What are the benefits of Photo.net over flickr, picasa and such

[dwdukes]

<p>I use Flickr and for $25 per year I seem to get a lot more storage. Can someone please tell me how spending $25 on photo.net is better. This site seems to be more technical and not just for the average person with a camera. </p>

<p>I may be missing the intended usage of this site, but the 100K upload limit seems to be the biggest drawback in me actually participating. I would appreciate someone enlightening me on what I am missing.</p>

<p>Thanks, Wes</p>

[bill_clark___minnetonka_mi]

<p>Photo net is a community of people who want to learn and help others about the various ingredients that works with photography. Take a look here:<br /> http://www.photo.net/community/<br /> There are quite a few topics you can dive into that could help you, depending on what you want to learn or may want to help out.</p>

<p>You can join for free to test drive it out.</p>

<p>But a membership has many benefits. You can put portfolios of your photographs up and others which someone else can inform you.<br /> <br /> I joined to learn and to help others out and I believe photo net is a wonderful place for people who are interested in photography to gather and discuss the endless topic so I make my contribution to help out. <br /> There are a lot of talented people here who are willing to help each other.</p>

<p>Kudos to all the volunteers who staff Photo.net. It's a terrific place.</p>

<p>Try it out.</p>

<p> </p>

[starvy]

<p>photo.net is not just a photo upload site. it is a community of people who understand photography or take a keen interest. this interest transpires to an element of teaching those who wish to learn. there can be a very technical dimension to some of the answered questions, however, that comes from the very erudite member base.<br>

it is a site for someone who wishes to learn about photography without really wishing to attend night school classes. the critique forum also allows members to seek valuable feedback from other members.<br>

the chap who is going to shoot away with a mobile phone camera or a point and shoot without thinking of composition, light and post processing might find the site overwhelming. however, at 25 dollars, you don't have anything to lose. who not just learn a little about photography for a year from your subscription and then go to flickr if you don't wish to take the knowledge base any further?</p>

[Leroy_Photography]

<p>The benefit of this site comes to light in your photos. Even if you don't join, you get to tap into the immense knowledge of top photographers who can help you improve. If you simply want to share or display your photos, then Photo.net may not be your best choice. But if you want to improve your technique through the input and critique of other photographers, then PN is the place. The membership fee is incidental. I joined for the negligible $25 because I knew PN was a wonderful site and I wanted to help them keep it up. By the way, I like the upload limit. It forces the photographer to only upload their very best and others don't have to wade through poorer quality photos that really should be thrown out or stuck in the back of a box somewhere. </p>

[dwdukes]

<p>Thanks for the replies. I found the guidelines for posting and that helped. I do have a free membership. I can live with uploading 5 photos per day for now.</p>

<p>Wes Dukes</p>

[lex_jenkins]

<p>No idea about Picasa, haven't used it, but as a viewer of photos other folks have linked to their Picasa site, it seems less intuitive and accessible than Flickr.</p>

<p>My impressions of Photo.net vs. Flickr in a nutshell:</p>

<p>The two evolved in distinctly different ways. Those roots have remained influential on the development of each site. Photo.net evolved from a web project developed by a serious photographer. Flickr evolved from a concept for file sharing within an online gaming environment, primarily as a means to enhance social networking.</p>

<p><strong>Critiques</strong><br>

With their mostly unfettered praise and invitations to mutual admiration societies, Flickr is stuck in the juvenile mate-rating phase photo.net struggled to dig itself out of years ago. I see very few genuine critiques on Flickr.</p>

<p><strong>File sharing</strong><br>

Flickr offers storage space for very large photos. Photo.net does not. This was useful to me last year when a Flickr pro account was bundled with my ISP. Now that my ISP has discontinued that benefit, Flickr is less useful to me for file sharing. Last year I was able to upload full resolution JPEGs from my event photography and allow others to view and download them for printing as they saw fit. I don't have much other use for Flickr, which in the free and trial account form is roughly equivalent to Photobucket for my informal purposes.</p>

