Google Photos vs Flickr

Well I had to do it. I couldn't leave it alone because what I thought I saw in the photos in Flickr was much different than what I saw in the photos I had uploaded into Google Photos. It kept bugging me, even as I add photos daily as a backup to Google Photos. It's a simple process now that everything is loaded, with some of it being an automated process.

Do I add photos to this post from my photos library or do I just write, like when I started this blog in 2011? Feels strange having a blog post without 15 or more photos. Hopefully I'll have an answer by the time I finished writing this.

Anyway, back to the differences between Google and Flickr.

The differences bothered me enough to really check it out. The trigger point last night after all the football games I watched, put me past 1am by the time I sat at the computer. Since I am now use to staying up all weird hours of the night, I was awake enough to check out my information.

I knew before I started Google Photos there might be a slight difference in picture quality between the two from what I had read. For the unlimited free account, photos would be compressed to a 16 mega pixel limit in Google Photos. It was said unless you were a professional photographer, you would not see the difference.

I'm NOT a professional photographer but I could see a difference and can today ... I double checked this morning after a cup of fresh coffee and a clear set of eyes. Yet, picture quality was not the only difference that made me curious. I had read something wrong about Flickr before starting to play with Google Photos. I thought I was going to have to pay to be able to continue to use my free Flickr account I started in 2014.

That was not the case for a manual upload ... only for automatic uploading. So Google Photos wins that area with free automatic uploading.

No, the 'trigger point' for me was all of those 70 plus albums I had manually set up in Google Photos. One for each hound, past or present. One for each old VW bus I had owned, or tour I had taken, one for friends or different trips I've taken ... you get the picture, so to speak.

In Google Photos ... pictures uploaded or moved into Albums were not sorted nor can they be sorted in anyway. Users are still complaining in forums after 7 months of nothing being done, with all of the "google expert" posters saying we should use Picasa in the first step because it will load all the folders without issue and in some sort of order into Google Photos. Tonight I found a way to sort photos within the albums on Google Photos.

I will not be doing that. I mean how many times can you upload the same 22.4Gb photo library? That's around 30,000 photos.

So I was curious enough last night or very early this morning to take a look at my Flickr account that has about 2,300 photos total with 800 or so available for the public to see. I have less than 20 folders in that account, but TWO BIG MAJOR DIFFERENCES ....

In Flickr you can "bulk edit" photos and albums AND you can sort pictures within those albums 4 different ways. To me those were huge differences. Then throw in the file that shows your photos in a larger mode and much more CLEAR AND SHARP than what Google Photos had done to mine by just a tiny bit of file compression ... I had sold myself that Flickr was the way to go.

There was that much difference in the way my photos looked. It was just as fast, possibly easier to upload photos and bulk editing or bulk sorting hundreds of photos at at time was fantastic. Flickr also uploads the photo after you have edited it in your own editing program --- Google photos uploads the original with an editing program built in.

I noticed that last point of editing on my iPhone photos yesterday after they were uploaded automatically to Google Photos as soon as I took the picture. It was also a big trigger point because the quality was not even close to the great quality of those same photos on my iPhone.

So besides just looking at what I had uploaded last winter into Flickr ... I did a small batch of 15 photos from my computer to Flickr. Within the same amount of time it takes me to upload and move to Albums in Google Photos I was able to upload, sort, write a title and description for all the photos at once in Flickr ... with a sharper, better quality image.

To keep my head straight in the future and help those of you that are curious or interested in using a 'cloud' photo storage program ... I'll list the advantages of each FREE account.

Google Photos

• Unlimited storage with a 16 mega pixel limit per photo.
• Photos can be loaded automatically from a computer, tablet or smart phone.
• Photos can be deleted after upload from smart phone, tablet or computer by clicking one link and freeing up hard drive space.
• All of your photos can be seen anywhere, on any device as long as you have an internet connection.
• Photos can be moved into albums
• Will automatically sort your photos into their albums labeled places, things, friends, and videos.
• Can make collages and will suggest photos that can be used to make albums or books.
• Groups photos automatically and shows them in a past of "one year ago" format, similar to what Facebook does.

Flickr

• 1 Terabyte of free storage with original size and quality of photos.
• Photos are sharp and clear, shown in a larger format.
• Bulk edit of title and description for each photo before uploading.
• Sort photos 4 different ways within an album.
• Can choose which photos are private or for public viewing.
• All of your photos can be seen anywhere, on any device as long as you have an internet connection.

I am sure there are more features than these listed for each program. I listed only what I have personally worked with. I admit I am hesitant to continue to use Google Photos for ALL of my photos as a backup. Picture quality and being able to have photos in a specific order are huge to me.

