[Omestes]

Recently my secondary hard-drive, the one where I kept my photos, died. I keep a couple backup drives with RAWs and Jpegs, so this wouldn't be a problem, but I got crushed during the holidays and forgot to back up the last 3-4 months of photos (including an awesome macro of a very cooperative dragonfly). I've been pondering sharing my photos online, since I think I might be almost good enough to let them see the light of day, and this has pushed me over the edge. Many of these serves also act as an off-site backup for at least the processed jpegs, which would have been a life saver. As it stands, all I could retrieve, barring a $300 recovery bill, are downsized versions from Google+.

So, long preamble aside, this leads me to the topic; how many of you have experience with these services, and how happy are you with them? Both in service, and constructive community? Long ago, when I was teaching myself Photoshop by colorizing old black and white images I was very active on Flickr, and found the community (in that rather specialized area) very helpful. But I've heard that it is largely about trying to get more likes/views now, and that a lot of the comments are along the lines of "nice job" (which annoys me, if I didn't think so, I wouldn't have bothered. Why is it nice, or more importantly, how could it be better?). I got a trial account on 500px, and noticed this as well, to much "I like it, now look at me!" comments. I'm looking for constructive criticism. I know, I should utilize these forums more, but you guys kind of scare me... I'm very outclassed, in experience, technique, and gear.

Beyond the community, how easy is it to use, and how easy is it to get your photos back? How easy is it for me to share photos or sets with my friends on social networking sites?

I don't care much about monetization, at the moment (nor probably for several thousand moments to come). So this isn't that big of a deal.

I'm a bit tempted to use that new Mega thing (50GB of free encrypted storage), but I don't really trust the guy at the head too much, and it also lacks the social bit (not a big deal killer, but I'd rather have it).

Well, that went a bit over-long for a simple question... Sorry about that. I've been obsessing over this for a couple days now.

[AussieTrev]

Although I use Flickr to share some, I haven't been very active. I use to post in the critique group but found that I was getting trashed, rather than getting constructive help. I use it to share mainly. I have found this site the most positive and I don't even ask for critiques. Also some of the people here share some very nice professional quality images. Also it is Pentax centric.

As for backup, all the sites you mentioned are not backup sites as such and they will not really give you that security should disaster strike again. I use BackBlaze for my online backup, $55 annually for unlimited single computer backup with encryption if you need it and this includes any hard drives attached to that single computer. I have many terabytes backup at the moment.. Carbonite is similarly priced. I haven't had to recover any files, other than tests, so I can't comment on that side of the service.

If you want to really protect your files a dedicated online backup service would be the way to go, then use the free services of online sharing, or just continue with PentaxForums and really enjoy the friendships here. Donating gives you even more.

[Boris]

Well, I have approx 1 TB of RAW files that I amassed since *istD back in later 2004. It is unfeasible to try to upload so much info to the cloud. Additionally, if you read the agreement with all these services, you might see that once you upload your work, you practically give up any rights you might have on it. Hence I try to be disciplined and backup my HDDs regularly.

[Louicio]

You should buy a number of hard drives and make a RAID stack as I also intend to do in the very near future.

[Sagitta]

Although I use Flickr to share some, I haven't been very active. I use to post in the critique group but found that I was getting trashed, rather than getting constructive help.

In my experience, asking for constructive criticism in many (most) Flickr groups is a guaranteed invitation for art students with an overblown sense of superiority to bash anything they construe as not following some undefined yet rigid set of Rules.

That said, I've been a Flickr Pro member for years now. I use it for general image sharing as well as the occasional showoff moment.

I use 500px for my more artsy stuff, but its an incredibly strange site as far as criticism and input is concerned, though it's membership seems far more tolerant for straying outside "Da Rules" then the Flickr user base is.

[Omestes]

You should buy a number of hard drives and make a RAID stack as I also intend to do in the very near future.