<p><strong>Information/education</strong><br>

This one is a tossup.</p>

<p>Photo.net offers better critiques and a far better knowledge base organized into discussion forums, articles and other sources. No question the forums and articles are the strong point. But we're a bit behind the times in maximizing the use of individual photos and portfolios as assets to the site's overall mission, rather than as an awkward appendage. The site tends to be polarized between the text/discussion and photo display communities.</p>

<p>I see few real critiques on Flickr, but a lot of comments, mostly unfettered praise, which is what many users want. Flickr offers image tagging, EXIF data and, perhaps best of all, that <em>clustery goodness</em> . I really like the way related types of photos (such as skateboarding, surfing, macro, etc.) can be semi-organized into clusters according to user input. While "folksonomy" can sometimes be a mess, it tends to work the way users want it to work. If I need to find examples of photographers using fisheye lenses to shoot skateboarders grinding, I can do it quickly and easily on Flickr - not so on photo.net.</p>

<p>Both sites are very useful but serve very different purposes. I can see Photo.net catching up in terms of making photos more accessible for demonstration and education purposes, via tagging and something akin to clusters. But at the moment I don't see Flickr catching up in terms of serious, well informed critiques or discussion forums without risking diluting the model that works very well for them, which serves a membership that enjoys showing off photos without much risk of hurt feelings caused by serious critiques. Since not everyone wants or needs true critiques, it serves a valid purpose.</p>

[j.w.]

<p>The real benefit to paying for a discussion forum like Photo.net is the opportunity to get in squabbles, shouting matches and occasion knock-down, drag-out donney-brooks with other people you've never met. :)</p>

<p>There's also the benefit of supporting a site that also provides an education service, by placing you in contact with other, perhaps more experienced or differently-minded folks who can provide you with alternative perspectives.</p>

<p>~Joe</p>

[screeny]

<p>Mhh I used photo.net a lot when I got into photography and indeed the forum with search button is a huge pile of information that is very usefull, not only hardcore data but also lot's of opinions about almost every hing. So that's the postive about photo.net. However concerning critique I disagree with Lex. He agrues that untill now photo.net is better in delivering good critiques while flickr is mate rating and praising. Tha latter is true but the former is not true. Though is very large Photo.net is in my opinion a very narrow minded community. A certain type of images are aprreciated and many other types and styles of photography are not. Overall the critique can be good very occasionaaly but in general in my experience the last 5 years its either a big praise or some critique "hey that image is out of focus/not sharp enough, maybe you should buy rthe Cakon 500XT 200 lens I bought it and it is suberp sharpness". What I have noticed at flickr is that due to the way it is set up their are true sub communities which you can join. So if you are in to of camera flash photography join any of the Strobsit poles and avoid critiueslike: nice image but I prefer natural/available light over flash any time. So bottom line in general and maybe a bit exagerated photo.net is one big communinty with all styles through another so what you liek theire is always some one critqueing your image not because of the image buit because your style is not his. In Flickr there is a better way to choose your audience, your peers so to speak.</p>

<p>just my 2 cents</p>

<p>I still use both Photo.net and Flickr</p>

[lex_jenkins]

<p>Good points, MIW. Some photo.netters can give the impression that it's not much above Flickr in vacuousness. There's a lot of gaming of the photo.net ratings system by folks who use the anonymous ratings queue to find their buddies' photos, which they'll rate 7/7, then jump to the comment section to leave an insightful critique such as "Bravo! Yet another outstanding example from you, my dear friend! 7/7 anon!"</p>

<p>Google the following to see how the game is played:<br>

"7/7 anon" site:photo.net</p>

<p>Well, kids... let 'em have their fun. That is an aspect of photo.net that appeals to a lot of folks, so who am I to stomp on their party.</p>

