Flickr Photo ArchiveGetting Started

DENISE BARRETT OLSON

What Is Flickr? Flickr is one of a number of online photo-sharing platforms offering free and/or affordable photo storage along with various levels of display and sharing capabilities. Flickr stands out in a number of ways. These include:

• each user has 1TB of photo/video storage at no cost. This is roughly equivalent to 560,000 high-resolution photographs.

• photos are uploaded and stored at their original size and resolution making it a great off-site backup solution.

• users control both licensing (copyright) and privacy settings for their photos.

• Flickr offers a number of social features which allow you to share your photos without giving up control of them.

• There are a large number of third-party apps and services supporting Flickr.

Getting started is easy. Open your web browser and head to www.flickr.com. You will see a screen similar to the one above. Flickr is a Yahoo property and you will need a Yahoo account to use it. If you already have an account, click the Sign up with Yahoo button in the middle of the screen. If not, click the Sign Up button at the top. A form similar to this one appears. Fill in the fields then click the Create Account button. If you have questions, you can click the Help link on the right at the top of the panel.

Once your account is created, Flickr displays a screen similar to this one presenting your account information along with links to Flickr features that will help you get started. Click the links to learn more about each of these tasks.

Your buddy icon can be a photo or a graphic. It is used throughout Flickr to identify you. The screen below shows the user’s buddy icon at the far right in the menu bar.

Flickr photos are organized using albums. You can create as many albums as you want. The Camera Roll you see above is the “landing place” for photos uploaded to your account. In this example, they are arranged by the date the photo was taken. All your uploaded photos are visible in this view, but its purpose is as a work area to select and process them once they have been uploaded. From here you can move them to existing albums, create new albums, edit titles and descriptions and even edit the actual photo.

Although you can view all your photos in the photostream section, albums make it easy to organize your collection into more manageable groupings. Adding a photo to an album does not duplicate the image file and you can add a photo to any number of albums.

As you scroll through the photostream, mouse over any photo and information about that photo will appear. In this example you see the title and owner appears at the bottom of the photo on the left. At the bottom right are two icons. Tap the star icon to favorite this photo. You can favorite any photo in Flickr. Tap the comment icon to leave a comment regarding this photo.

When you click on any photo in the photostream, Flickr will open its photo page. It provides a larger view of the photo along with its title, description and other metadata related to it. The arrows visible to the right and left of the photo make it possible to page through your photo collection. The icons on the right just below the image give you access to tools for editing, sharing and downloading this photo if the owner allows it.

Scroll down to view more.

The photo page’s metadata area provides even more details about the photo. Some of this information was embedded in the photo file and captured when the photo was uploaded to Flickr. In this example, the date taken and camera details came with the photo. If the photographer has "location" features on his camera/phone and has turned them on, the map would show where the photo was taken. Location information can also be added manually using Flickr's Organizer feature.

The other metadata elements are assigned by the owner - either through the Camera Roll or by editing them on this screen.

At the top of the data panel is the licensing option. Click the down icon to display the options. Your options are:

• all rights reserved

• public domain

• some rights reserved.

The “some rights reserved” option is actually one of the six options developed by Creative Commons. You are still the copyright owner, but you are authorizing others some leeway in what they can do with your photo. For example, the traditional “all rights reserved” license mean you cannot use the work without permission of the copyright owner while the “attribution” license allows you to use the work as long as you credit the copyright owner. You’ll find complete details on these licenses at http://creativecommons.org/about/licenses.

Tags are keywords that describe your photos. They make it easier for search engines - both inside and outside of Flickr - to find them. You can also identify the people in your photos by including their name in the Add a person field.

The privacy setting determines who can see your photos on Flickr. When set to Public, anyone can see them. Only the owner can see Private photos. Friends and Family are other Flickr users you have identified as friends and/or family members.

Flickr users can add any photo as a Favorite. All your favorited photos can be viewed by selecting the Favorites option in the menu.

Groups are both fascinating and functional. They allow Flickr users to share their photos with others without losing control of them. Any user can create a group. The group shown here is a public group. Anyone who wants to can join and participate. Private groups are by invitation only. Groups include a discussion board along with the photo pool.

Groups are discussed in detail in the Flickr Guide to Social Photos.

The Creations area makes it possible to order mounted prints or photo books. The More menu contains a number of other features and functions that can be quite handy. For example, you can organize a group of albums into a collection and the galleries feature makes it possible to create curated collections of photos from multiple users.

You’ll quickly discover there is a lot more to Flickr than just your photos. Take time to visit some of these components and see for yourself. The Commons hosts public collections from archives, libraries, museums and other institutions around the world. This postcard collection from Florida Memory, a component of the State Archives of Florida, is just one example of the many goodies awaiting your visit.

Resources• Visit Moultrie Creek @Scribd for

additional guides on Flickr and other digital storytelling topics.

• Mobile apps are available for iOS devices (iPhone and iPad), Android devices and Windows Phone. You'll find them in your device's app store and they are free.

For More Information To learn more about Flickr and other photo-related applications and platforms, visit

Moultrie Creek Gazette Tech support for the family historian

http://www.moultriecreek.us/gazette

This work is licensed under the Creative Commons Attribution- Noncommercial-No Derivative Works 3.0

United States License. To view a copy of this license, visit http://creativecommons.org/ licenses/by-nc-nd/

3.0/us/ or send a letter to Creative Commons, 171 Second Street, Suite 300, San Francisco, California,

94105, USA.

For more information regarding this presentation contact me at http://moultriecreek.us or by email at

denise@moultriecreek.us.