# Flickr uploader vs. Lightroom's Flickr Publish Service



## tim848 (Jul 23, 2015)

Hi All. 

Thought I'd add my new aspect to this discussion if I may. I am currently considering flickr to host some / many / all? photos (mainly for family viewing) and I'm being prompted by flickr's upload tool to allow it to upload and store copies of my images in the flickr cloud. Haven't activated it yet but sounds interesting.

The upload tool seems to want to copy and upload all the images I have on my mac no matter where they might be. Now can anyone advise how this uploadr (as they call it) interacts (or doesn't) with me publishing to flickr from Lr? Will the upload tool cut across / 'bugger up' (as we say in Aus) any collection structure I have in Lr or may want to establish in publishing to my stream in flickr? Or will the upload images be kept separate from any that I publish from Lr and effectively act like a DropBox account? Does it depend on privacy settings? In summary: flickr uploadr copying images to flickr versus me publishing from Lr to flickr using a plugin.  Any thoughts please? Hope this makes sense.

Tim

Moved by Moderator to start new thread.


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## Jimmsp (Jul 23, 2015)

First off - I use LR, and not the Flickr uploader; and I also have a Win 7 machine. I looked at what it did, and decided i preferred LR. It (Flikr) will (should) just upload the jpegs or tiffs that you point it to, or the files you drag and drop to the upload page, not everything.
Everything will be dumped into your photostream. Thus, there is a good possibility that you will end up with duplicates if you load to Flickr both ways.

I preferred to keep everything managed by LR. And since I only put smaller jpgs up on Flickr, I don't have to create a new file via export, then ask Flickr to upload it.
I can put the full processed raw file in the LR collection for Flickr, then ask it to publish - there is no extra jpeg required.
Likewise, I do not like, or probably I hate, the way Flickr makes you delete uploaded photos.
With LR, I can more easily select the ones I want to "unpublish" and it is an easy one click process to make it happen.

After all is said and done, I just have one library collection set that I need to look at and manage.


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## Ian.B (Jul 24, 2015)

I found the LR to flickr way a bit of a pain so I export to a folder and use flickr to upload those; however I'm not uploading 100s++ files at a time

Maybe I'm using an old flickr uploader (??)

seeing it's free (for now) I'm also considering Flickr as a backup for my better edited jpg files so this will be an interesting thread


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## tim848 (Jul 24, 2015)

Thanks Jim and Ian. And thanks moderator Jim for making this a new thread.

I've no experience with flickr at all yet so no idea how it will work for me. I too want my photos managed by Lr and would prefer the Lr to flickr publish pathway for my 'gallery' or photo stream shots. I guess I'm still unclear where the flickr uploader will put my images if I use it. flickr says the images will be 'private' unless I say so, and so I assume that may mean flickr won't put these images in my public photo stream?  

The reason I'm considering it is that copies of all my images will then be in the cloud in addition to images I keep on the mac's flash drive,  on a EHD and backed up on a second EHD, and I can also use flickr's other features such as show casing my better shots. In other words an 'all in one' option rather than having a cloud based backup storage option (e.g. Dropbox) in addition to a gallery site.

Jim, sounds like you think there is a risk that my published images from Lr may get mixed in with the images uploaded by flickr if I'm not careful. Sounds like a potential disaster may ensue if that happened. All I know is that every time I start my mac the flickr uploader also starts and is very insistent about starting to upload images! I should disable the thing for now 'til I decide. Anyway, maybe some other users of the 'new' flickr would like to chip in? Thanks guys.


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## Nortonian (Jul 24, 2015)

This is an interesting topic for me. However, I have just joined the Forum today and maybe missed something because Tim refers to this as a new thread.
There doesn't seem to be a rush of people praising the Lightroom Publish to Flickr option? I gave it a go 2 or 3 months ago, and it did not impress me, so I manually uploaded my photos to Flickr (after going through all the conversion and extra folders etc referred to above). Like some of you, I am wary of some of these easy-upload programs where I think that the software people behind them think that the ONLY program on your computer is THEIRS!

So, is it safe/worthwhile going back to Lightrooms built-in Publisher, or should I just plod through the manual method I've used up to now?

Many thanks if you can help.


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## Jim Wilde (Jul 24, 2015)

Hi, welcome to the forum.

I don't know what you need the Flickr publish service to do in order to impress you, but I've been using it ever since it was introduced in LR3. I've never had any issues with it, and it does everything I need it to do. Many recommend Jeffrey Friedl's Flickr plug-in as being more comprehensive.....I'm not sure in what way, as I've never had the need to go find out. I do use several of Jeffrey's other plug-ins, just not needed that one.


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## Nortonian (Jul 24, 2015)

Hi Jim
Thanks for the welcome and the reply.

I meant that the Publish feature was unbelievably slow - I can't remember if anything got up to Flickr or not. Spoke to a big Flickr user (who was a very new Lightroom user!) and he said he just used the Flickr options, but communication wasn't one of his strong points!