<p>However, despite such shallow gaming by folks too insecure to face genuine constructive criticism, photo.net still offers serious critiques by experienced photographers. You may not see many thorough or insightful critiques a year, but a single comment on a photo or folder from one of them is worth more than dozens of sugary words of fawning praise. And a lot of us do give sincere ratings as well.</p>

<p>But I'm a "beer mug is half full, half empty, whadda I care, it's still beer!" kinda guy. I'm always surprised and pleased to receive any feedback at all, especially from folks who consistently demonstrate they understand the healthy critique process.</p>

<p>BTW, since this thread was initiated in February 2009, photo.net has implemented tagging that really seems to be working well. This may help assist photographers not only in attracting more views, but may also assist in receiving relevant critiques from viewers who are actively seeking particular types of photos.</p>

[serhiy_pylawka1]

<p>I was an infrequent user of both flickr and photo.net. However, since I started to use Flickr more often, I also developed the need to use Photo.net more often as well. I perceive that right now both site are necessary for my development. My suggestion is use both until you establish your preferences clearly.</p>

[robert_k1]

<blockquote>

<p>No idea about Picasa, haven't used it, but as a viewer of photos other folks have linked to their Picasa site, it seems less intuitive and accessible than Flickr.</p>

</blockquote>

<p>Good point. Picasa (and many other sites like Facebook, etc.) requires either a registration and/or an invitation to browse and view their sites. A real annoyance for those who just want to test drive or browse without having to sign up.<br>

Agreed with many of Lex' comments. Here are a few more.<br>

- Flickr is the largest photo sharing community, by far. This means it has the widest range of photographers and their work. Each has different intent, from pros advertising their services to vacationers showing their snapshots. The discussion groups are extremely diverse as a result. For gaining exposure, Flickr is hard to beat.<br>

- Flickr offers the ability for their members to make many products from their photos, from prints, books, stamps, to buttons, etc. (Not saying it's a good thing for everyone.)<br>

- While Flickr provides Creative Commons for their members' copyright statements, I have never found anything about how Flickr itself treats the submitted photos. E.g. when a member deletes a photo, does Flickr really remove it from their computers? Same question for photo.net, and all other sharing services.<br>

- Haven't spent much time searching Flickr's (text) archive and can't comment on it. But photo.net's forum search is broken badly. Advance Google search targeting photo.net as domain is the only way I can pin point meaning results.</p>

 

[lex_jenkins]

<blockquote>

<p>"But photo.net's forum search is broken badly."</p>

</blockquote>

<p>The internal search feature has periodically worked well and not so well. Right now the "in URL" option isn't working properly. For forum specific searches I'll just copy and paste the operators I use most often to another browser window on a regular Google page. Works well enough.</p>

<p>However, photo.net's image tag search seems to be working okay. I've checked it recently. However relatively few members seem to be using tagging. It may be one of the site's underappreciated assets.</p>

<p>Regarding gaining exposure, photo.net may have an edge over Flickr. In a non-site-specific search related to photography, photo.net virtually always comes up with relevant hits on the first page. Flickr comes up much less prominently in non-site-specific Google searches. Again, this is an underutilized asset for photo.net members, very few of whom seem to recognize and use it constructively.</p>

[parv]

<p>Unlike Flickr, Picasa does not work suitably in Opera 10.10. "Flickr" gets on my nerves unlike "Picasa". Flickr allows user adult material unlike Picasa.

 

<p>IMO those are minor things compared to the differences in use of "Content" post account deletion. From <a href="http://www.google.com/accounts/TOS?hl=US">Google TOS</a> (as of this writing) ...

 

<p><blockquote>

... <br>

11. Content licence from you

 

<p>

11.1 You retain copyright and any other rights you already hold in Content which you submit, post or display on or through, the Services. By submitting, posting or displaying the content you give Google a perpetual, irrevocable, worldwide, royalty-free, and non-exclusive licence to reproduce, adapt, modify, translate, publish, publicly perform, publicly display and distribute any Content which you submit, post or display on or through, the Services. This licence is for the sole purpose of enabling Google to display, distribute and promote the Services and may be revoked for certain Services as defined in the Additional Terms of those Services.