Because it makes the process simple to delete photos off of my iPhone and a laptop to free up hard drive space with just clicking a link I will use Google Photos for photos taken by my iPhone, although my total library of photos would not take a 1/3 of my current smart phone hard drive.

I am going to go back to using Flickr as my main 'cloud backup', only I'll work a little at at time uploading all the photos I have into Flickr or like the friend that suggested Flickr to me ... I'll load only my favorite photos into Flickr while backup my my total library on external hard drives.

In the meantime, the hounds and I are going to get out and enjoy the rest of the morning with a walk through the heavy wet dew before we continue our football marathon today on the professional side (NFL). It will not be shown live because tv stations have to break for commercials during the playing of the national anthem ... but today in particular will be interesting for those players that want to protest by sitting or kneeling during the playing of the national anthem. Who could ever forget September 11, 2001.

I'll leave you with this observation if you have made it this far ....

• Bloodhounds DEMAND more attention than basset hounds
• Stella has to have ALL the attention
• Sadie and Stella move between me and the other to get that attention
• They don't bother me when I am giving Heidi attention
• The Bloodhound Laws listed on the right sidebar still apply

No photos in this post this morning ... The hounds will have their photos posted this evening.

Another beautiful day here in 'the tropics' of Southern Indiana.

Hounds Ask Where's The Rain?

All my photos have been copied to Google Photos as of 4am this morning. That time also includes the time it took to move photos from the main library to individual albums ... that I call folders on my hard drive.

That meant I got to bed early and gained an extra hour of sleep. The plan for today was getting the yard mowed sometime after I woke up and before the rain was predicted to arrive around 1pm. By the time I was up moving around and realizing I was alive for another day ... the storms arrival had been moved out a couple of hours to 3pm. Coffee is the greatest invention ever!!!

The skies told a different story.

Luckily I was able to gas up the Craftsman 6hp engine, set at a 3" level and get all of the yard mowed, with a push mower ... just before the sun came back out with no rain in sight.

With it feeling like 90° while mowing I had to have some recovery time before taking the hounds out for a walk. That included a lot of ice cold water, laying down with a small fan directly over me ... while keeping Stella and her drool away from me and letting her know that I was okay and did not need medical attention. She seemed concerned something was wrong with me.

So with a little sunshine peeking through the clouds .. Sadie, Stella and I took off. The both were on a mission today with their noses to the ground, following out path most of the time and stay out in front of me. Heidi??? Above 70° has her enjoying the AC as she lounges on the couch or on the bed.

The temp may have been in the mid 80's but it fell like triple digits. The yard work had zapped some of my energy and the hound walk was feeling more like a chore than enjoyment. Basically I couldn't wait to get it over with and get into the shower.

I can say that I am really happy with the new lens and it's only been a couple of days but it has out performed the two Nikon lenses that came with the camera in the short time I've had it. All of these photo are untouched, no editing.

I can thank ZippyPinHead for his recommendation a few months back on the Tamron camera lens.

I was a little surprised that neither hound took off for the far right corner of the field like they always do. Yet they are only following the strongest scent. There must have been a lot of deer traffic on our path last night ... they didn't wander too far off today.

Stella is already thinking about that cold AC running back at the house. She agreed with me, the walk can't end soon enough.

On the way back to the house I assumed incorrectly that both hounds were right on my heels following me home. I turn to check different times and of course today with the heat making the walk miserable ... I have only ONE hound behind me. I'll let you guess who has snuck off.

I looked everywhere and didn't see any tan or light brown color among the greens and purples. Had Stella gone to the "no fly zone" to check things out? I wasn't going to backtrack after her, she always shows up eventually.

I scanned the field with the lens set at 200mm and look what I found in the photo above. Sadie and I turned and headed for the house ... we wanted AC and we wanted water.

Stella caught up to us by the time we stepped into the yard almost at the house. She had ran pretty hard to do that.

Overall it was a nice walk though and I'm glad we got one in today.

Blogger is still having problems with blogs on the blogroll or lists .. for all those that use Blogger. Al thought it was just Wordpress it didn't like but he and I have a lot of blogger blogs at the very bottom of the list like I mentioned before. They are updating with new posts but not moving up on the lists.

Some of you may have noticed I have taken the word 'RV' out of my blog title. A few years back an irritated reader made a comment or sent me an email, I can't remember which, telling me I needed to because my blog was nothing about RVs, no travel, blah blah blah ....

