Updates to the photo-sharing site Flickr have made it a more effective storage, collation, edit and search option.
The Flickr photo-sharing website has been extensively updated with new functions, including Uploadr, which searches for photos on personal hard drives and uploads them to a private Flickr album in the background, and Camera Roll, which aligns images in reverse chronological order.
Mobile apps for Flickr for iPhone and Android have also been extensively reworked, with the aim to place users’ own image ahead of others they are following, and a new search option allows users to quickly filter images by keyword, size, shape, quality, and colour.
Flickr says that functions from storage and collation to editing and searching have all been improved. For some time Flickr has offered one terabyte of free storage. With the updates Flickr is now backing up a terabyte of photos from a primary computer and mobile devices, and they can be easily searched in the cloud, all for free.
Once a Flickr account is accessed, users select where their images are located, and Uploadr collects the photos into the Flickr cloud automatically. The default setting makes sure they are stored privately. In Camera Roll photos are laid out in a timeline with the newest photos at the top, and users can scroll through them. A lock icon appears on all photos to ensure users’ privacy, though with one click they can be made accessible to others.
Via Camera Roll users can click and drag to highlight any selection of photos, and they can batch-edit metadata or create a one-off album link for sharing. Images can also be downloaded in a zip file at their original resolution. Flickr has named Camera Roll’s other new feature "Magic View". With Yahoo’s image-recognition technology, Flickr can generate albums for users in 60 categories, including people, animals, landscapes, panoramas, and architecture, amongst others.
As well, albums no longer have to be created for sharing. Users can swipe across their photos to create a selection from Camera Roll and click “Share”, grab a link and share via email, or upload to Facebook. Flickr has also made bulk downloads an option. Users can select thousands of images from their Camera Roll function and download them in a zip format to share them, print them, or make photobooks. Camera Roll is available on iOS, Android, and web options.
Other Flickr options remain. Users can still follow big-name photographers, browse images they like, or simply showcase your own images.
Camera Roll mode arranges images in a time line with the newest images at the top.
In Camera Roll, the Magic View function generates albums for users in 60 different categories.
Changes to the Flickr photo-sharing site will make it much more effective in storing, reviewing and editing its cloud-based images.