 

<p>

11.2 You agree that this licence includes a right for Google to make such Content available to other companies, organizations or individuals with whom Google has relationships for the provision of syndicated services, and to use such Content in connection with the provision of those services.

<br>.

<br>.

<br>.

<p>13. Ending your relationship with Google

<br>...

<br>13.5 When these Terms come to an end, all of the legal rights, obligations and liabilities that you and Google have benefited from, been subject to (or which have accrued over time whilst the Terms have been in force) or which are expressed to continue indefinitely, shall be unaffected by this cessation, and the provisions of paragraph 20.7 shall continue to apply to such rights, obligations and liabilities indefinitely.

<br>...

</blockquote>

 

<p>So, after one's account has been deleted, Google may continue to use images, etc as listed in section 11. In that regard, Flickr TOS via <a href="http://info.yahoo.com/legal/us/yahoo/utos/utos-173.html">Yahoo TOS</a> seems more palatable ...

 

<p><blockquote>

... <br>

9. CONTENT SUBMITTED OR MADE AVAILABLE FOR INCLUSION ON THE YAHOO! SERVICES

<br><br>

Yahoo! does not claim ownership of Content you submit or make available for inclusion on the Yahoo! Services. However, with respect to Content you submit or make available for inclusion on publicly accessible areas of the Yahoo! Services, you grant Yahoo! the following worldwide, royalty-free and non-exclusive license(s), as applicable:

<br>...

<p> b. With respect to photos, graphics, audio or video you submit or make available for inclusion on publicly accessible areas of the Yahoo! Services other than Yahoo! Groups, the license to use, distribute, reproduce, modify, adapt, publicly perform and publicly display such Content on the Yahoo! Services solely for the purpose for which such Content was submitted or made available. This license exists only for as long as you elect to continue to include such Content on the Yahoo! Services and will terminate at the time you remove or Yahoo! removes such Content from the Yahoo! Services.

<br>...

</blockquote>

[joshroot]

<blockquote>

<p>The internal search feature has periodically worked well and not so well. Right now the "in URL" option isn't working properly. For forum specific searches I'll just copy and paste the operators I use most often to another browser window on a regular Google page. Works well enough.</p>

</blockquote>

<p>The forum search works fine for me. If something is broken, I need to know about it or I can't fix it.</p>

[Tim_Lookingbill]

<p>I haven't gotten used to Flickr's photo management interface.</p>

<p>I can't tell my Photostream from a custom arranged gallery using that weird drag and drop browser interface. It's just too confusing to me. I have to delete an image ONLY from my main Photostream to truly delete it. If I want to create a separate cordoned off gallery, it's difficult finding it on my Photostream after returning from being away.</p>

<p>And those drop down menus at the top are confusing and unintuitive as well. I don't use but about a couple of the features linked in those menu's because I just don't understand where I'm at and what exactly they mean by the wording they use.</p>

[parv]

Tim, do you mean "Set" by "custom arranged gallery"? Your description resembles to that. Images can be put in a set either via from the faded menu just above, or via "Organize" link near the bottom where one can work on multiple images.

 

Care to post about your Flickr issues elsewhere (I would prefer one issue per thread), where I could continue this?

[Tim_Lookingbill]

<p>parv, nothing personal but I don't have the time or interest in posting my issues about Flickr since I rarely venture over there. I basically have duplicates of my PN gallery on my Photostream.</p>

<p>I mostly use my Photostream as a temporary image host similar to pixentral.com for instructional purposes in other discussion forums. I know Flickr will eventually stop the hotlink which is another issue I have, but then again I don't think PN allows hotlinking images from member's galleries to other forum sites either.</p>

[Tim_Lookingbill]

<p>One thing I just remembered I do like and think is very smart about Flickr is you can view all the EXIF properties embedded in an image like most of the Adobe Camera Raw edits. The added benefit is that it saves me from having to tell others what I did to an image to get it to look the way it does.</p>

[parv]

Tim, no problemo.

