When Free is not free - Online Photo Storage ideas

[Geila]

Recently I've been trying out Instagram for storing and sharing photos. I thought it would be a nice and easy process since so many people use it. Well, I find it to be a hassle and am really confused at how popular it is now that I know how it works. First, you can't upload photos from your pc, it has to be your phone, then on your phone it keeps wanting to have you use the app (on my iphone anyway, don't know if it does it on all phones). Then, as soon as you use the app, you are bombarded with ads, videos, "suggestions" etc.... I'm kinda hating it. As they say, there is no free lunch. It's a shame because a couple of my younger relatives are on it and it's nice to connect with them but I'm not willing to put up with the hassle of the program.

So now I'm thinking that if I can find something that is not free, that I pay for, maybe I can still store photos online without all the hassle of a "free" product. Any ideas, suggestions?

[Tradd]

Google Photos, iCloud for Apple gadgets, Amazon has a storage service if you’re already a Prime Member. Keep my photos via both Google Photos and iCloud for redundancy.

I have so many photos I pay a bit to have more storage.

[Tammy]

Yes - agreed. I have copies on my phone and laptop, and in iCloud. And if they are ever lost, I’ll be ok cause other places and people have them too. They’re everywhere actually ...

I sort through and delete often. I keep iCloud below the 5 gigs so it’s free. Although iPhone isn’t free - the company gets their money somehow.

I don’t think of Instagram as storage cause they could close down and then the photos are gone.

[Alan]

I use Google Photos, they offered me unlimited free storage years ago and I took them up on the offer. I think they're switching the unlimited free storage to 15GB next year but that's still a lot of storage. Like Tradd, I also do duplicate storage on a 1TB drive attached to my home network.

[JaneV2.0]

I keep images in files on my PC. When I get 250 of them in a file, I burn a disc.

[happystuff]

I have an external hard drive that I have been scanning and loading my pictures on. Most of the scanning is done, but have thousands to "organize". LOL.

[Geila]

What I want is to create a photo album online that I can look at easily by scrolling through the photos and to be able to put notes on the individual photos, just like an old-fashioned album. And be able to keep it all in one place that I can access from any device. And if it's fun to use, even better. I don't need a lot of storage, what I want most is to avoid ads and junk being lobbied at me because the site is free. Right now I have my photos all over the place (hard drive, phone, email) and I want to consolidate to one spot. Not all that worried about backups and all that. I enjoy looking at my photos but I'm not sentimental about them.

If I use the Google and iCloud software that is free, does that mean that they own the content that I store with them?

It really bugs me that Facebook and Instagram control what I see. I want to control what I see. And I'm happy to pay a fee for access to software that will allow me to do so.

[Tradd]

Google/iCloud don’t own your photos.

Google Photos is probably your best bet for ease of use. Once you have the albums created, you can easily share the link with others, if desired. The photos aren’t public unless you make them public.

[ToomuchStuff]

I don’t think of Instagram as storage cause they could close down and then the photos are gone.

That is exactly what happened to the last three places I know that did online photo's. (why you will see things like image not available on forums)



If I use the Google and iCloud software that is free, does that mean that they own the content that I store with them?


Actually read the terms of service. I would bet you are offering them a royalty free right to do whatever they want with the photographs, so yes, in some terms they own the photo's and can do what they like with them.

[Tybee]

I have gone to an old fashioned photo album storage system. I inherited many family albums, and I have always liked to create my own photo albums.

Now, if my husband or I take a good picture we want to save, or the kids send me pictures of themselves and the grandchildren, I print them out and put them in this year's album.

I have 22 albums, but that encompasses photographs from 1900-2020.

It took forever to set it up, but now it's fairly complete (I still get "new" old photos that I have to incorporate into the system) and it's very easy to print out the new ones that week and put them into the album.

Best of all, because the albums are oversized, I asked my husband to build me a special bookcase that only holds albums and boxes of family correspondence. That contains all the stuff, too, and I can't take on any more.

[razz]

Thanks for posting this thread, Gella, it has been very helpful to me. Right now I am paying for Apple cloud storage due to the number of photos as it got above the free 5GB. I need to pay attention to this.

[SteveinMN]

Actually read the terms of service. I would bet you are offering them a royalty free right to do whatever they want with the photographs, so yes, in some terms they own the photo's and can do what they like with them.
The old axiom: When you are not paying for the product, you are the product.

I, too, have had to suddenly download gigabytes of pictures when a cloud service went down. Most times I had notice. Other times I had backups. I would be pretty confident that Apple (iCloud), Google (Drive), and Microsoft (OneDrive) will offer their services for some time to come and will offer plenty of notice if they close down. But they, too, reserve the rights to use your images promotionally.

[Geila]

Has anyone used Adobe Lightroom CC? From my limited research it seems to offer everything I want plus a lot of stuff I don't need. But it checks all my boxes and looks like it would be fun to use. The price is on the high side, $99 per year, but I would keep access to my albums even if I end the subscription. It would be cool to make some of my photos into artwork, mainly pet photos as mementos. I dislike framed pictures on the wall, but I like the canvas posters you can have made from photos. They offer a 7-day free trial to check it out.

To Steve's point - I like the clarity of knowing I'm paying for the product.