Getting a RAID seems a little extreme to me. My problem was laziness, I generally keep things backed up to a small 1TB HDD I have sitting around, twice a year I back that up to another HDD. I also generally copy all my processed jpegs to another computer on our network (our living room HTPC). So at any given monthly interval, or large shoot, I have two backups. We were so busy over the holidays that I didn't get a chance to use my ingenious, foolproof, backup plan (i.e. I'm a bigger fool than I thought!). A RAID would have another problem, as I really don't want to spend the time futzing around with it, and, last I checked (awhile ago, so I might be wrong) most RAID solutions required a PCI card to work, and sadly my computer is completely out of space (never buy a small motherboard!).

I have no problem with the cloud, since my process after a shoot is to cull, run everything though lightroom, then export to Facebook/Google+. Adding another step wouldn't kill me. The long term planning is apparently my weakness.

I thought that the art-friendly sites (like Flickr and 500px) had better terms than places like Facebook (where your rights are dead). Its hard to actually compare how much you give up on any of these sites. And there is a fair degree of FUD going around too. Some of the things people have problems with are just boilerplate, or necessary for the site to actually display your images on their front-page, or selected gallery. What Facebook/Instigram did crossed that line. But for the most part I don't mind. But then again I don't expect to get paid for this hobby, or actually do it for a living (maybe in 20 years...).

I've heard good things about Carbonite. I made a note to check them out.

Thanks for the replies!

[JenniferLeigh]

I use both Flickr and 500px; none of which are great for a backup service. My current backup includes backing up my second internal HD then also to my wireless drive. I'll admit, it's been a month or so until my last backup... I need a better automated system.

Crashplan offers some really affordable plans: Backup Software Features Comparison - Online Storage, Data Recovery, Security - CrashPlan - I haven't used them yet, but they look pretty good.

Just don't reply on the cloud as your only backup.

[Omestes]

Doing a bit of research, it looks like the "cloud" is generally around $60/yr for decent capacity. I wonder if just grabbing an online host would be better, and using just using ftp to keep it backed up. Poking around I found some hosts that work out to around $40/yr for unlimited storage. No clue what the benefits/problems with this will be. Research. Woo. I suppose being cheap is probably a bad idea when it comes to things like this, though.

In your experience, which has a more helpful community, Flickr or 500px?

[JenniferLeigh]

Doing a bit of research, it looks like the "cloud" is generally around $60/yr for decent capacity. I wonder if just grabbing an online host would be better, and using just using ftp to keep it backed up. Poking around I found some hosts that work out to around $40/yr for unlimited storage. No clue what the benefits/problems with this will be. Research. Woo. I suppose being cheap is probably a bad idea when it comes to things like this, though.

In your experience, which has a more helpful community, Flickr or 500px?

Flickr. Flickr has groups with discussion boards which are great for connected with like minded people.

500px has blogs, the ability to create a protfolio and sell your pictures (pro account). I also prefer the photo rating system over Flickr.

I post most of my good photos to flickr, I only post my best work to 500px.

[JenniferLeigh]

Doing a bit of research, it looks like the "cloud" is generally around $60/yr for decent capacity. I wonder if just grabbing an online host would be better, and using just using ftp to keep it backed up. Poking around I found some hosts that work out to around $40/yr for unlimited storage. No clue what the benefits/problems with this will be. Research. Woo. I suppose being cheap is probably a bad idea when it comes to things like this, though.

I wouldn't use cheap shared hosting for backup. It may even be against the host's terms and conditions. Plus I wouldn't trust their security.

[alan_smithee_photos]

Yeah, photo sharing and cloud storage are kinda two separate things. Obviously the sharing sites store in the cloud, but aren't really optimized for backup and retrieval. Conversely the cloud storage services usually optimize for automated backup along with controlled file syncing/sharing/versioning (in some cases). So, if the primary need is to make sure your photos are backed up and easy to retrieve in the event a drive fails, services like Carbonite are the way to go. If you want a way to keep files synced across computers and/or share files with specific people, something like Dropbox might be a good fit. If you're looking for a photos sharing community that lets you store lots of stuff (but maybe not "everything"), Flickr, etc., are good bets.

I have everything backed up on external drives and many things uploaded to Flickr. I'd like to go for a proper cloud storage option myself, though. Fwiw, I hear that Yahoo is looking to reinvest in Flickr (long overdue), so maybe we'll see some enhancements there making it more competitive with other solutions. Man, if you have a lot of images in a Flickr account it can be a huge pain sorting through and finding things, etc.

