Photo Hosting Question - HELP!

Re: Photo Hosting Question - HELP!

Derek Cohen (in Perth, Australia)

Hi Hank

I've been using Photobucket since 2005. I have a "Plus 20" membership, which provides 50 gb of storage. This is the lowest level of paid storage. It costs about $3 p.m. I could have stayed with the free account for the amount I use. I receive requests to upgrade - which seems standard for all these services - but no threats of any form.

Another site I have begun to use - just for insurance as Photobucket goes down every now-and-then - is postimg.org

That one is free. It does not have the easy navigation and file management of Photobucket (which is the best at this of all the sites I have examined).

Regards from Perth

Derek

Re: Not a Scam - No More Photobucket Photos Here

Hank Knight

I just did some research and Photobucket's denial of third party hosting is not a scam. They have "updated" their Terms of Service to clearly prohibit third party hosting except as an element of their most expensive premium account - the $400.00 per year one. I don't know if the prohibition has always been in the Terms of Service or whether it is a new feature in their uprgraded Terms of Service. In any event, Photobucket is now enforcing the prohibition, so, unless you have the top level premium account, you can no longer link photos hosted on Photobucket to posts in Wood Central. I need to get busy and find some other method to post photos here that doesn't cost $400/year.

Re: Photo Hosting Question - HELP!

Hank Knight

Hi, Derek,

It looks as though Photobucket is cracking down on third party hosting. I read their new Terms of Service and the only premium service that allows third party hosting is the top level - the $400/year one. You might want to take a look yourself and make sure you are good with your account so you don't get blind-sided like I did. My research reveals that this is a new initiative by Photobucket. There are many irate posts about it from disappointed Photobucket subscribers on the net.

Hank

Re: Photo Hosting Question - HELP!

Derek Cohen (in Perth, Australia)

Hank

Well, I am not planing to pay $400 for a service that I can get free elsewhere. Having said this, I am not in a rush to make changes. What they mean by "third party storage" is obscure to me. Is WC a third party storage? WC is not actually storing images, only a link. There is no bandwidth involved here, as far as I can tell. Perhaps someone can clarify this.

So far I have not had any contact to say that my images are not to be posted to a forum. They supply coded links for posting images. I have used this facility for many years.

If what you say is correct (and I did read the comment on their Terms of Service), they are about to shoot themselves in the foot. On the other hand, you may have misinterpreted them.

Regards from Perth

Derek

I don't understand the problem

Bill Tindall, E.Tn.

I don't know what Photobucket is yet I can post pictures on WC. So clearly this thing is not necessary, nor is it clear why it is desirable. I post either from camera card or computer "picture storage files" on computer. I have one just for shrunk WC pictures which comes in handy when a topic reappears.

Maybe a case where the more computer ignorant you are the less complicated life becomes.

Granddaughter is here for a week....life is not uncomplicated! Grampa do this/I need/let's/etc........I did get the lawn mowed.

Curious

Ellis Walentine

I'm not sure what they mean by "third-party hosting," but you are not hosting anything on WoodCentral unless you actually upload the image here, which I'm relatively sure you are not doing, as the images you upload to Photobucket are likely camera images, which are way too big to be uploaded here without reduction.

Naturally, I don't use Photobucket, but I seem to recall that they give you a link option that takes you to their page where your photo lives. If you go to that page and right-click the image you want to link to, in the Properties tab you should find the actual URL of the JPG image itself. If you copy that and paste it into the Optional Image URL box in our message interface, our forum software will go out and retrieve the image from their server to display here. There is no third-party hosting involved.

Can you verify that this is no longer possible?

Ellis Walentine

Host

Re: I don't understand the problem

Joe in a Cleveland suburb

Bill, I believe in your case you upload picture images to WC.

What Hank is referring to linking to the image that is hosted (or stored) at another site such as photobucket.

Re: Curious

Joe in a Cleveland suburb

I think they no longer want their users to direct link to images hosted on their service. I'm pretty sure that is what I remember reading. Could be wrong.

I used to use Google's Picasa all the time for this. Google eliminated that service. Their new service makes it very difficult to link to my images. I think you are not supposed to though...

Re: Photo Hosting Question - HELP!

Rum

They no longer allow linking to photos from other sites without pay (although you can likely figure out how to do so... it violates the TOS). What they mean by "3rd party image hosting" acting that they disallow using them as a host for pictures primarily displayed on other services. Whether or not forum use is 3rd party hosting or image linking I'm not entirely sure..

From their updated TOS:

"Free account : Each individual Member gets one free account that provides 2 GB of free storage or space available for your original photo files, or videos under 10min. The free account does not allow any image linking or 3rd party image hosting. "

o Plus 50 Plan: 52 GB of Storage for $59.99 / Year. The Plus 50 Plan does not allow any image linking or 3rd party image hosting.

o Plus 100 Plan: 102 GB of Storage for $99.99 / Year. The Plus 100 Plan allows for unlimited image linking but does not allow 3rd party image hosting.

o Plus 500 Plan: 500 GB of Storage and unlimited bandwidth for $399.99 / Year. The Plus 500 Plan allows for unlimited image linking and unlimited 3rd party image hosting.

So yes if you wanted to follow the TOS and use their service for hosting photos here I believe you would need to pay the $400/year or at least the $100 plan depending on how they define "linking" versus "3rd party hosting".

