UPDATE: Keg Jump photo addedFacebook is great for easily sharing pictures from last night's debauchery, but it really falls short on quality. If you've ever tried to print out one of your Facebook photos (or someone else's for that matter) you'll immediately notice what I'm talking about. Do you archive your photos on your computer? Do you delete them immediately after uploading to Facebook? If you've ever taken a picture that you may want to print someday, I would recommend using Flickr for the following reasons:
Facebook takes your photos and compresses the hell out of them. So, that really nice 8 megapixel camera you just bought might as well be a cell phone camera (in terms of resolution). Facebook drops the resolution to 604 by 401 pixels - that prints to a MAXIMUM of about 5.5 inches by 8.5 inches. So, if you're ever going to print out that awesome keg jump photo, don't expect it to look nice in anything larger than a 5" x 7" frame. A free Flickr account, on the other hand, doubles your resolution to 1024 by 680 pixels. For $25 bucks a year, you can upload your full resolution files (for my camera, thats 4288 by 2848 pixels) and have access to an unlimited amount of storage. 
Flickr also just released their official iPhone app - it allows you to easily access your entire photostream from your iPhone. The app is noticeably more solid than the other flickr apps out there in terms of navigation and stability.There's also a couple options for displaying your flickr photos on Facebook. You can have Flickr update your Facebook News Feed and Mini-Feed every time you upload a photo by linking your accounts from your Flickr account management page. If you just want to show some of your photos, there is a Facebook application called "My Flickr." All you have to do is link My Flickr to your Flickr account and you'll be able to have a box within your profile that shows up to 15 thumbnails of your Flickr photos. Since I'm recommending you move away from Facebook for photography, I think having Flickr update your feed is the best option.
If you do take a lot of photos, or just want to backup your old pictures to the cloud, I would definitely recommend at least trying out Flickr with a free account. Once you start to like it, like I have, you'll want to pony up the 25 bucks for the pro account. Any of you out there already use Flickr? Anyone think Facebook is still better? Say so in the comments...
2 comments:
I agree, facebook is NOT a good way to backup photos or print them. it's just convenient for sharing.
but what's your thinking about flickr versus picassa?
A very good question - I gave up on Picassa back before it was bought by Google. Since then its become a more and more compelling photo service. It also just won the "best facial recognition" award (click here). I need to look into Picassa before I throw down $25 for Flickr now that I've reached the 200 photo limit for my free account.
Maybe I'll have to do a Picassa versus Flickr post in the near future...
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