[NKK]

I use Crashplan for online backup ~150 GB at the moment.
It also supports backup to FTP or Backup to a friends storage if he/she chooses to share some diskspace for you (encrypted ofcourse).

[SteveM]

I have a NAS with RAID that I sync my photos to automatically, so in theory, with 2 copies, I should be fine, but all it takes is a some file corruption to be "backed up" to either a backup or a NAS and you've lost your work. Then of course if there is a fire, voltage spike etc, you've lost both good copies.

I decided to upload the items I wanted to keep to an online site. I chose Smugmug and it works well, albeit a little pricey. You can control what galleries web crawlers can find etc.....but I quickly found out that my photos are grabbed by "images" in yahoo and google.....then I started to see them used by others.....including a national ad campaign. I've since decided to "watermark" my photos (which Smugmug can add to your photos automatically) and google / yahoo have been very good in removing them from their image finds.

My website (link below) is hosted by smugmug.....so if you're interested in playing with a website, it might be the route to go.

[DAZ]

As part of my job I go on many trips. On these trips when I take photos the people I meet or know they will ask to see my photos. I used to come home from these trips and spend days processing and emailing the photos to all of these people. I came to the conclusion that this was stupid and there had to be a better way. Now I just process what photos I want and then upload them to Flickr. Now I just give everyone my Flickr and no more filling up in boxes. Because of space limits I have the pro account. It has kind of turned into my photo attic. As I use Paint Shop Pro I have it upload what photos I want to Flickr. I don't even have to save them in JPG, it will convert them before it sends them to Flickr.


Flickr is good if you are just looking to share but if you want constrictive input better to post a photos on a good photo forum. The people on the forum will understand more about art and photography then the rank and file on Flickr.


I used to back up my data in CD then DVD and even on other hard drives. From my travels I learned from the hard lessons of others that any local (not back up off location) non automated backup system is inherently flawed. I have seen to many homes destroyed by tornadoes, earthquakes, floods, fires, hurricanes and tsunamis to trust my data to any on-site system. The people I meet would tell me that the things like there photos were the things most missed. Because of this I use Carbonite. There are others but this is what I use. About 6 mouths ago I came back from a trip and I had lost a hard drive. As I was not home when it started to go it just ground itself to death. 600GB of data poof. No way to get any of the data back from the hard drive. But as I had Carbonite I just got a new hard drive and had the data restored. Carbonite has a premium service (that I did not have or pay for) that you can get your data in a day or 2. To get all may data back it took me about 2 months from on line. I could get back any one file in minutes but getting all the data took much more time. For the backing up of the data part, once you have the account and the client installed it will look on your system for any data (it will do standardized stuff automatically but you can configure it for any file type) not backed up. You need an always on connection and computer. It will take 1 day for about 2-4 GB of data so it can take months the first time you start to get the data all backed up. This part is the only problem I have had with it. If you have a Carbonite account there is even an app for your Android phone that is free to back up your phone photos.


DAZ

[p38arover]

Getting a RAID seems a little extreme to me. My problem was laziness, I generally keep things backed up to a small 1TB HDD I have sitting around, twice a year I back that up to another HDD. I also generally copy all my processed jpegs to another computer on our network (our living room HTPC). So at any given monthly interval, or large shoot, I have two backups. We were so busy over the holidays that I didn't get a chance to use my ingenious, foolproof, backup plan (i.e. I'm a bigger fool than I thought!). A RAID would have another problem, as I really don't want to spend the time futzing around with it, and, last I checked (awhile ago, so I might be wrong) most RAID solutions required a PCI card to work, and sadly my computer is completely out of space (never buy a small motherboard!).

I thought so, too, but after having two HDDs die in two months (both were my C: drive), I've changed my mind. Fortunately, I had recently installed NovaBackup and had done a full backup of my drive along with daily automatic differential backups. They saved my bacon. My storage device is a NAS device so it is connected to my network not to the PC. I'm about to reconfigure the NAS device to RAID with two 1TB HDDs - probably Western Digital Red NAS HDDs.

For images I want share, I use the free Picasa service.