We won’t call them out publicly but lately we’ve noticed that some large websites with household names run really slowly, primarily due to the large number of images they feature. What happens to the really big guys can happen to all of you – your sites can be slowed down and that produces a real catch-22: a larger number of quality images means your visitors are likely to spend more time on your site, but the slower load time might frustrate them into clicking away.

The answer might be to use an image hosting site that will decrease the bandwidth you use and speed up your site significantly. Some of these sites are free, some require paid subscriptions, but all are worth a look. Here’s a list of the top 10 image hosting sites that will let you have both a better looking site and one that continues to run quickly.

1. Photo Bucket

This is one of the oldest photo hosting sites and they have continued to upgrade and innovative in order to keep ahead of their upstart competitors. The free subscription allows 1500MB of hosting with the ability to post, share and link to them all with ease. Load from your URL, email, or phone and share videos and albums or create slideshows. Professional paid accounts are available as well.

2. Flickr

Flickr leads the way in ease of use and offering the best photo management tools available. Their sharing is unmatched and delivers the ability to seamlessly provide photos and videos to all of your site visitors in an interactive format that will enhance their experience, and that’s always a plus. Like the above, free and pro accounts are both offered.

3. Smug Mug

This is a paid site all the way but many users feel they easily get their money’s worth. Unlimited storage, no ads or spam, and great tools to make your images and HD videos very accessible are just a few of the features that make Smug Mug currently one of the most popular image hosting sites. The new iPad app is a winner.

4. Image Shack

You can upload your images and video to Image Shack with any mobile or online device, so your site can boast the most current shots you’ve got. In addition, all file formats are supported with good editing capabilities. The 100 MB/hour limit is new, but won’t affect most users. Handy extras include image tracking, a browser toolbar for Firefox and IE, bulk uploads and an iPhone app. The service is free and highly rated.

5. Free Image Hosting

More exciting than its descriptive name implies, this service operates on dedicated Linux servers with pretty substantial bandwidth. It’s not the fastest but it is free, easy to use and allows you to manage a good-sized portfolio of images and videos.

6. Shutterfly

PC magazine likes Shutterfly and so do we. It is a professional image hosting service that offers unlimited uploads and great usability. Excellent speed and quality are the hallmarks of the service.

7. TinyPic

A favorite of bloggers and affiliate marketers, TinyPic features easy to use organizing and editing tools that allow you to quickly upload pics and videos to your blog, social networking sites and eBay. It’s a freebie.

8. Pic Tiger

This completely free service is perfect for users with lots of images they want to share or host remotely. It also offers easy editing tools and allows you to produce thumbnails, resize, create and arrange albums, and send your images anywhere you want them to go.

9. All You Can Upload

There’s plenty to like here, beginning with the obvious. This free service allows unlimited uploads though it supports .JPEG and .GIF formats only. Load files that are as large as you want them to be and leave them up for good.

10. Image Venue

Here’s another free site with unlimited upload, storage and bandwidth opportunities. No registration is required. The only limitations are that the file must be a .JPEG and the maximum size is 1.5MB for each.

Most users will get by quite nicely with a free site for their image hosting, so check out those first. Whether they will do or if you need a professional account, the improved functionality and speed of your site will be recognized by your regular visitors and appreciated by new ones. Every step you take to improve your site can be counted on to produce gains in getting your visitors to respond.

James is a writer and product analyst at Cartridge Save where he reviews and compares ink cartridges and other office supplies.

© Donna for DazzlinDonna, 2010. | Permalink | 2 comments | Add to del.icio.us
Post tags: Flickr, Image hosting, Image Shack, ImageShack, James Adams, Photobucket, Shutterfly
This feed is for personal non-commercial use only. If you are not reading this in your news aggregator/reader or on DazzlinDonna, then the site you are looking at is probably infringing upon my copyright.

Now let’s have some photo editing fun.

First, use flickrCC to find photos on Flickr that allow use on any site (commercial or non-commercial) and allow derivatives (let’s you edit them / make changes to them). Make sure you put a check in both boxes labeled For Editing and Commercial. As you can see in the example below, I searched for “tulips” and found a picture I liked. Because I checked For Editing and Commercial, I know I can use it on my site (with proper attribution) and I can make changes to it as I like.

I saved the image I liked to my computer and then I went to FotoFlexer to give it some special effects. I uploaded the photo and clicked on the Effects tab and chose the Cartoon button. Play around with the other buttons such as Painting and Pop Art for some more fun effects. Once I decided I liked the effect that the Cartoon button created, I saved it both to my FotoFlexer account and to my computer. You’ll notice there are several ways to save pics, including just grabbing a url to post anywhere. For my blog purposes, I like to save to my computer and then upload the graphics when I create my posts, but whatever works best for you is fine.

