Best online free photo storage option?

[Wrichik Basu]

I was comparing online photo storage options. I mostly use Google photos, but Google account has only 15GB of free storage. Moreover, after Picasa web albums was discontinued, embedding photos has become a problem too.

Can you recommend me sites where I can store unlimited number of photos under one account, for free? Does that site allow options like making albums, sharing and embedding photos to other sites?

 

[DrClaude]

Can you recommend me sites where I can store unlimited number of photos under one account, for free?

Don't want to sound too flippant, but can you recommend an all-you-can-eat restaurant that's free?

 

[Wrichik Basu]

Don't want to sound too flippant, but can you recommend an all-you-can-eat restaurant that's free?

There are a few restaurants in India that offer lifetime unlimited free food if you can finish one of their specific items within a certain period of time (it's like a contest,and if you win, you'll be able to have unlimited food for your life). Other than that, NGOs like Ramkrishna Mission and Bharat Sevashram Saughall provide free food to everyone. You can donate only if you want.

Coming back to topic, if the sites allow at least a greater storage than Google (if not unlimited), for free, I'll be fine with them.

What about photo bucket and such sites? What is the free data storage for photo bucket?

 

[DrClaude]

If I'm not mistaken, Flickr offers 1TB free.

 

[DennisN]

If I'm not mistaken, Flickr offers 1TB free.

Yes, 1TB it is. I use Flickr, and I like it, so I recommend it.

Does that site allow options like making albums, sharing and embedding photos to other sites?

Flickr supports that, and some more. One cool thing with Flickr is that if you upload a large resolution image, there are also several links to smaller versions of the image (which I've found being very convenient when I submit photos to the PF photo competition).

 

[BillTre]

I have used photobucket, but I have not put much on it and don't really know its limits.
I have been getting email from them about how they are going to be doing some changes in how they work things. Expect it to change soon.

 

[dlgoff]

I wouldn't use a site to store my photos. Today they're there, tomorrow they're gone. Just sayin'

 

[Wrichik Basu]

I wouldn't use a site to store my photos. Today they're there, tomorrow they're gone. Just sayin'

True. I save all my photos and videos in DVDs. But some photos which are uploaded to accompany the travelogue. I want to store them somewhere, just in case any of the DVDs become unusable.

I will never upload all my photos. Total size till date is about 151GB. I'll upload only selected ones.

 

[DennisN]

I was comparing online photo storage options.

I wouldn't use a site to store my photos. Today they're there, tomorrow they're gone. Just sayin'

Hi again @Wrichik Basu, I want to clarify I use Flickr to upload photos for sharing purposes. I store my photos on other media like DVDs and hard drives. Edit: Ah, I saw you have already replied above.

 

[DennisN]

I want to store them somewhere, just in case any of the DVDs become unusable.

I (and others ) have the same problem, that is, how to store data relatively safely, and using multiple copies, i.e. redundancy, is the way to go. I have actually quite recently researched and changed my storage solution for my data. As far as I know, the cheapest (in the long run) and the easiest way is to use multiple hard drives; personally I am using two 3 TB SATA harddrives and HDD enclosures (e.g. like this) which makes the drives more portable.

Edit: One of the drives is always connected to the computer, so I can add data to it when I want. The other drive is offline in an enclosure and put somewhere else in my home, and I connect it when I am doing backup.

 

[jtbell]

As far as I know, the cheapest (in the long run) and the easiest way is to use multiple hard drives;

That's what I use, too, currently two 1TB external drives with identical contents. The last year's worth (more or less) is also on an internal drive so I can access them quickly for editing.

 

[BillTre]

WRT the storage issues, in what form do you store your photos?

I have a handful of .jpg's, but mostly my photos are in photo libraries, like Lightroom (adobe) and Aperture/Photos (Apple).
The libraries make it fairly easy to find a particular photo (or one of a group), but on the other hand, I am tied to the having the program the runs the library (most expensive for Adobe programs) of going through the odious process of exporting the huge number of images in the library.

 

[Wrichik Basu]

WRT the storage issues, in what form do you store your photos?

In JPEG format. The cameras record in JPEG format.

