Customer Reviews

How to Use Flickr: The Digital Photography Revolution

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I must have come late to the party! How did I know so little about Flickr? It is such a natural outgrowth of the Web and digital photography.

Flickr is a web site for the storage and display of photographs by anyone who wants to take the time to post them. In that way, it's similar to an individual website. But Flickr is so much more.

In the first case, it's so much easier to load a picture onto Flickr, than to create a website. Sign on, click upload a picture, browse through your computer, find the image you want and click. There it is on screen.

Flickr lets you limit access to the photo in various ways or open it up to the whole world to see. Then you can add tags (or keywords) to your picture that let that photograph be integrated into the larger Flickr community. Note that word community. That concept is a central tenet of Flickr because the site aims at tying its members together. It does this through a number of devices, like allowing its members to set up groups of like minded photographers. For example, there's a group that features pictures of members looking at pictures of members, or a group that is concerned with the development of Flickr. Members get to comment on each others pictures, and communicate back and forth. And Flickr offers a number of controls so that one can decide just how much or little one wants to participate. And that's just the start.

I had a number of questions about Flickr. Setting up a website for your pictures lets you exercise far more control over how people view your pictures. I was also concerned about how you protect your property interest in your pictures until I saw that Flickr will import your EXIF data (if you don't know what that means, it's probably not an issue that will bother you) including an imbedded copyright.

Meanwhile, what about the book? You can probably learn all of the potential of Flickr by banging around the website, clicking links. But what Giles has done is put it into order with explanations of capabilities of the program and detailed steps on how to access them and set up your pictures the way you want. For those who are interested in the history of the community or in learning about some other participants, there are sidebars which are not essential to read but interesting to get the feel of Flickr. Giles' writing is accurate and helpful. I easily got onto Flickr (which offers a free membership, although heavy users will want a paying account), uploaded my pictures, and even used those pictures as a feed to a blog. Giles is an apostle of the community aspects of Flickr, and even an old anchorite like me could see where it might be fun to get in on Flickr. My only worry with pursuing Flickr is that I can see where this could easily become an addictive time suck.

If you are not afraid of that, and if you are a digital photographer and don't know the in-and-outs of Flickr, it's time to get Giles and get started.

While this wonderfully written book is one for the beginers too, as a veteran of almost two years in flickr, not only had I have joy of reading it but also learned and discovered things I never knew.

Not only teaching, but agrable interviews with those around or working for flickr or products usefull for those having pictures in it, it also conveys so well the spirit of communication of flickr.

I recomend it to all, not only all ages but all competences too, and all over the world who understand english. Hope, soon will be also translated in other major langagues.

In one word: one excellent, usefull and enjoyable book.

How to Use Flickr: The Digital Photography Revolution by Richard Giles taught me a lot that I didn't know before. If you have months to read through the forums then you can learn some of what is in this book. If you want to learn that and more in a week then this is the book for you. I keep it next to the PC because I have it full of bookmarks. To learn even more tricks, let me suggest the
Flickr Hacks book too. They go well together.

I checked this book at the bookstore twice, spending each time over 20 minutes browsing through this book. I have to say that if you feel challenged by the internet this book will help you learn the ins and outs of Flickr in an organized and easy to read way. On the other hand, if you know how to explore the web by yourself, use the help tool, and forums there is no point in buying this book.

So why did I pick it up in the first place? I wanted to learn about the strategies people use to increase exposure of their flicker profile. Also I wanted to understand how pictures make it to the Explore main page. Given that number of views is not the only reason a picture makes it there. Alas, this book did not add much to my knowledge in that area.

Do not buy this book. Flickr engages in censorship. Do not support Flickr or Yahoo! they have no respect for free speech.