Fotopic community

For me it was the easiest to use and best way of displaying multiple collections that are easily navigable,also you can put as many photos as you want.

Comparing to Flickr for example where you can do sets but IMHO it just doesnt look the same,or as good.

 

Having renewed my Fotopic Premium subscription last month it will be annoying if the service will no longer be available. It did cross my mind there may be a problem when the usual January offer of discounts didn't appear.

I did find Fotopic easy to use. If I have to move to another site the biggest problem is not uploading the photos but the descriptions. I have a copy of them but copy/pasting them for thousand of photos is not something I would look forward to.

Maybe Fotopic's problem was the free service it provided was unsustainable. I don't mind paying a reasonable charge and if anyone knows of another service that allows similar facilities to Fotopic, at a resonable charge, then I would be interested to know.

 

Far better to keep Photopic site free. I wonder if they were to start charging to use their site how many people would switch to another site?

 

Theres a rumour of them being hacked now doing the rounds

 

Well yes it would be nice if it is free but how would you suggest an organisation provides a service that covers its costs and provides a profit where most of its subscribers pay nothing?

 

I have sent them an email today asking them what the problem is etc... I don't think I will get a reply. It looks as though the email to them is working fine though as it got delivered and not returned. So maybe they are on to the problem? Lets hope as I was starting to get a good amount of photos onto the site.
Also I have to add that with fotopic, I do find it easier compared to others. Alot more searchable and alot more user-friendly compared to others I have seen.
I think if alot more people used it and got hits (Such as I and many others) and reduced their photo size then people will pay for the Premium and that way it will always be a win win situation. I don't know how photobucket operates and after so many Megabyte have been uploaded that you have to pay extra or what their layout is?

 

I also have a Flickr account but rarely use it, certainly don't want to use it "full time" as I don't like the way the stuff is presented.

As for Railpictures, I am sure that they have upped their "standards" recently as it appears to be more and more difficult to get stuff accepted. I havn't tried submitting anything for a few months now, mainly due to having other priorities but might have another go whilst waiting for Fotopic to return / trying to decide what road to go down next. In any case Railpictures is not a subsitute for having your own site as most of my photos with the most hits on Fotopic I wouldn't even consider submitting to RP.

 

I agree with you. Fotopic is really good for large collections, my main site has photos I have taken over the last 7 years or so and I have a disused site of various old lines I have walked. All nicely displayed on the front page so all collections can be browsed. I use flickr as well though as a collection of my best shots as I think the quality is better and I like being able to put them in maps and groups etc. I hope they can sort the problems and bring it back online soon!

 

I've only got a mere 8,000 pix on Fotopic, but the thought of having to re-upload them elsewhere is mind-boggling to say the least. Would I even live long enough to do it?!

Although I've got the originals of all the pictures I haven't, unfortunately, got all the captions. It's only relatively recently that I started doing those on the word processor and then copy and pasting them onto the caption box on Fotopic.

Regardless of that, I have, on and off, today been playing with Flickr. I didn't used to like it, but with a bit of practice I'm getting used to it. The main problem that I have not overcome is that the pictures in the Photostream are in no particular order - not even the order that I uploaded them. Unless anyone knows better, the only way that I can see would be to upload them one at a time, and in reverse order.

Having said that, I have managed to get the pictures in the sets in the the right order, and I have found a way of arranging the sets, so I'm making progress! If anyone is interested to see my efforts so far, here's the link :

http://www.flickr.com/photos/40052043@N03/

I still think that Fotopic is better, but Flickr is better than nothing!

 

Flickr

Thanks Ron, I for one would be interested to follow your thoughts and experiences with Flickr. I've looked at it several times, and liked some of the features that I've seen, but thusfar concluded that (a working) fotopic best meets my needs. Being of a certain generation, I like to present my work in an orderly fashion; quite often in a way that tells a story. On the positive side, Flickr seems to handle text much better. The overall presentation is clean but rather impersonal.

 

Re: Flickr

I guess what all these photo-hosting sites (Fotopic, Flickr, etc) should really do is have an option to allow you to import and export the caption text (probably as a CSV [Comma Separated Value text] file containing photo reference, filename, date+time uploaded and caption) - that way you can easily make a backup copy of all the text, and also determine which photo the caption is for.

Anyway, I love your FR+WHR photos Ron (I'm a bit biased, as I volunteer on those railways!), and am looking forward to travelling on the "Eryri Venturer" special train over the whole FR+WHR on 25th March (prior to "Megabash" working weekend).

 

What does everyone think about going down the Matt Allen (PhotoMatt) road http://www.mattallenphoto.co.uk/recentpics.htm with having your own web site? This could be one way to over come the current situation we all seem to be in again with Photopic.

 

Hi Lee,

Do you know if Matt has created his page with HTML knowledge or is it a simple drag and drop? Obviously he has bought the domain name and space.... But I'd certainly be intrigued to find out.

 

Sorry Andy I don't know.

 

Just thinking maybe Nat Press could possibly come to the rescue for everyone. Maybe Admin could start up a gallery section within Nat Press or possibly start a photopic site up to run along side Nat Press.

 

Just looking at options myself now

Just trying "coppermine" with a couple of pictures in a couple of collections in a little web space my son has. If fotopic is still dead in a couple of weeks, I will go the whole way with a site domain & 20gig of webspace for starters
comments please so far - alot of twiggling to do yet - http://www.jamesarobinson.co.uk/dad/cpg15x/index.php

Cheers john

ps - these pictures are picked at ramdom just to try it out - double click on them .. and the larger picture to give a even bigger picture

 

Maybe if Matt is reading this thread he could advise about the pros and cons of having your own site?