Friday 15 May 2009

The perfect way to store and display your auction images - photobucket.com

Advantages: It is EASY to use. It is free.

Disadvantages: None

Photobucket is simple and straightforward. Just like this review is going to be.

Although I understand photobucket has many strings to its bow, this review is going to be with respect to what I use it for.  

It would be unfair for me to do it any other way as I only use photobucket for two things, storing my images and displaying them.  

I buy and sell on ebid.net and I find photobucket is the perfect way to display the photographs of your auction.  

There is no setting up to do. You simply choose a username and a password. Now that is as far as I remember - it is so long since I set up my photobucket account that I don't remember if I needed to submit my email address to them and then go through the 'sign in to your email and verify your new account' process that is usual with most online facilities.  

So I fail in remembering how to sign up, but I do remember it was not difficult.  

I am not aware of any limits on the account. I have uploaded thousands of images since getting the account years ago.  

Once you have your photobucket account set up, actually using it is the proverbial doddle!  

You go to the http://photobucket.com/ website and sign in with your email or username. The advantage of this is if your email address is long, you just type your username in - save a little time.  

The site will remember your username and password, but that is a big NO NO for me. Never let a site, or even your own PC remember usernames or passwords.  

Next you then choose how you would like to upload your files - you have the choice of web upload, or a bulk Java uploader. I never use the bilk upload, so I can't say how it works, or how good or bad it is.  

I use the good old webpage uploader - it is pure simplicity and you needn't worry about whether you have the latest version of Java, whether or not your browser has Java switched on etc etc...  

With the web uploader, you have a degree of control over the size of your files. You don't need to set this, but it is worth looking at the 'more options'.  

Upload so simple. Click on choose files. You will then be presented with a window to navigate to the folder on your PC, where your files are kept.  

Click on the file you want to upload, then press open and up goes your file to photobucket. The reality is, you will probably want to upload more than on file - just hold down the control button, while you select the files with a mouse click.  

Once your files are uploaded, you are then given the chance to name them and give a description and tags, to make it easier for others to find. Of course you may wish to make your images private, which you can set in your account preferences.  

You may organise your images into albums.  

Within each album you will see your images - below these will be links you can use for email, HTML, direct link and image code.  

I use these links for cutting and pasting directly into the descriptions of my ebid.net listings.  

And that is it. My involvement with photobucket is simply to store and display images, and I think it does a really decent job. 

Summary: Simple and straighforward photohosting site

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