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Resolution and pixels and image quality! Oh my! ...

When you hear the term 'high-res' thrown about with such abandon when it comes to images for web use, have you ever stopped to think just how big or how high quality and image meant for the web needs to be?

Resolution and pixels and image quality! Oh my! Saving images for the web
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Haje Jan Kamps
Low-contrast photographs don't have to be boring

There's an assumption that high-contrast images are more dynamic, more compelling, more inviting. Have a go at some low-contrast photography. You might surprise yourself with the results.

Low-contrast photographs don't have to be boring
Feature Articles, Theory
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Seeking balance in your photos

Balance doesn't mean symmetry; it means an internal consistency and tension within your photos. And it's a vital element of composition. 

Seeking balance in your photos
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Training your photographic luck

Great photos might be down to a little bit of luck, but most of that 'luck' you make yourself. Don't believe us? Read on...

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The ups and downs and ins and outs of ...

Photographing buildings doesn't have to mean wide-angle lenses and fretting about correcting for the keystone effect. Any lens, and angle. Don't believe us? Let us show you!

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functionality

A much-needed update for Flickr's iOS app


Android users enjoyed a significant upgrade to Flickr in August, but iOS users were left languishing with a fairly basic app that didn't offer half of the functionality of the website. In fact, using the mobile site was a superior experience to the app. That changed around lunchtime (here in the UK, anyway) today. An updated Flickr for iOS is now available, complete with in-app camera and snazzy new layout.

Ignore the moaners and groaners who are dyspeptically lamenting that Flickr has added a filter option to the camera function. Yes, they included the option to wash your photo, taken on the newly introduced camera, with some kind of filter. Everyone's doing it now and it isn't really new or exciting. In fact, it's probably the scourge of modern photography and we'll succumb to scurvy if we continue to apply them.

But you know what? This upgrade is about a whole lot more than a selection of filters. Some much-needed functionality has been added to the app, which was quite frankly rather poor before hand, bringing what you can do with the app closer to what you can do with the website.

For me, the most exciting addition is the ability to interact with the groups you belong to. You can see the photos that have been submitted to them and you can participate in their discussions. Previously, I found not being able to do that from the app highly frustrating.

When you explore your contacts' uploads, you can select from two layouts. One shows you the uploads by adte alone. The other gives you the streams of your contacts organised by most recent upload. 

As for uploading your own images, take a picture, make your edits with Aviary, apply a filter (or not), and then upload it to your photostream, add it to a group or set if you want, write a description, and complete everything with tags. Or you can select one from your phone's camera stream.

This update improves the functionality of the app hugely, but even I, in my rose-tinted Flickr-adoration, know that Flickr has suffered from stagnation. I don't know if it's enough, but it's a start. And I'm very happy about the improvements.

Whoah! And there's more! Flickr has just announced that over the next few days it'll be rolling out an improved navigation bar and a new-style Explore page on its website. I'm not seeing that yet, but I'm looking forward to trying it.

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Is 500px encouraging copyright theft?

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screen_shot_2011_06_28_at_141835.jpg

The problem is the 'embed' functionality that's built into 500px. In the social networking box, there are your standard 'like' on Facebook, 'tweet' on Twitter, Submit to Stumble Upon and all that jazz.

One of these buttons reads 'Embed', and gives you a HTML snippet that makes it easy to embed photos into your blog. In fact, the Embed code goes further, and actively encourages it: "Copy the code to your LiveJournal or Wordpress blog".

I don't want to be difficult, but I haven't given permission to 500px to dissaminate my photos like that. Not without my permission, not without a licence in place, and (probably) not without paying me.

If I find a series of my photos on someone else's website, where they are being exploited commercially, I'd send them a takedown notice and an invoice.

screen_shot_2011_06_28_at_142649.jpgThe problem, then, is that 500px seem to be encouraging its users to commit copyright infringements of my copyrighted materials. They claim, apparently, that it is "good exposure" for the photographers. Personally, I strongly disagree - I'll decide what is good exposure for my own photos, thank you very much.

Right-clicking on a photo on Flickr has a completely different outcome: You get a pop-up reminding you that the content is copyrighted.

Against their own T&C

Okay, I'm showing off my geekdom properly, in admitting that I am actually reading the Terms and Conditions on the sites I visit, but allow me that.

On the 500px site, in the Terms of Service, it states "By submitting photographic or graphic works to 500px (...) you agree that this content fully or partially may be used on 500px web-site for promotional reasons (such as photos at home page)". 

There is no mention whatsoever about re-distributing my images to a wider audience, whether via blogs, LiveJournal, Twitter, Facebook, etc. Enabling (nay - encouraging) users to embed my copyrighted photos on their own blogs, then, is against 500px's own terms and conditions.

Thanks, but no thanks

I understand what 500px is trying to do: Opening the internet is admirable, and wanting to share content all over the place is a great idea. But it's only a great idea when you own the content, and when you've decided that this fits in with your business objectives, and your approach to copyright.

500px deciding to share my photos with the world, encouraging people to commit copyright infringements via a feature I cannot turn off, is not my idea of a well thought-through website.

Let me turn off Embed feature, at least...

...Unless you are happy to receive a ream of invoices from me, of course. In which case, carry on, and could you send me the address to your invoice payable office, please?

Hat tip to @phillprice for the tip re: this article