 

[jtbell]

I've never used a proprietary library for my photos. I use a plain folder structure, first grouped by slides / negatives / digital, then chronological by year, with subfolders for month or day (depending on the year). It contains all my digital photos back to 2003 (JPEG only at first, then also camera RAW format). Before that, I have scanned negatives and slides, going back to my father's first slides from the 1950s. The scans are in a RAW format used by my scanning software (VueScan), along with lower-resolution JPEGs that I use to help locate specific photos. Each folder of scans also contains a text file with places, dates and some descriptions.

Every few months I download new pictures off my phone and file them in my archive. I'm not one to keep my whole life on my phone.

 

[BillTre]

I've never used a proprietary library for my photos. I use a plain folder structure, first grouped by slides / negatives / digital, then chronological by year, with subfolders for month or day (depending on the year). It contains all my digital photos back to 2003 (JPEG only at first, then also camera RAW format). Before that, I have scanned negatives and slides, going back to my father's first slides from the 1950s. The scans are in a RAW format used by my scanning software (VueScan), along with lower-resolution JPEGs that I use to help locate specific photos. Each folder of scans also contains a text file with places, dates and some descriptions.

That's an impressive collection/effort and certainly frees you from any particular program.

However, it seems like it would be difficult to find subject based images easily. Personally, my memory is not focused on that kind of thing.
For example I often want to look at shots of a species of fish I have taken pictures of over several years. For me they are fairly easy to find (usually).
I guess you could make a database for them (referring to the photos). That would make it your own photo library. I really don't need another project my self.

Libraries allow you to (besides tracking date) group by subject/sub-subject, key words, and image rating (good to bad).
They can also handle raw and videos (which is nice). Of course a DIY file system could also be used for videos.
Some claim to have auto face recognition to aid in the classification process (though I have not used this).

 

[Wrichik Basu]

My photos are mainly destination based. About 90% are travel photos, and most of them are currently grouped under separate folders in multiple DVDs.

@jtbell the idea of hard drives is not bad. They are definitely safer than DVDs. Maybe I'll switch to hard drives rather than buying further DVDs.

 

[jtbell]

However, it seems like it would be difficult to find subject based images easily. Personally, my memory is not focused on that kind of thing.

That's definitely a drawback of my setup. I have to rely on memory to find a picture of a particular thing, or tie it to a major trip somewhere. The crop circles picture that I posted in this week's contest thread was actually taken more than forty years ago. I remembered having a picture like that from a flight out West, which I haven't done very many times, so I started with the first one that came to mind, in 1977, and there it was.

For stuff less than 20-25 years old, I can usually find cities fairly easily because I label folders with a city or other location along with the date, like "2016-08-04 Portland".

 

[dlgoff]

I use a plain folder structure, first grouped by slides / negatives / digital, then chronological by year, with subfolders for month or day ...

And the one's you've posted here have been awesome. Thanks for sharing your trip pics jt.

 

[Wrichik Basu]

Does anyone know about imgur? I was checking their site, but nowhere storage capacity has been mentioned.

 

[jtbell]

the idea of hard drives is not bad. They are definitely safer than DVDs.

They also take up less space that DVDs if you have a lot of files. Compare a stack of 100 DVDs (a standard bulk "spindle" of them) which gives about 400-420 GB of storage space, with a 2TB desktop external drive which might the smallest size you can find new nowadays. I used to use DVDs in notebook binders, but I gave that up after hard drives became so cheap per GB. I do have a lot of video that I've recorded from TV broadcasts, which takes up much more space than my photos.

Hard drives can fail, so always have duplicates!

 

[Wrichik Basu]

They also take up less space that DVDs if you have a lot of files. Compare a stack of 100 DVDs (a standard bulk "spindle" of them) which gives about 400-420 GB of storage space, with a 2TB desktop external drive which might the smallest size you can find new nowadays. I used to use DVDs in notebook binders, but I gave that up after hard drives became so cheap per GB. I do have a lot of video that I've recorded from TV broadcasts, which takes up much more space than my photos.

Hard drives can fail, so always have duplicates!

Yes, that's another problem I'm facing currently. I shall further store all photos in hard drives.

I know hard drives can fail, but aren't they safer than DVDs regarding failing?

 

[DennisN]

I know hard drives can fail, but aren't they safer than DVDs regarding failing?

If I remember correctly, yes, hard drives are safer (they last longer).

 

[Wrichik Basu]

Does anyone know about imgur? I was checking their site, but nowhere storage capacity has been mentioned.

Sent a mail to imgur helpline and they've replied. No storage limit. I'm taking up imgur.