PHOTO

CLUB PHOTOS AND VIDEOS

The Blog and Website are enriched with a variety of photo and video displays.  They have been produced with Shutterfly, Roxio, YouTube, JibJab, and Xtranormal

To preserve this great work, we have established two standards:  save

Photos on Shutterfly and Videos on YouTube. 

They are FREE and provide shared on-line storage.
 


Before settling on Shutterfly we reviewed several FREE on-line photo sharing sites: Snapfish, Flickr, and Picasa. Our primary criteria were: Group or Club sharing was simple, storage had to be FREE, prints had to be available at a competitive price, and high-resolution copies had to be available for download.

We started with SnapFish because it was promoted by Comcast, which most members used as an ISP, and provided a "Group Room."  It charged $0.05 for download high res copies, which was a negative, but not a deal breaker.  The problem started when SnapFish started locking out members for no known reason and was unwilling to fix it. 

Flickr provided 250MB (about 200 pictures) and Picasa provided 1GB (about 800 pictures) of FREE storage.  Additional storage was available for a small annual fee.  Both of these sites allow friends to download high resolution copies of pictures.

These programs aren't particularly user-friendly. It takes time playing with them to find all the navigation links.  .

We selected Shutterfly because it met all our criteria, had the best organization via a DIY website, and provided unlimited FREE storage.  Our site is http://fogbees.shutterfly.com



The photos uploaded to the FOGBEE Group on Shutterfly are public and can be viewed by logging into our Web Page

To post your photos to the FOGBEE Site, you must
1) Set up a FREE account at www.shutterfly.com.
2) Send the email address that you used to open your Shutterfly account to Fogbees@gmail.com
3) You will receive an email welcoming you to the FOGBEE Cycling Club Site.


Pros: -Has group rooms where members can share albums

        -Can get prints.
        -Provide hyper-links
        -Slide shows are high resolution
        -Can download high-res copies for FREE.  
Cons: - None.


Upload your photos to your FREE account and transfer them to the FOGBEE Photo Site.

1) Sign in into your FREE account.

2) Click on the New Album. Then click on Upload in upper left section of the View Organize page.

3) Click on Choose Files in the Upload Pictures page and browse to where your pictures are on your computer.

4) Select all the pictures that you want to upload individually by holding ctrl-C and click the mouse on them or as a group by selecting first, holding shift-key, and then the last.
5) Click Create New Album and enter a title.

6) Click Start button and your pictures will begin uploading.

7) When upload is complete click Post Pictures to Share Site, select the FOGBEE Site, and click Post to Site button.
 
8) You will see the FOGBEE Site with YOUR album.



SLIDE SHOWS

Shutterfly makes pretty decent slide show that you can send to friends or post on the Blog via the show's URL.If you know the procedure it is fairly simple to do.

1) Upload all your pictures to an album.

2) Add descriptions to each picture.  It is not necessary but these descriptions show under each picture and it certain makes the show more interesting.


3) From the Home Page, click on your album and the your pictures display in a new window.


4) Click on the Edit album to the right above the pictures.and scroll down to Arrange & remove pictures.  For a slide show it is important that pictures follow in an intelligible sequence


5) Move the pictures to the proper sequence and rotate those that may be on their sides.

6) On the left side just above the title of your album find the word Slideshow and click on it.  Your slide show commences.


7) In the upper right select Options to change the scroll rate of the slides.


8) To share this show with friends, just drag your mouse over its URL in the address bar and click C.


9) Paste this URL in an email or as a link on the blog by clicking on V.



PHOTO SHOWS

Photo Shows are different from slide shows.  A simple slide show displays your pictures sequentially in a static mode in some cases with captions.  Every on-line photo storage site provides a slide show option.  An alternative is to produce a photo show (a video) by programs such as Nero (bought by Roxio) or PhotodexA Photo Show adds a dynamic of motion with zooms, pans, music, etc and better captures the attention of a viewer. Every On-line photo storage site provides a slide show option for sharing your photos.  Generally, the files that the site downloads are small and viewable on dial-up connections. 

    Photo show software generally works offline to convert still pictures into a movie, The resultant movie file is huge, about 7MB for every minute.  To share, upload this file to Web Site, such as YouTube, which converts the movie file to streaming video.

 
Roxio Photoshow is a on-line product that produces streaming video. Originally, this program was provided for free by Comcast, but that didn't last. Roxio purchased this feature and made it a subscription service. Subscribers can save photos on-line at Roxio, convert them into shows, and either stream them to friends directly from Roxio or create movie files to burn to DVD's or load into YouTube,  Roxio provides embed-code that members use to put their shows into the blog.  Roxio costs either $24.95 (if you were a Comcast Photoshow user) or $49.95 a year. For more information about using Roxio, send a note to fogbees@gmail.com

In the past the website had links to couple of dozen Photoshows produced by members.  These shows are owned by these members. FOGBEES have no control if the member ceases to subscribe.  To save the great work of FOGBEE members, the club has the following policy:


NOTICE: To protect Photoshows from loss and to use them on the FOGBEE website, they must be converted to a video file and saved as a FOGBEE YouTube file. CLICK HERE for instructions.


PhotoShow library has been converted and 
now shows on the FOGBEE CHANNEL on YouTube


VIDEO SHOWS

YouTube provides players that members can embed in their blog post to "stream" videos from cameras or advanced off-line slide shows. Because YouTube provides FREE storage for an unlimited number of videos and is owned by Google, it is the FOGBEE standard for videos referenced/linked on the FOGBEE website.

The procedure is remarkably simple. 
- Log into YouTube.  If you have a Google account, you have a YouTube account.  
- Click the Upload button.  
- Browse to the video file on your computer.  YouTube accepts almost every movie file format. YouTube takes several minutes to process the upload.  When ready, view your YouTube creation.

Next create the embed code to copy and paste into your blog post.  
- Click Share that is list just below the video. 
- Click Embed. The embed code is shown.  You may want to change the size from the default of 420 x 31ligh5.to 480 x 360 which works with our blog.  This is done by using the scroll bar to move below the code and select the size.

- Copy the embed code by highlighting and clicking C.  See blog instruction for how to insert this code.


This discussion is sketchy.  If you need help, send us a note at fogbees@gmail.com and we'll walk you though it

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