At that time I decided to leave it the blog title for a couple of reasons. It was part of my paid domain name at the time. I had about 2 years worth of posts where I spilled my guts on different thoughts I had about RVs, which kinds, what I had found ... just a lot of research ... and for some, too much info and anxiety.

I almost changed the title back in January after Winston (I miss him daily) passed. I could tell the blog had gradually changed direction to where RVs were rarely if ever mentioned anymore. Hounds were mentioned all the time .. it has turned into 'their blog'.

I know one reader is very very happy with the new name and in fact I have liked that blog title name for quite sometime.

I tried a Google Photos feature last night. I "shared" a folder with an old friend that I went to college with. He had sent me some photos years ago that I kept on my computer ... so with one url link to that album, he was able to see it without having to log into or sign up for Google Photos.

Now with all my photos loaded manually except for a few from the iPhone ... I will start automating as much as I can. I will clear off my SD card in my camera to prevent Google Photos downloading another 3,000 photos that I have already put into the Google Photo system. Then after that card is clean, each time I slide the card into my computer, Google Photos will download the new ones automatically based on me changing my settings for the camera/card.

Sure I could do this all on iCloud and keep my Apple devices synchronized ... but iCloud doesn't have a lot of free storage and I never pay for storage.

The NFL finally starts the regular season tonight. It's a good thin because those meaningless pre-season games that only puts money into the NFL owners pockets were injuring important players at a rapid rate ... some are out for the year. At the injury rate was going, used car salesmen are turning into NFL defensive backs.

No I did not watch anything political on my tv last night nor will I in the future. The media spin for the past year has made me dizzy enough to make me puke anytime I hear anything, anyone or see anything political.

Sports ... sports ... hounds .... books ... yard ... camera ... more sports ... is all I need ... food and sleep are optional.

Will the rain arrive tonight here in 'the tropics" of Southern Indiana?

The Hounds Stayed Cool Inside

I never did sleep last night. I tried but it wasn't going to happen. Even the hounds woke up earlier then normal when they heard me pouring their breakfast kibble into their stainless steel bowls.

I shut the computer off as planned at 5am with some confusion about Google Photos. I have yet to find the answer on their help forum, although I have learned a lot of good information from that help forum.

Today was one of those days where the winds are higher but they are blowing warm air, humidity was thicker than butter and the energy level for the hounds and I started out low for the month. Yes, I did finally sleep about 5 hours and feel great.

Earlier in the day and afternoon, with a few chances to take off on a walk, Sadie and Stella did not do much more than these two photos show and before they knew it, the day was almost over.

By 6pm the temps were about the same, wind the same but it felt cooler as we stepped outside. We headed out for a walk after all.

There was a lot of butterfly activity today and I'll scatter those photos and of the hounds out in my discussion of Google Photos.

The migration to Google Photos is moving right along but at times I have some real 'head scratching' questions ... just weird stuff. It was a few minutes after midnight when I started the upload of Sadie's folder the had 4, 775 photos. It finished in 2 hours and 40 minutes but that was when the confusion for the night started. The Google program cut out about 800 duplicates it recognized that were already in the system.

Normally after the upload is complete, it would ask whether I wanted to add the photos to a folder but since there were too many it just had an arrow on the small box to view all of the uploaded photos. When I clicked that arrow I arrived at a blank white screen with a spinning arrow telling me it was loading the photos.

With that many I knew it might take a while. After an hour ... no photos. As a test I did a small upload of 65 photos and it worked, they showed up and I moved them into their new album. Two hours later, no photos of the 4,000 that I had uploaded.

Yet, when I clicked a link in the uploader box "view uploaded photos" they were there and I was able to move them into Sadie's album. It didn't go that smooth though due to my lack of knowledge that each album has a limit of 2,000 photos. I guess that is why it kept telling me "trouble with adding photos to album" as I tried time and time again.

Google Search proved to be my best friend sometime around 4am, telling me ... nope ... you have hit the limit of 2,000 and need a new album.

The confusion didn't stop there. Over on my blog I had taken the "RVs" out of my blog title and noticed while reading some blogs on my list that my blog no longer showed up on their list. Strange. Did the blog title change do that ... it shouldn't.

Then I looked at my blog list and noticed something weird that is still there today .... a lot of the blogs I follow were moved to the very bottom of the list, without that little snippet telling us how long ago that blog's post was written. So I went back to the three blogs I looked at, scrolled to the bottom and there I was along with other blogs with current posts, no date of our last post anywhere. Even my WordPress blog was moved to the very bottom of my own blog list and I made a post just last night.

I continued to load smaller files into Google Photos. Those images showed up as they should and were moved into their own album. So I basically have all of those updated and set up the way I want. Stella's upload is tonight with over 6,000 photos and should take less than 4 hours.

