flickr vs. Picasa

As I mentioned yesterday, it can be a tough decision to decide on an online photo management tool. It would definitely be a good idea to research all of the big ones (Photobucket, Smugmug, Picasa and flickr) but I didn't do that when I signed up with flickr, so I may not be the bet example! But, I'm a happy user there. When I started blogging two years ago, I just went to flickr, because they were the only service I was familiar with, and quickly upgraded to a pro account in order to avoid the upload limitations. My main objective with blogging was to share photos and videos with friends and family who are spread out all over the globe, so at 7 months pregnant, with a huge backlog of photos to share already amassing, I just went for it! But since then, I have also downloaded Picasa and played around with it enough to compare the two. And since these are the two sponsored by the biggest powerhouses in the online world (Google and Yahoo,) I will discuss those here and hopefully help you make a decision if you don't feel like doing the research yourself... Points to Consider: 1. Accounts - They both require an account with either Google or Yahoo - but as a blogger, you probably have one of these already - and having one can help you with other available services as well, so don't let that deter you if you're one of those people who hates creating accounts willy-nilly online. 2. Cost - They are both free, but both require a paid upgrade to get out from under upload limits (discussed in detail below.) 3. Online Connectivity / Partnerships - They both connect easily with most major online sites you are probably already using - Facebook, Myspace, Blogger, etc., but flickr does seem to edge out in front of Picasa a bit with easy links and gadgets available on more sites. (Don't ask me for stats on that - it's a gut feeling based solely on my own personal internet use!) 4. Web-based vs. Client Install - Picasa requires a software download to your computer, while flickr is totally web-based. The Picasa download includes their photo organization and editing software. What this means: A. You don't have to add any software or ever install updates to use flickr.

-but-

B. You don't have to be online to organize or work with your photos on Picasa. 5. Editing Photos - both services offer photo editing capability. Picasa has it's own built in to the software you download to your machine. flickr offers an automatic connection to Picnic - a third party service. And they are both good, but again have different strengths. They both offer typical filter and masks including sepia, black and white, fade, red eye removal, etc. They also both offer advanced, user controlled adjustment of contrast, brightness, saturation, etc.. Picasa has a Back-light tool that is great for those indoor pictures taken at night - when you didn't bother to set up your studio lighting, reflector kit and get your light meter readings (translation - almost all of my indoor photos!) But Picnic has a super easy to use Re-size feature that is great if you are re-sizing images into pixels and you need specific pixel widths or heights (ie., blog backgrounds and headers!) In Picasa you have to export your photo in one of three different ways in order to re-size it. Using Picasa editing is a bit faster simply because it is already installed on your computer and therefore loads and works faster. When you choose to edit your photo on flickr, it takes a good minute or two before Picnic is ready to edit it. (Although the y do play really cute little messages while you wait such as "Stealing picnic basket...","Planting Flowers...," etc.. 6. Custom APIs - OK - won't get too technical here, but APIs are special little programs that anyone can write and essentially "plug-in to an online tool such as flickr and Picasa Web. They both offer developers the ability to write their own apps for connecting, but because flickr focuses on online sharing they seem to require more apps just for regular usage. 7. Uploading Photos - The software that you download from Picasa has an awesome feature that I haven't been able yet to duplicate with a flickr API. Basically, when you open your pictures from your memory card on your machine - the pictures automatically download for you into Picasa. A HUGE time saver. And then it is just one step to publish the whole folder to the web. You will find that most of my gripes with photo sharing will boil down to the time it takes to do batch uploads to an online tool. The flickr Uploader does a great job of uploading multiple photos at a time, but you still have to load them into the tool itself. That's not a one-by-one process, but it's still a couple steps (Boohoo.) But this feature is a great segue to the next topic... 8. Photo Organization - When Picasa downloads your photos automatically from your memory card - it applies its own organization logic to those photos. And I was never quite sure exactly where my photos were, or where I was saving something if I edited - and then when I went to find it I had challenges. It does keep things easy to find when in the application - by date and with folders, but since I prefer to navigate using Windows Explorer or My Computer I was always pulling my hair out when I saved a file. When you use the flickr Uploader or other APIs you have the option of specifying which set you would like to add those photos to, or of creating a new one. I'm sure that you can get more specific when in Picasa, but then you lose the ease of that automatic upload! 9. Photo Storage - Since flickr is completely online - if you download directly from your camera or memory card to the website you won't have to store your photos on your computer (although I still recommend backing them up on a storage device of your choosing, ie., external hard drive, CDs, etc.) If you want to use the Picasa software feature I just mention in point 8, it will store these photos on your computer. If you choose not to use that auto-download feature then you can eliminate point 8 from consideration! =================================================================== So if that wasn't enough information to overload your brain here's the down-low on free vs. paid accounts: ------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------ flickr:

• Here's what you'll get with a Pro Account:
• Unlimited photo uploads (20MB per photo)
• Unlimited video uploads (90 seconds max)
• Unlimited storage
• Unlimited bandwidth
• Unlimited photosets
• Archiving of high-resolution original images
• The ability to replace a photo
• Post any of your photos or videos in up to 60 group pools
• Ad-free browsing and sharing
• View count and referrer statistics

Compare that to what you get with a Free Account:

• 100 MB monthly upload limit (10MB per photo)
• 3 sets
• Photostream views limited to the 200 most recent images
• Post any of your photos in up to 10 group pools
• Only smaller (resized) images accessible (though the originals are saved in case you upgrade later)

------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------- and Picasa: Picasa Web Albums comes with 1GB of free storage - that's room to post and share approximately 4,000 standard resolution photos. I have been using flickr for 2 years and I am now over 4000 photos. This free storage can't be transferred from one product to another, but you can always buy extra shared storage. You can also purchase extra storage by clicking the Upgrade Storage link at the bottom of your Gmail or Picasa Web Albums account. After clicking the link, you'll go to a Google Checkout page where you can select the plan you want. The storage plans are as follows: 10GB $20/yr 40GB $75/yr 150GB $250/yr 400GB $500/yr Happy Photo Sharing!! Just remember - don't stress about it - their both free, so you can always use both in order to maximize your capabilities!