There are other hosting services out there, I mostly agree with the reviews given here (at least for the top 4-5).

https://www.lifewire.com/free-image-hosting-sites-3486329

Why would one want to do that.

Bill Tindall, E.Tn.

If the PICS are uploaded to WC they become a permanent part of the post. If the post is here and the pictures there it seems a good chance at some time in the future someone visiting an old post will see no pictures.

Re: Curious

Hank Knight

Ellis,

As Rum pointed out, Photobucket no longer allows "Image Linking" of Third Party Hosting" on their free an slow end premium accounts. I dod''t know what mage Linking is, technically, or what Third Party Hosting is. I think those of us who have been posting photos here using Photobucket's free account have been "Image Linking" in violation their new Terms of Service. I have written them an email explaining the procedure I have used to post photos and asking them to clarify my understand - or lack of understanding. I hope I hear back from them (I got an automated response requesting information about my computer and operating system which I provided). In any event, I think this is a widespread problem/concern form what I've read on there Internet.

Hank

Re: I don't understand the problem

Hank Knight

Some internet forums require that images uploaded too their sites be hosted on an independent photo hosting site. Apparently, the hosting services have caught on to this and have figured out a way to make some money.

One of the things I like about direct linking images is that you can display them anywhere in your post - the image appears wherever you paste the link in your post. I think when you link to images on your computer, the images show up at the bottom of the pos, after the text.

not correct

Bill Tindall, E.Tn.

At WC the image shows up where you put it.......by mistake, or not!

Re: Why would one want to do that.

Joe in a Cleveland suburb

"If the PICS are uploaded to WC they become a permanent part of the post."

That is correct. As long as Ellis keeps them on his server(s).

"If the post is here and the pictures there it seems a good chance at some time in the future someone visiting an old post will see no pictures."

That too is correct. But for me, it is easier and quicker to type the code to 'link' to my image stored on a hosting site somewhere opposed to resizing the image and size of the images then uploading the image to WC.

As Hank pointed out though, it is becoming more difficult to link to images hosted elsewhere.

Can't with Picasa anymore. Google Photos is very difficult to do. Photobucket is putting an end to it. Flickr you can't....

Re: I don't understand the problem

Stuart Johnson

I think this has always been a problem. If you post a photo to WC it becomes part of WC. If you post a link there is always the possibility that link will break.

Workaround *LINK*

Ellis Walentine

I just read through Photobucket's new Terms of Service, and it indeed looks like they have pulled the plug on free linking. If you can't find another online hosting service, maybe now is a good time to try posting directly to WoodCentral. Over the years, we've had several discussions about how to resize an image to get it within our size constraints (100Kb) for direct posting here. It probably doesn't take much longer than it does to upload agiant camera image to Photobucket or any of the other remote hosting services.

I've tried a lot of these programs and they will all get you there. The one I like best is PicResize.com . I published a detailed tutorial about it a few months back. Try it out and see if it can work for you.

Ellis


Resizing photos with PicResize.com

PS... Hank

Ellis Walentine

Please go to "Set Preferences" and correct your email address. You're signed up for automatic notifications, but you've entered an incorrect address, so all the notices are coming back to me.

Thanks,

Ellis

Re: Why would one want to do that.

John in NM

In general, I prefer to upload to the forum itself instead of hosting on a picture service and linking to that. But I have seen huge amounts of pictures lost when another forum (non-woodworking) had a server crash of some kind. The only saving grace of outfits like photobucket is that at least they maybe have some redundancy to prevent this kind of problem.

Re: Thanks

Hank Knight

Thanks, Ellis. I used to post photos directly until I realized posting from a hosting service had some advantages and saved you server storage space. I'll go back to it. I'm just very irritated with Photobucket and I know lots of people use it and will be caught out like I was. Thanks also for the photo resizing tip. I had a quick and easy resizing program on my PC but I've recently bought a MAC, so I'll have to find another one. I'll give your recommendation a try.

I corrected my email address. It was a typo. I'm bad about that. Thanks for the heads-up.

Re: Photo Hosting Question - HELP!

Derek Cohen (in Perth, Australia)

My vote for a replacement for Photobucket is postimg.org

It is free. Promises to remain forever. States that you may post to forums. Is quick to upload, and may do so from either your hard drive or a web link. Can be divided into categories (which only Photobucket could do).

The only negative is that the direct links do not include the automatic code for the image (as done by Photobucket). The address is automated but one has to add the pre/post fix (but still more than the other photo sites do).

Regards from Perth

Derek

Re: Photo Hosting Question - HELP!

Hank Knight

Wonderful, Derek! Thanks!

[url=https://postimg.org/image/e2jrpjf69/][/url]

Inexpensive option

Kneale Brownson

I've used pbase.com to host my images for many years. The annual fee is peanuts.

I can put the URL in the "optional" space at the bottom of a message reply or I can use the formula: img src= "your url. jpg" surrounded by <> as in this case:

Wow does photobucket now suck...

John in NM

Popups everywhere, glacial to load stuff, and configured for phones so it now it won't scroll right with a computer.

Re: Workaround

Richard McComas

If you have a windows machine you can't beat "image resizer for windows". 4 mouse click and your done and you do it right on your own computer.

1. Right click the thumb nail thumb nail of the picture or the picture if it's already open. This opens a dialog box.

2. Click on "resize picture.

3. Pick your picture size.

4. Click on "resize picture.

You're done. On you desktop you will have the original and a resized picture.

and it's free.

http://www.bricelam.net/ImageResizer/