Flickr: Fun and Easy

I like pictures. Even though almost 100% of my pictures are snapped with a camera phone (always have my phone), the quality does not impair my fun. I wanted a way to share them online, and right now the clear choice for online photo-sharing is flickr. So what is the secret to flickr’s success? Simplicity. If you are not already a user, I will show you how easy it is to use this excellent site.

The learning curve of flickr barely exists. From signing up using your existing Yahoo! ID (you definitely have one), to uploading photos everything is straightforward. Unlike many functional sites, flickr works exactly as you think it should. Its informal menu and friendly atmosphere is a rarity for a site that is so incredibly useful.

The menu itself is always accessible and gives you access to everything you need. You can upload pictures and edit your profile options under You or organize your photos under…well that is sort of obvious. In fact, things being obvious is what makes flickr so great. It gets out of the way and lets you do what you want with your photos quickly. You may also notice that there is a search bar to allow you to find what you want within your uploaded photos.

Just under the top menu sits your second menu bar, which contains all the other links you are going to need. Sets are just albums, and Collections are just collections of albums. The free flickr account will allow you three sets, whereas the Pro account ($24.95 per year) allows unlimited sets among plenty of other features.

Tags are a great way to organize your photos as you go. For example if I had a picture of myself standing in front of a tree holding a laptop, it might be tagged with “nature”, “me”, “Apple.” Then a month from now I would be able to click all my photos tagged “Apple” and this photo would show up along with everything else with the assigned tag. This feature also stretches into the flickr community, as you can browse pictures other than your own using tags as well.

This brings up the question of privacy. Again, flickr makes keeping your photos private as simple as a few clicks. You can set your photos to be visible only to you, only to friends and family, or public. Of course friends and family must have their own flickr accounts, and you need to add them as contacts.

So now we have browsed through the menus and set our photos to appropriate privacy levels, how can we edit them? Enter the picture menu.

To edit the title, just click on it. Same thing with descriptions, which allow you to explain give a small caption for your photo. There is a comment box under each photo that makes it easy for friends or complete strangers to leave comments on your photos (depending on their privacy).

Of course I have barely scratched the surface of what flickr can do. Once your photos are online you can use partner services to order cards, calendars, or photo books. I did not even mention my favorite feature, sending picture messages to flickr from your phone.

I hope that I have illustrated how simple flickr is, and perhaps encouraged you to take advantage of its features. If you do, be sure to search for Justin Cady (I’m the only one) and add me as a contact. You can then feel free to leave comments on my pictures.

This article comes as a complement to my new flickr sidebar. I am trying to become more diligent with uploading more so there are plenty of new pictures to enjoy. Did you enjoy this brief tour of flickr? What do you think of flickr?