May is National Photography Month, and to celebrate it I am providing tips and strategies on dealing with and organizing all the photos that accumulate in your home and computer!
Today let’s talk about photo sharing on social networks and online photo sharing sites.
Scanning Photos
First, let’s address the idea of scanning an existing film photograph onto a computer. Let’s say you have a lovely old picture of your grandmother on her wedding day. It is old and fading and wrinkled. You don’t want to lose this precious treasure, so what do you do? If you own a printer/scanner, then you have the capability to save these old photos for all time.
Here are the steps for scanning a photo onto your computer:
- Many printers come with scanning and faxing capabilities. If your printer has this capability then you are set. Turn on your printer/scanner.
- Lift the upper lid of the scanner/printer and position your photo face down on the glass. Press the “scan” button found on the printer.
- At this point the software takes over. Follow the prompts. The software will usually create a file for your photo, but the software will name it something obscure, like “img037.jpg”. Go ahead at this point and rename the file to reflect the image that you are scanning, like “Granny Smith – Wedding Day – June 8, 1919”.
- At this time you can leave the file in the folder that the software created, or you can copy or move it to a folder that you have created with a meaningful name that will help you to find the photo later.
Now that you have scanned and saved the photo in your nicely organized folder you need to decide what you want to do with it. Do you want to email it to someone? Do you want to post it on Facebook? You have it safely locked away in your computer, ready for whatever plans you have for it. And there you have the process of scanning a photo and saving it onto your computer.
Uploading Your Digital Photos
Finally, I am going to provide you with the steps to upload your digital photos to an internet photo sharing service and to social media sites:
- The first thing you have to determine is the purpose for your uploading of photos onto an internet photo sharing site. There are presently two primary purposes for uploading photos. The first purpose one might have to upload photos to an internet site is to store your photos in an online photo album. This safe method of archiving your photos is well documented to be a viable and practical way to insure your photo’s protection and security. Some examples of these simple online photo albums are Photo Bucket, Picasa, and Smug Mug. Photo Bucket has free registration and hosts over 50 million users. It offers unlimited free storage, 1 MB per photo and 10 minutes per video (With image size restrictions). There are no size restrictions with a Pro account. With a free account, you can use up to 10GB of bandwidth per month. Picasa also has free registration and hosts over 500,000 users. It offers 1 GB free storage for photos and videos, and then plans start at $2.49/month for additional storage. Photos smaller than 2048×2048 pix (Google+ users only) or 800×800 pix and videos less than 15 minutes in length do not count toward storage limit. Photos uploaded beyond the storage limit will automatically be resized. Smug Mug has free search options, but then they become a subscription hosting site. The costs range from $40 a year for the standard service all the way up to the pro service at $150 a year. Its 315,000+ subscribers enjoy unlimited storage, 12 MB per photo for the standard and power subscribers, and 24 MB per photo for the pros. There is owner control over the download of original resolution image. The other reason one might wish to download photos to an internet site is for the social networking advantages. There are hundreds of social networking sites supporting a wide variety of interests. These include photo buffs and photographers. There are several significant photography social networking sites: Flickr, Facebook, Twitter, Pinterest, and Instagram. Flickr has open registration accessed through a Yahoo email account. Flickr offers their 51,000,000+ users a 300MB monthly upload limit (15MB per photo), with a max of 200 images viewable (free account). If a free account is inactive for 90 consecutive days, it will be deleted. Facebook is so popular and widely used that it is said if Facebook was a country, it would be the fourth largest country in the world. This free social networking site offers photo sharing as long as the photos do not exceed 4MB each. The photos can appear individually or in albums to be shared with “friends” and others. Photos uploaded to Facebook could potentially be viewed by thousands of people. Twitter started out as a blogging website but has quickly grown into a social messaging platform and one of the top social networks in the world. It boasts over 250,000,000 users. Many photographers think of Twitter as an indispensable tool in the promotion of their photos and their businesses. While Twitter takes work to get your photo sharing going, once a photographer hits the 100 followers mark, then typically his work will be seen by thousands, sometimes even “going viral” because of the “re-tweeting” which often occurs. As one blogger, James Brandon, puts it, “Twitter is a marketing machine for your business and for your brand. Through hard work, research and dedication, you can build up an audience of hundreds (eventually thousands) of people to market to at any time you choose. If you get connected with the right people, the numbers begin to multiply dramatically.” Instagram is a free application from the Apple App Store for your cell phone. As their website explains, “Instagram is a fun and quirky way to share your life with friends through a series of pictures. Snap a photo with your mobile phone, then choose a filter to transform the image into a memory to keep around forever. We’re building Instagram to allow you to experience moments in your friends’ lives through pictures as they happen. We imagine a world more connected through photos”. The filters that Instagram offer will take your mobile photos and transform them to professional looking snapshots. They also share the photos on multiple services, so that is a plus. The uploading process is fast and efficient.
- Once you have determined what your purpose is for uploading, either an online web album or a social networking experience, then the next step is to download the photos to your computer. Use the instructions earlier in this chapter to help you with that process.
- After you have downloaded the photos, put a title on your file and pick an online service. You will typically have to create an account, choose a username, and a password. This is standard operating procedure for these sites.
- Click “upload” and follow the prompts. You will be allowed to select the photos for uploading. Also, you will be prompted to create a caption for your photos.
- Depending on the site you choose you might be offered the option of joining groups, as well as following friends and sharing your photos. Typically you can make “albums”
or “sets”. Sometimes you can make “collections” which are multiple “sets”. - If you decide at first to use an online album storing site, you are not locked into that decision forever. The online album storage sites mentioned above have all jumped onto the social networking bandwagon, after the fact. They all now typically offer a Facebook button, a Twitter button, and an email button which will instantly upload your already archived photos to the site you click.
It really is that easy and that amazing. To think that in just a few short decades we have gone from taking fuzzy black-and-whites with a Brownie camera all the way to snapping photos with our phones and uploading them instantly to the world is a remarkable idea, indeed. The key is organization and purpose! I am sure if you follow these simple steps your photos will forever be a source of joy and connection with others rather than a headache and a burden. As Pulitzer prize-winning author Eudora Welty puts it, “A good snapshot keeps a moment from running away.” Enjoy and embrace every one of those moments.