O/T - Best photosharing / cloud style backup.

[Bold Seagull]

So, apple's photo stream in iCloud is actually pretty useless as a backup, and I have no real need to instantly share photos between devices.

I use Lightroom 3 for my library which has publishing plugins to Smugmug, Flickr, Picasa etc. but can't make up my mind how to use the services. (I prefer LR to iPhoto or Aperture as it allows you to create your file directories as you want rather than a central library).

Do you use Flickr say as purely a showcase, export your full res images at screen res, then use a backup service like Mozy or Dropbox to backup your library, or pay the annual fee to Flickr (quite good value at £25 pa) and use that as a backup to your full res images as well as sharing them?

I've been going round in circles a bit on this, on various forums and articles. NSC has a greater pool of knowledge I think!

P.s. yes, I am a bit of a geek!

 

[clippedgull]

If you need to showcase why not get a domain name and a simple web page? If just needing a back up service, just save locally on an external hard drive. Or are your needs more complicated?

 

[aftershavedave]

pay the annual fee to Flickr (quite good value at £25 pa) and use that as a backup to your full res images as well as sharing them?

i do exactly this. back up full res pics to flickr (i've got 17,000 on there) and use for storage and sharing. i've yet to come across a more useful solution, and as a BT internet customer flickr comes from free

 

[Bold Seagull]

If you need to showcase why not get a domain name and a simple web page? If just needing a back up service, just save locally on an external hard drive. Or are your needs more complicated?

Got a website, but a huge image library, not everything needs to go on the website. Already backup locally, but say I have a fire or burgled, I lose it all! Got to have an off site storage to protect your data, there's a lot of precious photos lost to only backup locally however much stuff you have.

 

[clippedgull]

Got a website, but a huge image library, not everything needs to go on the website. Already backup locally, but say I have a fire or burgled, I lose it all! Got to have an off site storage to protect your data, there's a lot of precious photos lost to only backup locally however much stuff you have.

Agree about off site storage. That's where family/friends come into the equation! These cloud services are ok, but at anytime could close/be shutdown (look at MegaUpload - ok a lot of piracy, but also gigabytes of legal stuff as well). My strategy would be store locally and offsite with external drives.

 

[clippedgull]

This might be useful to you drop boxers!

Get Up to 4.5GB of Extra Space on Dropbox for Uploading Photos and Videos

 

[Bold Seagull]

i do exactly this. back up full res pics to flickr (i've got 17,000 on there) and use for storage and sharing. i've yet to come across a more useful solution, and as a BT internet customer flickr comes from free

I've just checked virgin & I get a free service with them inc. 10 free prints a month and I didn't even realise! VM seems a good deal although their backup software isn't working with Lion yet.

 

[Bold Seagull]

Agree about off site storage. That's where family/friends come into the equation! These cloud services are ok, but at anytime could close/be shutdown (look at MegaUpload - ok a lot of piracy, but also gigabytes of legal stuff as well). My strategy would be store locally and offsite with external drives.

I see what your saying but I'd have to be burgled/fire at the same time as the cloud going down to lose all my stuff. Keeping an external disk clone of my system in say the car is probably a good idea though.