespan. When doing a backup, you want to back it up to READ ONLY media, so I would still use a CD/DVD backup solution even if I had an external hdd. The value of the third party site then becomes this: you usually know when a third party site is in trouble and maybe going belly up, e.g. Flickr and Picasa, being owned by Yahoo! and Google respectively, show no sign of going away any time soon.

You would need to have a fire at your house and the third party backup storage to disappear at the same time for you to lose your data. Thats quite an acceptable risk for me, considering what my photos are worth...

MWCT wrote:.

Whendoing a backup, you want to back it up to READ ONLY media, so Iwould still use a CD/DVD backup solution even if I had an externalhdd..

Actually, IT Risk professionals (myself included) recommend against using optical media for a backup solution due to reliability concerns..

Of course that assumes that the other media is more reliable and sufficiently secured. For most home computers, that's not a safe assumption..

CD/DVD isn't entirely bad though. It just requires much more tedious testing of the media. I'd rather test one 400GB hard drive weekly than 500 CDs or 80 DVDs annually .

Joe.

My craptacular photos: http://www.pbase.com/pyogenes/favorites.

Any perceived rudeness, condescending tone, or insults are not intended, but rather the result of my inability to properly express myself with the written word...

My point exactly.Rob.

If you're bored...http://braveulysses.deviantart.com/gallery.

'Have the courage to be ignorant of a great number of things, in order to avoid the calamity of being ignorant of everything.' Sydney Smith (1771-1845)..

I'd suggest grabbing a "crazy domain insane" account at Dreamhost. While they're not the best host around, and are classic oversellers*, they are ridiculously cheap and have surprisingly good service..

Price breakdown for your first year, if pre-paying 1 year:$9.95/mo. * 12 months = $119.40.

Coupon codes are freely available for a $97 instant discount, bringing the initial price to $22.40 for one year..

They include one free domain registration for the life of your hosting account..

This ends up being $1.87 per month for the first year; costs go up to $9.95/mo. for the 2nd year if you stay there..

Dreamhost currently advertises 151GB storage and 1.5TB bandwidth on it's cheapest plan, which they obviously are incapable of providing; but you should certainly be able to upload a few gigs of pictures and not have to worry about anything. I know of at least a couple people who just use their Dreamhost accounts as dumping grounds for media backup..

For organization and display of your photos, there are plenty of free software packages out there. DH offers one-click installs of Menalto's Gallery, which is very full-featured, but rather slow..

The downside, of course, is that you have to manage all your files and software yourself..

*Overselling means that they overstate the storage and bandwidth limits. Most hosting companies these days do this, certainly all the cheap ones...

Actually, IT Risk professionals (myself included) recommend againstusing optical media for a backup solution due to reliabilityconcerns.Of course that assumes that the other media is more reliable andsufficiently secured. For most home computers, that's not a safeassumption..

CD/DVD isn't entirely bad though. It just requires much moretedious testing of the media. I'd rather test one 400GB hard driveweekly than 500 CDs or 80 DVDs annually .

I'm considering getting a HDD to store my photographs offsite... how does one test the hard drive? does it come with a preinstalled program? something you download?..

Agree I am transferring my photos to zenfilio at the moment. Does everthing I need and nothing I don't.Regards,PJGhttp://shorengro.zenfolio.com/.

'Remember there's a winner in every race.'..

Tielman wrote:.

I'm considering getting a HDD to store my photographs offsite...how does one test the hard drive? does it come with a preinstalledprogram? something you download?.

No need to go crazy with the testing. I would:.

1. run chkdsk (assuming windows), to make sure it's physically still working properly. This doesn't need to be done too often. Couple times a year if you rarely touch the drive..

2. randomly copy some photos (about 1% of how many you have) to your computer and make sure those copies work properly. Don't just test images from one directory - spread out your samples..

3. Google SMART utilities for hard drives (I use SpeedFan). you can see if the hard drive is having errors. Good to check on your main HDD in your computer too..

Joe.

My craptacular photos: http://www.pbase.com/pyogenes/favorites.

Any perceived rudeness, condescending tone, or insults are not intended, but rather the result of my inability to properly express myself with the written word...