What is Flickr?
Flickr is an online image hosting and community website where
users from all over the world post digital images, mainly
photographs, on all kinds of subjects. Users can comment on each
other’s images, mark images as favourites, and organise images in
sets and groups or by adding “tags” (more about tags
in Appendix 1). Access to images can be controlled through
privacy settings and filtering, giving users the choice to share
images with their friends, family or everyone.
Anyone can look at images on Flickr, but in order to
upload your own images you must create an account. Basic
Flickr accounts are free of charge.
How to set up a Flickr account
Go to http://www.flickr.com/and click on
‘Create Your Account’
Image 1: Flickr Home Page
To join Flickr, you need a Yahoo! ID (because Yahoo! owns
Flickr):
a) If you already have a Yahoo! ID, enter your username and
password to log in – if you reached the login page via the Flickr
URL above, you should be automatically redirected to Flickr.
Image 2: Log in with your existing Yahoo! ID to access
Flickr
b) If you don’t already have a Yahoo! ID you will need to set
one up. Just click on ‘Sign Up’.
Image 3: Signing up for a new Yahoo! ID to access
Flickr
On the sign up form, just enter your details as requested. Don’t
worry if you already have an email address with a different
provider and don’t really want another one – don’t think of
this as a new email address, think of it as just your Flickr login
details (once you are all set up, you can edit your Flickr
account details and add your main email address as your
contact).
Image 4: Yahoo! Sign up form
Once you have finished signing up for your Yahoo! ID, you should
be automatically redirected to Flickr.
Welcome to Flickr!
Once you are all set up and logged in, Flickr will take you
through your initial steps of choosing a screen name (which can be
the same as your login user name or can be different), choosing an
icon, and editing your profile. You can also get to your account
details to edit your profile any time you are logged in to Flickr,
by clicking on your username in the top right corner of the
page.
Image 5: Navigating to your account details
How to upload photos to your account
Now that you are all set up, you will want to upload some
photos. First of all, make sure you have saved the photos you want
to upload from your camera to your computer, then navigate to the
Flickr upload page. There are a few different ways to get to the
upload page.
a) From the Flickr homepage – if you are uploading photos for
the first time, there should be a link called ‘Upload your
first photos’ on the left hand side of your homepage, in a
blue box. There is also a link called ‘Upload Photos &
Videos’ on the right hand side of your homepage.
Image 6: Navigating to the upload page via the
homepage
b) From any Flickr page – you can find the upload page any time
by selecting the drop down menu under ‘You’ and
clicking on the link called ‘Upload Photos and
Video’.
Image 7: Navigating to the upload page from any other
page
Either way you will end up on the page called ‘Upload to
Flickr’. The easiest way to upload images is via the
‘basic Uploader’ link at the bottom of the
page.
Image 8: Flickr upload page with basic Uploader
link
Follow the instructions on the page to upload your images:
- Find the images on your computer
- Add any relevant tags
- Choose your privacy settings – if you are intending to share
your images with any groups remember to select
‘Public’
Now you are ready to click ‘upload’
Image 9: Uploading photos
How to join a Flickr group
Go to the URL of the group you want to join and click on
‘Join This Group’ near the top of the page, just
under the group title.
Image 10: ‘Join This Group’
You will be taken to a page with rules. Read through the rules,
click ‘I Agree’ and you’re done!
Image 11: SnapScot 09 Group Rules
How to add your photos to a Flickr group
You first need to upload your images to your account (see above)
before you can share them with any Flickr group. You also
need to have at least 5 images uploaded to your account for them to
show up in groups you submit them to for other people to see (you
will always be able to see them yourself if you are logged in to
your account).
Navigate to the image you want to add to the group. In the right
hand column, make sure that:
- You have added any relevant tags
- The image is set to Public, i.e. ‘anyone can see
it’ (with a green square next to it)
Image 12: Checking your photo is ready to submit to the
group
Click on ‘Actions’ at the top
of your image. Select ‘Add to a group’, then find
and select the relevant group from the drop down menu.
Image 13: ‘Actions’ drop down menu
Image 14: 'Add to group' pop up box
A message should pop up confirming that your image has been
submitted to the group. Click ‘OK’ and you’re
done!
Appendix 1: Further information on privacy settings, filtering,
and organising content by sets, groups and tags
Privacy Settings
Flickr provides both private and public image storage. A user
uploading an image can set privacy controls that determine who can
view the image. A photo can be flagged as either public or private.
Private images are visible by default only to the uploader, but
they can also be marked as viewable by friends and/or family. This
is useful for sharing personal content (e.g. family photos). Any
photos you want to share with a group need to be set to public.
Filtering
In March 2007, Flickr introduced mandatory filtering of all
photos and a process of central review of photos by staff to set
levels of appropriateness. By default all Flickr accounts are set
to the status appropriate for a minor. Images which fall outwith
the appropriate filtering levels show up as black when contributed
to any groups.
Organising Content
Images appear in a user’s account in the order they were
uploaded – the so called “photostream”. However, there are
different ways of subsequently organising the content:
a) Tags
Tags are single words or short phrases which can be added to an
image to help describe it and allow it to be found through
searching and browsing. Tags can be added both by the image owner
or by other users viewing the image. Common tags include
descriptions of the content as well as when or where a photo was
taken. For example, an image taken of Dolly the Sheep at the
National Museum of Scotland could include the following tags:
“NMS”, “National Museum of Scotland”, “Dolly the Sheep”, “Museum”,
“Edinburgh”. All images in the SnapScot 09 group should be tagged
with “snapscot09nms”.
b) Sets
Users can organise their images in to “sets”, thus collecting
together under a shared theme or heading images that may be spread
throughout the photostream. Any image can belong to one or more
sets or none at all.
c) Groups
Groups are similar to sets in that they allow images to be
collected together under a shared theme or heading, but with the
difference that other users – not just the group owner – can
contribute images to the group too. As well as posting images,
there is a forum for starting discussion threads within the group
pages.
Appendix 2: How to change your contact details in your Flickr
account
Navigate to the page with your account details.
Image 15: Navigating to your account details
Select the ‘Email’ tab.
Image 16: Navigating to your email settings
Select ‘Edit’ your contact email.
Image 17: Editing your email
Add whichever email address you want to use as your contact.
Image 18: Adding a new email address
Once you have added your new email address, you will receive a
confirmation email with an authentication link. Once you have
authenticated your new email address, you need to navigate back to
the above page (i.e. ‘edit your contact’ email) and designate your
new email address as your ‘primary email
address’.