Photobucket – and other photo sites

[Mark76]

I always used Photobucket to host the photographs I posted on forums – including this one. However, they have changed their terms of service. They still offer free hosting (I think), but you are not allowed – and able – to link to those photographs from other sites. Look here (http://blog.photobucket.com/update-terms-service/) for the announcement and here (http://photobucket.com/terms) for the new terms of service. You can still link to your photographs on other sites, but in that case, you have to pay $400 (!). Worse, I have already spoken people whose links to Photobucket photographs on other sites were not working anymore and their photographs did not show anymore on those sites. So if a lot of my photographs on this site seem to disappear, you know the reason… Photobucket sucks in a major way.

I have been looking for a free alternative, but I haven’t found one yet. Imgur allows you to link to photographs you uploaded there, (see for example http://imgur.com/a/pL1FV), but it doesn’t allow you to insert the photographs themselves in a post, at least not in a forum based on WordPress (like this one).

Some time ago we talked about Smugmug here, but that is a paid site. By the way, I found a good overview of photograph hosting sites (https://www.tomsguide.com/us/pictures-story/839-best-photography-sites.html#s11) but I don’t think it lists any hosting sites that allow you to share photographs on another site.

Does anyone know of a site that does allow this?

Molecule Polishing: my blog about sharpening with the Wicked Edge

[cbwx34]

I got hit with the same thing.

I’m trying imgbb.com … it’s bare bones, but free, and allows me to insert/link pics into forums.  Only used a couple of days… but it’s working so far.

No more Photobucket for me… I think they won’t last long with their new crazy pricing.

[Mark76]

I found a way to insert photographs from Imgur on this forum! Upload the photograph to Imgur and click on it. On the right it then shows various codes. Go to the “direct link” code and press the “Copy” button. Then go to your post on the WE forum and press CTRL-V (paste). And hey presto!

If anyone knows more free photo hosting sites that allow you to insert them on other sites, please let us know!

Molecule Polishing: my blog about sharpening with the Wicked Edge

[Josh]

I use smugmug still and love it… Unfortunately as you point out there is an annual fee (which is pretty cheap actually). Sorry I can’t help more…

 

Pretty messed up photobucket did that though…

[tacocat]

What about Amazon Prime Photos or Google Drive?

[Mark76]

I don’t know Amazon, but Google doesn’t allow you to share the photos on other sites.

Molecule Polishing: my blog about sharpening with the Wicked Edge

[Mark76]

A test of TinyPic.com (choose “direct link for lay-outs”):

 

Molecule Polishing: my blog about sharpening with the Wicked Edge

[Mark76]

Does anybody know how to post an Imgur image on this site? Apparently the instructions I gave above are outdated. It may work on other sites, but not on ones based on WordPress (like this one). Tinypic does still work.

Molecule Polishing: my blog about sharpening with the Wicked Edge

[cjb80202]

I’ve been on a similar search for photo hosting over the past several years, although it’s been a couple of years since the last time I really kicked the tires on everything out there.

• I don’t know of a totally free service that checks all the boxes. Google Photos is the best free photo service out there, but it doesn’t allow embedding images.
• Smugmug is a great option. It’s hosted on Amazon Web Services (AWS) infrastructure, and is really oriented toward professional photographers who want to privately share albums. But it’s my first pick for this scenario. It seems like there’s always a coupon code out there to save money on smugmug. Also, smugmug makes it extremely easy to take all your photos with you if you want to cancel; their bulk downloader is great.
• [Edited to remove reference to 0wncloud, which is just too hard] Now, for those crazy enough to consider a “roll your own” solution (guaranteed to come with plenty of headaches with initial setup)… There is an open source (free) software platform that you can install on your own server (or virtual/cloud server). Piwigo is a mature well supported options. I think the easiest hosting for this is on DigitalOcean (virtual server hosting) and it should run well on their $10/mo server. Or, you could host Piwigo on AWS. Or… even without a software platform, you could sign up for an AWS account and use the S3 cloud storage service to host your images (I have about 600 GB on S3, using their redundant backup to ensure I never lose an image; most of that is in Glacier, keeping my total monthly bill less than $5/mo, although Glacier won’t allow you to embed the photos anywhere, or even to view them without a delay). Using S3 will be a bit cumbersome for getting individual image URLs to use in other services. For these “roll your own” options, I’ll emphasize that I’m not really an expert at them, I’m just a hack who’s figured out how to make them work, which took a lot of time.

Easy button = smugmug

PS – This is ChrisB, who also posts under the Developer account; sorry to be confusing, but this is a purely personal post, and I’ll use this username for items like that, including about my personal questions/thoughts on sharpening.

2 users thanked author for this post.

dulledge, Organic

[Marc H]

Chris, forgive me, also this is OTS, but every time I see your avatar it reminds me of the sketch they always showed on TV News, years ago, when reporting on the “unabomber” or D. B. Cooper! 

Marc
(MarcH's Rack-Its)

1 user thanked author for this post.

tcmeyer

[cbwx34]

Mark76 wrote:

Does anybody know how to post an Imgur image on this site? Apparently the instructions I gave above are outdated. It may work on other sites, but not on ones based on WordPress (like this one). Tinypic does still work.

Testing…

(changed the picture)

… so, this came from imgur… it’s the “BBCode (Forums)” link.  Seems to work ok?

p.s.  Click on the little arrow at the top of the pic, then click on “Get Share Links” to find this.

p.p.s… Now when I click on the picture itself, I see all the link options to the right… including the “BBCode (Forums)” link.  So, either way, that’s apparently the one to look for.

[cjb80202]

I’ve gotten a lot of mileage out of that avatar! I paid $5 for it on fiver a couple years ago, based on a pic I sent them. I like to think I’m interesting, but definitely not on the level of DB Cooper!

[Marc H]

Air Miles? DB or is it CB, maybe that’s why they haven’t found you

Marc
(MarcH's Rack-Its)

[Mark76]

In fact the instructions for Imgut are not outdated. They still work .

Molecule Polishing: my blog about sharpening with the Wicked Edge

[cbwx34]

Cool.

I’m kinda glad Photobucket did what they did… forced me to look into options, which I wanted to do anyway.  Their ads were crazy.  Some of these options are better, and easier.

[Author]

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