So take a look at the screenshots below to see how easily I was able to find a photo I liked, jazz it up with special effects, and have a new graphic to use wherever I wish. Have fun with the graphics you place on your posts and articles, and your visitors will enjoy them even more. (And don’t forget to include the attribution link – flickrCC gives you the info you need to do so).

This was the original image I chose:

This is the jazzed up image now:

© Donna for DazzlinDonna, 2008. | Permalink | 6 comments | Add to del.icio.us
Post tags: Flickr, flickrcc, FotoFlexer
This feed is for personal non-commercial use only. If you are not reading this in your news aggregator/reader or on DazzlinDonna, then the site you are looking at is probably infringing upon my copyright.

Let’s face it, crafting a good blog post or site article takes time. If I can find ways to cut corners, without sacrificing quality, I’ve just saved money. And as far as I’m concerned, saving money is the same thing as making money.

So, here’s one way to quickly, easily, and legally find and use Flickr images in your blog posts or site articles.

First, a quick lesson in copyright issues. Flickr has tons of photos with Creative Commons licensing, which allows you to use them, without cost, but with restrictions. There are various forms of Creative Commons licenses. Generally, I like to stick with the least restrictive, so that I never have to really worry about misunderstanding the license restrictions. The least restrictive license is the Attribution (BY:) license, which means that you can copy, distribute, display, and perform the copyrighted work, as well as any derivative works based upon it, but you must give credit (attribution). In other words, you can pretty much do anything you want with it, including change it, but you must give credit back to the original license holder. In the case of using Flickr photos in blogs, for example, you would generally link back to the Flickr photographer or page it was originally listed on. (Note that the license actually says that you must attribute in whichever way the author specifies, however, in most cases on Flickr, the author doesn’t specify anything. In that case, simply linking back is considered acceptable).

To search for only those photos with the Attribution (BY:) license, just go to the Flickr advanced search page. Type the phrase you want to search for, and then at the bottom of the page, check the following:

__ Only search within Creative Commons-licensed photos
__ Find content to use commercially
__ Find content to modify, adapt, or build upon

This will ensure that you choose only a photo with the least restrictive Creative Commons restrictions.

Ok, now you’ve found a great photo to use. The problem is that it can all become annoying and time-consuming to download the photo, upload it to your site, and then create the attribution links, so I went on a search for a way to make it easier. Lucky for me, you can find almost anything on the Internet, and I’ve found a nice way to handle this.

To use this quick shortcut, you’ll need to first be using Firefox, as this trick won’t work with IE. In addition, you’ll need to download and install Greasemonkey, and then install a particular Greasemonkey script, called Flickr Photo Link. Greasemonkey is a Firefox extension that allows you to customize the way webpages look and function. More Greasemonkey scripts can be found here.

So what does this Flickr Photo Link script do? If you’re logged in to Flickr, it generates a small attributed photo link in the comment box on every Flickr photo page you visit. To post the photo in a blog post or elsewhere, simply copy the generated HTML from the comment box and paste it anywhere you like. Let’s look at an example. I’ve installed the script and searched Flickr for a photo. I found one I liked, and took a screenshot of what the page now looks like since I installed the script. (See below).

See the code that I circled in red and pointed to? Without this script, that code would not be there. Normal Flickr image pages just show an empty Comments box, but this script automatically adds the code shown here. All I have to do now, to be able to use the photo in this blog post, AND give credit to the copyright holder, is to cut and paste that code here. I’m going to do that now, and the result will be below.

from Polka Dots Fill The Sky

See that photo and credit link above? All I did to produce that was copy/paste the code I was provided by the script I installed. That was so easy. Now anytime I find a Flickr photo that I want to use, legally and easily, all I have to do is copy/paste the code I’m given on the photo’s page. It doesn’t get any simpler than that.

As you can see, it automatically chooses the Small version of any photo, so if you want a different size, you’ll need to go with the old fashioned route of downloading and uploading. But you can still make use of the attribution code (the part that starts with “from” in the code above).

So that’s my tip of the day for all of you who want to use Flickr Creative Commons photos, legally and easily. Have fun!

© Donna for DazzlinDonna, 2008. | Permalink | 20 comments | Add to del.icio.us
Post tags: Author, Creative Commons, Flickr, Flickr photographer, Greasemonkey, HTML, images, photos, scripts
This feed is for personal non-commercial use only. If you are not reading this in your news aggregator/reader or on DazzlinDonna, then the site you are looking at is probably infringing upon my copyright.