How To Post Images to Google Plus

Jul 152011
 

There are a couple of ways of posting images to Google Plus – and some are better than others.  You can click on any of the images in this post for the full size screen grab.

Okay, first off the basics, a reasonable file size is about 1000 px (the longest side).  As with any web image, you’ll do best if they’re in sRGB, and so far I’ve just used the old standby, JPG format, though probably PNGs will work.

Now for the ways:

1) Use the upload image button.

In your main stream, click the CAMERA ICON. You can type something, or you can click the CAMERA ICON again and then pick your image to upload and you get this:

I clicked on + Add photos and selected the Big Head from my computer and voila.

 

You probably want your image to be Public (I think this makes it available in searches) and post to all your circles, or just some of them etc.  And then click SHARE.

THE PROS: This gives you a nice sized thumbnail.  But where the heck does it go, and how is it stored.  Whether you know it or not – everything is being managed by Picasa.  If you go to https://picasaweb.google.com/home you’ll find that this image has been added to an album called: Photos From Posts.

Now if that’s how you want to store all your images, or if you want to use picasaweb.google.com to move or copy or organize your images later, you can do that.

THE CONS: If you are managing a lot of images, this is going to be a pain.

2) Publishing an Entire Album with new image

So what’s that PICTURE ICON at the top of the screen for?

If you click on that PICTURE ICON ON TOP OF SCREEN you’ll be taken to all the images that you have anything to do with. Images from people in your circles, and at the bottom left, you’ll see YOUR ALBUMS.

From this screen, after you click on YOUR ALBUMS you’ll be able to add images to the album of your choice.  Here I’ve chosen the COLOR ALBUM.

You can add as many images as you like. And then hit SHARE. You’ll get a box like this, and you figure out what circles you want to share the album with.

And you’ll publish your Album with the new images to your stream. Voila.

PROS: You get a nice thumbnail and the smaller thumbnails.  But do you really want to publish your entire album every time you put up an image?  Also, so far you don’t have any control over the order of the images.

Believe it or not, there are still at least three other ways to upload and organize images.  I’ll just mention that there is an export to Picasa from Lightroom plugin - http://regex.info/blog/lightroom-goodies/picasaweb (It’s donation-ware, and I have used it to export images from Lightroom to Facebook but haven’t tried this one); and then there you could install Picasa on your computer and sync it with your picasaweb albums.  But I’m going to show you what’s been working for me.

3. Publishing a large thumbnail, without publishing the smaller thumbs, and without really publishing the entire album.  Also how to have control over the entire process.  What is in each album.  Moving and copying images between albums, and just publishing one image at a time.

There’s an application called, Picasa Web Album Uploader which you can install on your computer.  (I’m on a Mac.  I have no idea if it works on PCs, maybe someone can let me know).

Here’s the link to the mac version of Picasa Web Album Uploader.

And this is pretty simple.  Install the app on your mac and sign in with your Google login and you’ll have easy access to https://picasaweb.google.com/home

You don’t need the uploader to use picasaweb.google.com/home but it makes uploading a bit easier.  On my desktop.

You can set the size for the uploaded image, as well as the caption.

And now, here’s the one trick to get a BIG THUMBNAIL. After you upload your image to picasaweb click on View Album.  It will take you to Picasaweb.google.com/home where you can see the image you just uploaded.  Click on that image and copy that URL.  Here’s an example:

 

 

After you copy the URL, then (phew) go back to your Google Plus stream, and click on the LINK ICON beneath the entry field.  The URL should look like this:

Click Add:

And then Share:

And that’s it.  It takes longer to write about then to do.  The PROS:  You get a nice big thumbnail without all the smaller thumbs beneath it.  But this image is in the proper album, so that if you click on it, you’ll get the right image, and be able to navigate through the rest of the album.

THE CONS: If you change the name of the album, then the URL won’t be found.

If you just want to embed a smaller thumbnail, then you can use the LINK field that’s on the right side while you’re in PICASAWEB.  And I think that’s enough information for one post.  You might want to experiment with moving things around etc. on PicasaWeb.  It’s pretty powerful.  Hope this doesn’t cause more questions than it answers.

 

 The Photography Business 15 Responses »

A Curated Facebook Page of Photos

Jul 042011
 

http://www.facebook.com/beckermanphoto

Yup.  That’s what I’m going to do with my facebook page.