You might be asking "what's the rush"???  There isn't one but I'm not wired like that. When I start a project my "workaholic" tendencies come out, along with some other crazy issues I don't know about ... and I work until it is finished. Almost in an obsessed state of mind.

I will say the Google Photo automatic update worked like magic today. I have found a pretty simple way of getting my daily photos from my camera card, through Apple Photos on my hard drive, exported to a folder on my desktop. As soon as 14 photos hit that folder on my computer desktop by my manual effort ... Google Photos updated those 14 photos to my saved data base "in the cloud".

It does not take that much time to move them to albums on Google Photos and is the same process I use on Apple Photos on the computer.

I confused someone and myself on using Flickr. I mentioned that I had read they were now requiring a paid membership to use their desktop uploader. What I failed to see when I read that info was the words "auto uploader". (I know the period needs to be inside the quotation but it looks better the way I do it ... lol)

So I could have used Flickr for all of this backup but that is not the main reason I started using Google Photos. It works with my iPhone and will with any smart phone, automatically uploading photos from your phone and then deleting them on the phone to free up hard drive space.

I have also noticed some processes are easier to do on Google Photos compared to Flickr.

I wonder how much cheaper my iPhone 6S would have been today if I had waited a week or so? With Apple releasing their new iPhone 7 today, I hate to see what the 6S is selling for and will not look. It was also announced today that the  6S model is the most popular smart phone in the world.

As I started to stepped inside the house after our walk, I thought I saw a little movement in the small nest in the corner of the carport. It looks like I am going to have to back the Z4 out of his parking space, shake my can of wasp killer and let'er rip.

A pretty enjoyable day today. I uploaded some photos, tested some stuff on Google Photos and saw more features as I played around. With over 10,000 photos loaded into my account, I did a search for "chevy", hoping to see photos of my 1994 and then I could move it into it's own album. The Google Photos search was so detailed that it pulled up every photo I had with a Chevy in it.

What was interesting, there were photos of my Toyota FJ show up but they were photos I had downloaded from the car dealer when I was thinking about buying it in 2014 ... but in the background were Chevy trucks parked on the car lot for sale.

How's that for a search?

Rain is predicted for the next three days here in 'the tropics' of Southern Indiana.

Tamron 18-200mm Lens Arrived & A UFO??

I guess staying up until 5am three nights in a row caught up with me. I did NOT miss feeding the hounds breakfast on 'their' time, around 7am ... but after that the day was a fog.

By the time I woke up, glanced at the iPhone clock, I instantly remembered my days centuries ago of working 3rd shift and sleeping through most of the day. I guess I finally knew what it was like for Sadie and Heidi during my days of working a job. Stella did not arrive until after I was a 'full-time doorman'.

As I let the hounds outside there was a very exciting surprise sitting on my door step. My Tamron 18-200mm lens had shown up a day early and my brain cells suddenly charged. It now felt like I had been up all day. I fed the hounds their late lunch as I put on my shoes and socks ... because a late afternoon walk was going to take place with the new lens mounted on my Nikon D3200.

Before I go into details of the walk I will just say how nice it was to have a lens focus and shoot, first time every time. It didn't matter what the light was, or the distance, nor the camera setting ... it worked instantly every time.

Another cool thing was being able to get shots from a distance (200mm) and when the hounds were too close to me in the past to get a shot in (18mm). It was also nice not having to switch lens for different times of the day where I would shoot different type of photos.

I could tell as soon as I took the lens out of the box how much different it was than the two Nikon lenses that came with my camera. It was heavier, moved more smoothly. It just felt like a better built lens.

The hounds were as excited about their walk today as I was about my new lens. Right from the start they were both out ahead of me and at times pretty far ahead of me. When Stella took off running fast enough that her ears were in the "wing back" mode I didn't think it could be a deer in that location nor direction ... what was it?

After a intense inspection with nothing showing up, the only thing I could think of was a rabbit ... but she had never reacted that way before to a scent of a rabbit. In the meantime Sadie is wondering if I am ever going to catch up and walk with them ... or am I going to lay back and take photos?

You can tell that the process of fall weather is in action even with the temperature at 88° during our walk after 5pm.

As I walked along the path, the hounds went back to their exploration and eating. The word eating makes you think that it must taste that good but the book I just finished said their eating was a way they identify what has been in the area. I don't seem to think that same way when I am chomping down one or two large borritos.

Stella looked up from a long distance away just to let me know she was not leaving just yet and was going to have Sadie join her for some help in identifying whatever she found. Which was probably nothing more than deer droppings.

