Managing Photos

Every chapter will have photos of rides and events that they will want to share. Below is an overview of several free photo hosting services:

Picasa Web Albums

The VRA highly recommends using Picasa Web Albums for managing chapter photos. (view example)

  • Free hosting of up to 1GB of photos ($5 / year for 20 GB).  For reference, PA Chapter 1-52 (SCPAVRA) created 51 photo ablums over six years (1484 photos) and only used 36% of their quota)
  • Photos are not deleted! (Google WANTS you to exceed your quota so you will pay)
  • One of the best rated viewing interfaces by CNET (see example)
  • In both paid and free accounts, Google stores the original image (even though a smaller resolution photo may be displayed by the web interface)
  • Viewers can download all of the original photos from a shared album with one click.
  • Google offers free photo management software called Picasa (highly recommended) that integrates with Picasa Web Albums
  • Contributors can be selectively invited to add photos

Photobucket

Not Recommended! After three months of not logging into the account, all linked images become dead links.  After one year of not logging into the account, all photos become inaccessible.  If the account is not upgraded to a Pro (paid) account within three months, alll photos are deleted.

Photobucket may be useful for temporarily gathering photos for an event from multiple members but they should be downloaded and then added to a web album on Picasa for safe storage. See collecting photos below.

Flickr

NOT Recommended! Flickr will only display the most recent 200 photos. If a chapter has 300 photos, the first 100 photos can never be viewed again until a Pro account is purchased. 

Tips, considerations and recommendations:

  • Picasa Web Albums are linked to a Google Account.  Don't use a personal account.  Create a generic photo account that can be passed on to future members.
  • Consider appointing one person to be in charge of managing the club's photos and ask everyone to send their photos to them. 
  • Getting the photos from the members to the appointed person can be a challenge.  Consider the following methods:
    • Create a file drop on Drop.io (http://drop.io).  This is one of the easiest file sharing services to use. (NOTE: There is a 100mb limit.  The person managing the photos should delete the photos after downloading them)
    • Zip the photos and send them by email.
      NOTE: Email with more than 10mb in attachments will fail.
    • Invite members to upload their photos to a temporary photobucket account (but remember to download the photos and add them to a Picasa Web Album for safe long-term storage)

Have a tip?  Email the webmaster.



Picasa Web Albums