You can submit a photo to fb.com/dave.beckerman

Or email me a link and if I think it’s new and special or old and special or just special – I’ll post it on my page: www.facebook.com/beckermanphoto

BTW, it’s not all that easy to find “good” photos on FB.  I know that they’re there but I’ve been scanning the photo groups and have only found a few so far.

Let’s see if technically this even works. I don’t think that I allow anyone to post images to my dave.beckerman page – and I don’t see how to have separate photo posting settings for my page as opposed to my wall.

DB

 The Photography Business 1 Response »

SEO FOR PHOTOGRAPHERS

Jul 022011
 

I’ve written a lot about SEO (search engine optimization) as it relates to photographers, but never in any consistent way.  Photoshelter SEO COOKBOOK for Photographers, as part of a their way of attracting customers, asks you to supply them with your e-mail address and then sends a link to this valuable PDF called Photography Websites: SEO COOKBOOK.

And that’s a good deal for one reason – it confirms most of what I’ve personally experienced over the last decade.

One of the main points it makes, and maybe this is already obvious, but in the old days, photographers did “push” campaigns.  You had postcards made, portfolios etc. and sent them out to potential clients.  Now, potential customers are going to find you.  And the first place they will look is the Google search engine.

And how many pages deep will they look for you?  That’s right, probably not more than one page.

And on the first page, who will they likely checkout first?  That’s right, the first three or four listings.  So in other words, if you are attempting to “let people find you” then you need to be on that first page.  And what that means in practical terms, is that you are going to need to pick a narrow enough niche phrase to give you a chance.

Just to give you a taste of what you’re up against, the Google robot that crawls your site is looking at about 200 variables.  No, I don’t know what they all are.  I don’t know if any one person does.  But the power of the search engine is such that they will make or break your business.

I don’t want to repeat what’s in the photography SEO pamphlet – but I’m simply advising that it’s worth downloading.  I’m actually going to put it on my iPhone and read it there. Again, here’s a link to the page that has the PDF SEO Cookbook for Photographers.

 The Photography Business  1 Response »

Google Plus v. Facebook

Jun 292011
 

Yep, the big boys are about to slug it out.  Google, which is just about ubiquitous with a browser, an Operating System, the top search engine, gmail, scanned books, book store, and frankly, if you were to list all the bits of your world that Google touches it would take more than this post.  The only place so far that they haven’t conquered, though I expect that soon, is the social network thing, and my kitchen appliances (which Microsoft is working on).

And I am a big consumer of one particular Google endeavor and that’s all the books they’ve scanned.  As I write this, almost 100% of my reading is with the Google Book Reader on my iPhone.  At some point I might write a comparison of the various readers for the iPhone / iPad but Google has put together a near perfect app for those of us that want free books (I’m reading all of Sir Arthur Conan Doyle and I mean his books about spirituality and fairies etc.) after having re-read every Sherlock Holmes story printed.  For free.

Continue reading »

 The Photography Business  2 Responses »

4 a.m. and all is well (sorta)

Jun 282011
 

Spent the night putting together a print sale.  Making the graphics.  And changing the code in the store to handle the 25% discount.  It’s a Christmas in July Sale in the emails I sent out, with a bonus for anyone who knows (without looking it up) who directed that film, and which is the funniest scene in it – without a doubt.  Hint – it involves guns.

And on top of that, even managed to send out a Mad Mimi email. Now, tomorrow is going to be a bad day since I expect to only be half awake, but I really only have to put together one package of about 8 prints for shipment to California.

When I pull one of these long nights, the poor cat is way confused.  Usually he’s the one keeping me up, and now I turn the tables on him.

Well, now I can go to sleep.  File this under the Photography Business category and see if I can sleep ’til about noon.

Oh, one other thing that has worked out nicely – and a good tip if you are using Paypal for your sales: I got rid of Fedex since my poor friend on the corner lost his Fedex store (went out of business) – and I had been meaning to open a UPS account so that I could test out how the UPS printing of labels would work with Paypal.  Totally great.  I no longer have to copy and paste from Paypal to my old Fedex account.  I can print the label through the Paypal interface, and it shows up in my UPS account for tracking etc.  Saves a lot of tedious work.

And with that – I wish you all a good night.

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