I was almost at the point to turn left and head home when I took this shot. I mention it because for many months I have not been able to get this shot at times due to the lens not focusing.

The BEST thing was being able to catch them running the full length of their run instead of just part of it due to the Nikon lens not focusing all the time. I should have clicked my camera faster because they were both running as fast as they could.

Notice Stella's ears to gauge their speed.

The final trot up next to me.

I knew since they had ran too hard in very hot weather (88°), they would be walking slowly the last half of the walk. Neither of them veered off the path I take very much and of course since Stella was walking right in front of me most of the way ... she walked as slow as possible.

With tall grass, weeds or flowers one thing is always easy to see ... where the deer sleep. Someone had done some work to get their bed comfortable ... or was it one of those small UFO's that land on occasion?

Stella was more than interested in finding out who it was, when it was and why were they so close to her house at night. With the bedroom windows open at night you would think she or Sadie would have heard this going on.

I took this next photo just to show how close to the house the deer sleep .. unless it was just a very small UFO.

Needless to say, by the time I completed this walk today I can say I was in love with the new lens. In just the short time it took us, the lens had done everything I wanted plus it had the range to take photos when the hounds were too close or too far away.

For those not interested ... from this point forward I am only discussing Google Photos that I am backing up all my photos with online ... but ... there is some news announced in there somewhere.

I am almost finished with my Google Photos migration. I had a very productive night last night. I am down to just two groups of folders to upload with a total of 11,013 photos of Sadie and Stella. That count does not count the yesterday and today's ... but I will load those first.

Along the way I learned some of the new features Google Photos has. Each folder I uploaded has the ability for the user to choose the image they want for the "album cover". Yet there's one disadvantage that showed it's ugly self ... you cannot load more than 500 photos at a time INTO A FOLDER but can upload 1,000's at a time into the program itself.

So my plan of adding tonights 11,013 photos into Sadie's folder and Stella's folder and getting to bed a little earlier ... isn't going to work. The process turns out to be a little longer than just uploading the group of photos from the specific folder on my computer, letting Google Photos make that folder while I type in the folder name.

I have to wait for those 6,238 photos to load, then open them up and select no more than 500 photos at a time before I can add them to the folder. Luckily that selection process is easy .. click the first photo, then hold down the shift key as you move your cursor down the end of each row ... choosing the photos in that row, then clicking the last photos when the counter reaches 500. The lifesaver in this is in the upper left corner there is a selection counter working as you go so you can see when you hit 500.

There is not a way to click the edit menu, then "select all" in Google Photos within the group of photos you are working with. There is in Apple Photos.

I have all of my 60 individual folders loaded and labeled with that cover photo chosen. After Sadie and Stella's photos are loaded tonight I will be able to set the program up to work automatically. Meaning after a couple of changes to my settings, every new photo will be added automatically into Google Photos whether the photo is taken with my camera or iPhone. All the photos in Google Photos can be seen by whatever device you are using plus it does not matter if you are on a Mac or a Windows PC.

Of course a long time blog reader made a comment last night after Sunday's post about this whole process ... his comment made me second guess my decision AGAIN !! For long time blog readers you know how I love to change my mind in the midstream of the thought process.

He had a point and one I had thought of many times before deciding to do anything "in the cloud". I'll not go into the plus and minuses of what to do but I am happy using Google Photos and the more I use it the better I like it.

Yet ..... I had to try his suggestion. He had reminded me what I was going to do last year and didn't. I moved my whole photo library, about 22.4 Gb's to an external hard drive in 2 hours and 47 minutes while I was watching the Florida State vs Ole Miss football game.

Pretty nice eh? No staying up all hours of the night ... just 3 short hours all of my photos were neatly tucked into a desk drawer waiting for the next update that will not take as long.

Still ... I really like what Google Photos does. One thing I caught myself doing last night while waiting for photos to upload .. was looking at photos and seeing them just as good if not better than when I look at them on my iMac in Apple Photos. I like the format.

I also like viewing them in my Flickr account but not all of my photos are there ... the two programs are very similar. I have found that Google Photos is easier to work with than Flickr when editing photos and organizing them.

So one more night of 3rd shift work ...

If you have read this far through all of this rambling I'll let you in on a little secret change I did right before posting tonight ... I took the "RV" out of my blog title.  :)  Many hours later while reading a blog that normally has my blog on their blog roll ... it wasn't there. So I checked another blog and my blog wasn't on their blog list either. I looked at a third blog and my blog was gone on their list. So until further notice ... I have put the RVs back in my blog title.

A great day today in 'the tropics' of Southern Indiana.