Digital imaging online - ideas for digital photographersPhotobucket.com digital online imaging is different though in that it gives you free storage and only asks users for a donation to the cause if you are willing and able. They give you 100 megs of storage space for your digital images and 2,500 megs of bandwidth each month for your photo traffic. If you use the service for free your image file size is limited to 250K and if you donate money to the cause you are given a 500K file size. NO uploading those giant files of your cat! Here let's hear from the founders of Photobucket for their take on what it is all about: "Photobucket.com is a free, simple, fast, reliable image hosting site and online photo album that allows direct linking. With the increasing number of digital cameras, auction sites, message boards, classifieds, live journals and photo albums, Image Hosting is becoming very popular. Most photo sites are banning direct linking, but not us! At photobucket.com, you can easily upload and store photos online, and then direct link them to any site on the internet. While searching for somewhere to store some photos a while back, I realized that there wasn't a simple site on the web to host pictures. Each one I came across appeared to be far too complex and many didn't allow direct linking. So I set out to write my own with one goal in mind, make it simple and intuitive so that anybody could join and use the site. The web site is rapidly growing and is now the largest "image hosting" company in the world and is used by a variety of internet communities. Many people wonder what is behind photobucket. I started the site over a year ago and brought a buddy on to help earlier this year. Its amazing how much faster two people can go! We own and manage all of our own equipment unlike many hosting companies that rely on service providers. The primary infrastructure is a load balanced web farm up front, a bunch of scsi raid-5 disk arrays in back, and a bunch of other servers for database, mail, file servers, etc. Full gigabit fiber connections get us on the internet. Everything lives here in Denver in a climate controlled facility, that is fully secure and has both battery and diesel generator backups for power. We have taken many precautions to keep the site reliable, fast and secure. We are also adding additional functionality to the site as time permits. So please feel free to send suggestions or report any problems so we can work on them. If you like my site, go tell your friends about it. We don't spend money on advertising and won't go spamming people to attract users. Word of mouth ( or email and message boards ) is my most powerful marketing tool, so thanks to you, for helping photobucket grow to over 1 million users! " There you have it. This service is becoming very popular with the teenagers in my area. They all have access to digital cameras and take lots of photos. They are using photobucket to upload their images and then share with each other, link from blogs, send to each other and so on. In my haste to stay relatively young I am following them down this road by starting my online album of cool digital photos today.
Here is another free option that I have not signed up for yet but will check out soon.
Why use one of these services for your digital photo collection? How important are your photos to you? We realize that your photos are much more than images. They are a connection to your past. They are memories of special events you've shared with friends and loved ones. They are funny stories, documentation of important events, and your artistic view of the world. On line storage provides a safe way to store your photos. Protect your photos by storing them in a safe place. Don't wait until it's too late. Accidents happen every day. And with computers, you always run the risk that your hard drive can fail. Of course you can back up your images on CD or DVD nowadays but that requires some work. It may be prudent to use several storage methods with your collection. Splashbulb allows you to store an unlimited number of photos for as long as you wish. They offer daily backup of all photos. DON'T HASSLE WITH EMAIL If you have ever received a photo from a friend via email, you realize how exciting it is to see a new photo. You also realize that digital photos are large files that take up space in your mailbox or on your computer. To complicate matters, if you receive a photo via email that you wish to keep, you are faced with storing it in a way that you can find it later, and with backing up the file and keeping it safe. And because the photo is taking up space in your mailbox, you must deal with it soon. With Splashbulb, photos you share with friends wait for them, so they can see the photos when it is convenient for them. In addition, the easy categorization tools allow you to quickly and permanently describe a photo by date, location, event, people, and more — so that other people can find exactly the photos they are seeking. NOT THE SAME OLD CAMERA; NOT THE SAME OLD SHOEBOX With prints, you displayed some of your photos, but you kept most hidden away in albums, bookshelves, or even a shoe box— only to be viewed occasionally. Sharing meant making extra prints. Finding a specific photo — or a photo matching certain criteria — was a project that involved searching through albums and boxes and calling friends. If you managed to find the photo, you probably spent days. Meanwhile, your photos were usually not seen and were at risk of being damaged. If you have ever pulled out a great, old photo only to find it faded, torn, stuck to another photo, or covered with mildew, you realize how much you would like to have that photo back in pristine condition. Now that you have digital images, don't treat them like prints. Beyond making sure that your photos are preserved, you can use Splashbulb to view your photos and your friends' photos more frequently. You can create slide shows and other personalized gifts such as calendars and posters. You can view your favorite photos from anywhere with an Internet connection. Don't let your photos or your memories fade.
Here are some other great options for online photo storage:
Ofoto.com - now owned by Kodak this company has great resources, excellant quality and fast service for their prints.
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