If it works smoothly for you, I'm more than happy to give it another try. Do I just select my RAW photos and go to the Publish to Flickr bit of Lightroom? Can they be directed to particular Flickr albums?

Thanks again. (Notice you have an FZ1000 - did you ever have the FZ200 by any chance?

Ian


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## tim848 (Jul 25, 2015)

Hi again. Thanks for getting into this chat. A few more comments from me 

Looks like no-one so far has much experience with the flickr uploader. I've just left this to go to a flickr forum and I can see there that old flickr users have had probs with the uploader which is in beta btw. It apparently uploads everything in a massive image dump, 100s at a time, presumably for editing etc in flickr. There are apparently probs with metadata and images named and sorted before upload have these aspects stripped away. Think I've answered my own question really and won't be using it on that advice!!

Flickr is really pushing its free 1TB cloud photo storage as a major aspect. They say 'never have to delete a photo again and we'll automatically back up your entire collection". There are some editing tools (not sure how good or bad they might be) and there are also syncs to flickr mobile etc etc. Now on face value, you can understand why it sounds very attractive. Showcase your photos, get syncs to and from a mobile platform, share with the family, 1TB storage and its all free. Although not really fully free because there's ads placed in the free arrangement - you pay for no ads. 

What I had in mind as an option (and that's all it was) when this thread started was:

(1) Lr as my main program is the engine room of my photography, with all its great virtues incl Lr mobile syncing etc
(2) Publish my best edited shots from Lr to Flickr using Lr tools /JFriedel's plugin  AND
(3) At the same time, allow flickr uploader to copy / upload my entire collection (mac and mobile) automatically for cloud storage and keep it private (as flickr claim it will) and separate from my published shots.

(3) is clearly the problematic bit. 

From what I've read in the last 30 mins in flickr's forums I won't now be using the flickr uploader because its too fraught with probs. Maybe it will be better when they move on from beta. I may still use flickr to showcase my photos but I'm unsure about that now too!

Sorry if this is a bit repetitive!

Tim


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## Nortonian (Jul 25, 2015)

Tim
Thanks for looking into that for me. I can tell that we are on a similar wavelength from your points (1) and (2) - I'll be giving it another try after next week (the Lr tool, that is).
I have been using the newish Google Photos to accomplish your point (3). I admit it involves converting to jpegs using Lr, and I think that the max file size is 15 or 16Mb, but I am selling my Canon DSLR and sticking to the FZ200 for now, so it shouldn't be a problem.

Ian


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## tim848 (Jul 26, 2015)

Yes Ian I too think we're on the same wavelength. Last year on this forum I was part of a thread trying to tease out experiences of using photo hosting sites. Most of those canvassed at that time were paid services like Zenfolio, Smugmug, 500px etc. 

Now some months later flickr, google photos, iCloud photos and others seemed to have have either 'arrived' or moved on to be more all-encompassing services than they may have been in the past. Its mind boggling if you do some internet searching of this area. Many of the sites I've had a look at are mainly my (2) above but many are amalgams of both my (2) and (3). Frustratingly some of the sites that were quite popular and active only 12-18 months ago have either gone defunct or have been taken over by the big boys. This latter point may be a good thing in some cases but it often means either having an account with apple, MS, google, adobe or yahoo. Again this may not be a bad thing because we've all got at least one of these (maybe all!) anyway. 

Here's a list of some sites (or reviews of these sites) or apps I've looked at: zenfolio, smugmug, 500px, flickr, google photos, behance, adobe revel (now effectively defunct due to Lr mobile?), snapixel, ipernity, red bubble, photodom, medusa, picture life, shutter, this life by shutterfly, MS's one drive, carousel by Dropbox. Its very difficult to compare because some are hosting sites while others are cloud storage sites, some do both. Not all allow editing (if you need it) and not all have mobile syncing (not an issue with Lr mobile I admit). A confusing mire for someone trying to select a hosting and cloud storage site for the first time!

Look forward to any updates anyone might have!
Cheers  Tim


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## tspear (Jul 26, 2015)

Tim,

You missed Adobe Behance. 

Tim


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## tim848 (Jul 26, 2015)

Tim, it was there after 'google photos', just missed the Adobe bit .  Have you used Adobe Behance? I see membership is included in cc membership (is that right?).

For some reason I always thought Behance was a high end show site for graphics and design that also included 'high end' photographers (i.e. maybe those involved in advertising, fashion shoots etc), rather than amateur landscape / street / family photographers like me. Is it worth looking at or will I be in rarified air (and I mean that in the nicest way!).

T.


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## tspear (Jul 30, 2015)

Tim,

I missed it in your list. I played with it for five minutes and decided it did not meet my requirements. Also, the random photos that were displayed were way to artsy for me.

Tim


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