[robert_k1]

<p>I don't have any solid data to support my claim that Flickr is a better place for gaining exposure. However:<br>

- In many sites and on many business cards, Flickr is listed as a link. Far more than for PN, or other photo sharing sites.<br>

- Visitors to these sites are not necessarily based on search engine results. While those who search for specific topics may more likely end up at PN (text intensive), those who just want to browse photos will go directly to well known photo sharing sites, and none is better known than Flickr. I claim that the latter group is the majority.<br>

- If there are published data available for site visitors and membership, I will bet a lobster dinner that Flickr will be at the top of the list.</p>

[robert_k1]

<blockquote>

<p>The forum search works fine for me. If something is broken, I need to know about it or I can't fix it.</p>

</blockquote>

<p>I have not used PN's search engine for ages, and just tried it. It now seems to be powered by Google. My comment was based on the old search engine, and may not apply any more.<br>

BTW, are you responsible for PN's tech support and are open to questions and suggestions? If so, I have several oldies that never got answered or resolved.</p>

[robert_k1]

<p>Parv, thanks for those terms of use. And Google's mantra is "Do no evil"? LOL!<br>

These are the fine prints photo sharing site subscribers should pay close attention to. But few do.</p>

<blockquote>

<p>You retain copyright and any other rights you already hold in Content which you submit, post or display on or through, the Services.</p>

</blockquote>

<p>This claim by Google and other submission calls always makes me chuckle. Of course, a submitter retains the rights, without saying. If Google did not make such a claim, can they take legal action against a submitter if he should use a submitted item for other purposes? I think not. So why is such a claim even necessary?</p>

[Tim_Lookingbill]

<p>Why would someone posting their photos on Flickr want exposure? Exposure to who?</p>

<p>Is it for potential buyers of their work?</p>

<p>How many serious buyers are there willing to pay good money for images rummaging through Flickr? How many sales of images have been documented at Flickr? Of course this question also applies to any image hosting site. Why aren't there stats on this?</p>

<p>I'ld understand if it's wedding photographers, though.</p>

[parv]

Getting off topic ... search for "Flickr" "Getty mages", with "license" & "stock" thrown in for good measure.

[lex_jenkins]

<blockquote>

<p>search for "Flickr" "Getty mages", with "license" & "stock" thrown in for good measure.</p>

</blockquote>

<p>That type of search depends too heavily on user knowledge of the subject. Apparent Google prominence/relevance depends on context. For example, if you Google a very basic question like "What camera should I buy?", photo.net hits will be very prominent.</p>

<p>Getting relevant hits on Flickr for specific types or genres of photographs depends on using terms that correspond with typical taxonomy or folksonomy. For example, just now I Googled "photos of skateboarders". I got mostly hits on skateboard-specific sites and one on Photobucket. Zero from Flickr on page one of Google hits. Zero photos from Flickr on the images view either.</p>

<p>Google relevance depends heavily on the assumption that users know little or nothing about advanced search techniques. That's why boolean search operators aren't used much anymore. To figure out whether a site truly has *effective* Google prominence, ask a friend or family member who knows little or nothing about a topic to do the search.</p>

<p>Even if the person knows enough to write a more specific "stock photos of skateboarders", Flickr still doesn't appear on page one of Google hits (as of this moment - subject to change, of course, if this thread is still around years from now). Even if you add "Flickr" to the search string, it still only delivers a few photos via Google's image view option.</p>

<p>In terms of real world, everyday relevance, Flickr very seldom comes up on page one of hits in any Google searches I do. Their internal search tools are excellent and it's very easy to find photos relevant to a particular genre or subject - when I'm using Flickr's own internal search tools. But in terms of general, real world use of Google - nope, I'm not seeing it.</p>