Deanie1113

I am a little overwhelmed by all the choices I have for a safe storage site to place all my best work. Right now I have the Flikr free account, which is not adequate for holding all I want it to. Is Flikr worth paying for? I want people to have access to my portfolio, but I am just a hobbyist so I am not interested in an expensive website. I know there are free ones, but are they any good? Are websites better than Flikr? A high priority for me is that it cannot be complicated or time-consuming for me to organize it and add pics to it. Thank you!

Silverrails

I will look forward to the Replies you get, I have very similar Questions, Thanks for your post.

Toment Loc: FL, IL

Google or Mac Photos.

tramsey Loc: Texas

I'm using a flash drive and I am waiting for someone that knows what their talking about to.

Longshadow Loc: Audubon, PA, United States

Most people use an external drive (at least one) to backup the images locally and some also use a cloud service like Carbonite for off-site backup.

Curmudgeon Loc: SE Arizona

I don't have the vaguest idea what I am talking about, but this is what I do:

I don't care how many people get to see my "best shots". My photos are taken by me, for me, and if other people like them too that's wonderful. Like most people i have an Ego that puffs up and purrs like a kitten when someone likes what I do. That's human nature I think. I have a free flickr account where I occasionally post something. Since I only have two followers and maybe an occasional look I only post things I want to add one more layer of protection.

My only "public" exposure is on UHH. I post here because because the site tends to be non-judgmental and often times helpful. That's all my Ego needs.

I leave you with a word of advise: No matter how many layers of backup you have, the day will come when that number will be one too few. Good luck in your quest.

CHG_CANON Loc: the Windy City

Flickr is a sharing site, not a back-up tool. Possibly, you two separate issues confused or intermingled. All your work should be backed-up to removal media, either locally or to the cloud (internet). The decision is yours, alone, based on your own personal balance of (a) ease of use and (b) cost and (c) completeness of recovery in event of total loss. For example, if you periodically add your images to a 4TB external drive you keep in your desk drawer; and then, if your computer crashes, you can still recover everything copied to the HD. But, if your house burns down, you've probably lost both the computer and the HD.

Flickr is the leading share site now in 2020. Many find their free limit of 1000 images to be sufficient. Others find the annual $80 cost to be well worth the cost for the absence of advertising and the unlimited ability to load images. The paid version also provides traffic analysis tools for how popular various images are within your online portfolio on their site. Using Flickr has a low threshold for technical skills. You just drag n drop images onto their site to upload. You can share links to individual images and / or albums of images stored on Flickr. Also, you should upload images at a lower pixel resolution than the full-sized originals, again negating Flickr as a back-up tool.

jim quist Loc: Missouri

zenfolio.com gives you unlimited storage and its easy to manage your photos. Might be more than you want to pay, but you do get what you pay for.

Strodav Loc: Houston, Tx

A good option is to get an external USB DVD R/W drive (unless there's already one in your computer) and archival DVD media. The best stuff claims to be good for 100 years as long as they are kept in the proverbial cool dark place. A spindle of 50 is under $100. I would also backup to an external hard drive and a thumb drive. The more copies, the safer your data. Also, recommend you follow good data retention policies, like make multiple copies and keep at least one set off site in case of fire, or tornadoes, ...

Dngallagher Loc: Wilmington De.

If you already have a free Flickr account and use it then you pretty much know what it takes to manage a Flickr site.

A pro account expands storage past 1,000 images plus adds statistics and eliminates ads.

I use a combination of storage for my images....

All my original and edited images are stored on an external disk connected 24x7 to my computer, they get backed up every hour to a separate external disk (Time Machine) and they are backed up monthly to yet another external disk connected monthly and stored in a fire resistant box. Lastly the images are backed up hourly to Amazon Prime Photo Storage - unlimited freedom storage for pictures with Amazon Prime.

Flickr is where I “publish” my best shots and share images. Shots can be arranged in albums and made public or private.

I believe the last price I paid was 49.00 per year but got a 2 year plan that included a 20.00 credit with Adobe for Lightroom and Photoshop subscription.

LarryFitz Loc: Beacon NY

Shutterfly allow you to create one or more websites at no charge. They are simple to put together, can be public or private.

Also, you can make photo books for others that looking at a website is not an option (granddaughters who like picture, but do not yet have webaccess).

billnikon Loc: Pennsylvania/Ohio/Florida/Maui/Oregon/Vermont

I use Thumb drives. For my best shots, they are on three thumb drives, and I always keep the original on it's original memory card.

jerryc41 Loc: Catskill Mts of NY

I like Google Photos, but there is a limit to how much free storage you get with large files. That doesn't matter to me because I use it for display, rather than secure storage. OneDrive, DropBox, and Google Drive provide storage for free, and then you can pay to get more storage. Having everything saved on a couple of hard drives at home is an obvious storage choice.

coolhanduke Loc: Redondo Beach, CA

For what it’s worth, Facebook has albums you can create for different subject matters.
I have scanned tons of family photos and created albums for each event. Like Christmas 2000, 2001, etc. Family reunion 2005 and so on. You can set access to the albums for public, family, friends or any other group you designate.
This option I use is for sharing. Archiving they are all stored on RAID drives under the same headings.

Picture Taker Loc: Michigan Thumb

Back them up in 2 places. Failures happen. And they DO HAPPEN!