I have a job coming up and the client pointed me to a Flickr account to show the images they received in prior years. I know and have worked with one of the photographers so I know his quality.

His images as well as images from other (unknown to me) photographers are all very soft!

What is up with Flickr? I will be delivering both low res and high rez images to the client. It would not be practical for me to generate a third Flickr specific file version.

Thoughts??

Sam

Did the previous photographers use Flickr just to show their proofs? Or is there a reason these shots are on Flickr? I've never used it myself, but have, in fact, noticed softness on shots in others' galleries.

You might want to look at this comparison to SmugMug

http://www.flickr.com/photos/alanandkate/6942440965/

Originally Posted by Sam I have a job coming up and the client pointed me to a Flickr account to show the images they received in prior years. I know and have worked with one of the photographers so I know his quality. His images as well as images from other (unknown to me) photographers are all very soft! What is up with Flickr? I will be delivering both low res and high rez images to the client. It would not be practical for me to generate a third Flickr specific file version. Thoughts?? Sam

Let me elaborate...............the client uses Flickr, and the images posted look like crap! I know for a fact many of the images were taken by a known photographer are perfectly fine and sharp. When I am done with my assignment they will put my images up on Flickr, and they will look like crap.

My question is does anyone know a work around to this? Is there any tips I could give to my clients in order to have an image more accurately reflect the quality of the image?

I couldn't find a phone number for Flickr.

Sam

Sam,

Depending on the type of account the client has, pro or free, kind of depends on the size limit of the images and the number they can post. I'm wondering if this client took the perfectly good pro images provided them and had one of the people down size them prior to uploading.

With a pro account you can upload unlimited full resolution images and they automatically downsize them for viewing. The quality isn't as good as Smug, but it isn't terrible and certainly shouldn't look awful if a quality image was uploaded in the first place.

When first learning the digital processing thing, I used to suffer from soft images no matter where I posted them. Lo and behold, it was due to the way I was downsizing my originals. I'd bet that is what the issue is here.

Originally Posted by Sam Let me elaborate...............the client uses Flickr, and the images posted look like crap! I know for a fact many of the images were taken by a known photographer are perfectly fine and sharp. When I am done with my assignment they will put my images up on Flickr, and they will look like crap. My question is does anyone know a work around to this? Is there any tips I could give to my clients in order to have an image more accurately reflect the quality of the image?

A more general aspect of this is the need to strike a deal with the client that permits you control over how they are displayed; it's not just about a technical issue with Flickr (may not even be that, may be they purposely downsized them for speed, or to keep people from getting full res). If you are worried how they will display your work in the future, you may want to start with the deal and what control you have.

Originally Posted by Ferguson A more general aspect of this is the need to strike a deal with the client that permits you control over how they are displayed; it's not just about a technical issue with Flickr (may not even be that, may be they purposely downsized them for speed, or to keep people from getting full res). If you are worried how they will display your work in the future, you may want to start with the deal and what control you have.

This is not something I have control over, and I wouldn't use the word worried. The client has the Flickr account and has used it for quite a few years. They seem happy with it.

If it were possible to understand how Flickr down sizes and displays images I thought maybe I could give them a simple tip or two in order to have all there images display better. That would be better for them and for me.

It there is no simple work around and that's the best Flickr can do, well then it will have to stand.

To try and dictate what web host or photo sharing website the client uses would be insane.

Sam

I think the issue of quality on flickr has been around for a while. The compare I pointed to earlier was just one of a number about the quality of flickr images. There have been some stories that since Marissa Mayer has taken over at Yahoo the dev staff at flickr has been increased so maybe that will lead to something.

My guess is the issue with Yahoo is that it does some re-compression/re-encoding of the images uploaded to it, and that degrades them more than the compress used at a lot of other photo hosting sites.

One thing to try, and this is just a WA guess, is to re-compress jpeg's with http://www.jpegmini.com/ before uploading them to Flickr. Flickr might not have to compress the results as much and maybe won't squeeze out as much IQ. This is just a guess though, you would have to try it out and see if it made a difference.

Originally Posted by Dan7312 I think the issue of quality on flickr has been around for a while. The compare I pointed to earlier was just one of a number about the quality of flickr images. There have been some stories that since Marissa Mayer has taken over at Yahoo the dev staff at flickr has been increased so maybe that will lead to something. My guess is the issue with Yahoo is that it does some re-compression/re-encoding of the images uploaded to it, and that degrades them more than the compress used at a lot of other photo hosting sites. One thing to try, and this is just a WA guess, is to re-compress jpeg's with http://www.jpegmini.com/ before uploading them to Flickr. Flickr might not have to compress the results as much and maybe won't squeeze out as much IQ. This is just a guess though, you would have to try it out and see if it made a difference.

Hi Dan,

Earlier in this thread you pointed to a Flickr v SmugMug comparison I have made on my Flickr site and although not perhaps totally relevant to the OP, I have some other thoughts to add regarding this.

“You might want to look at this comparison to SmugMug http://www.flickr.com/photos/alanandkate/6942440965/”

1) You mentioned compression / re-encoding of the images uploaded may be poorer on Flickr, but I think this statement may be worth slightly qualifying – I think the original images uploaded are not compressed as the service does act as an archive. In the testing you referenced, I downloaded both files back from Flickr and Smug to my PC to verify there was no differences being created by Lightroom publish mechanisms. Both returned files were practically the same and acceptable IQ and (obviously) at the original resolution. The download of the original back from Flickr is exactly the same size as my full quality export to local disk out of Lightroom.

2) I know it is a minor difference, but my suspicion (I do not truly know) is that Flickr keeps your uploads intact, but perhaps creates and stores compressed or downscaled version(s) for rapid display purposes. I suspect this process may be quite complex and with shots with varying aspect ratios and viewers with screens of various aspect ratios. I suspect it would be hard to second guess a suitable upload policy, downsizing, sharpening etc. as mentioned by someone else, or pre-compression to get the best from Flickr. You may be trying to hit a moving baseline with Flickr’s internal processes anyway.

3) I have been told previously by a highly active (regarded?) Flickr poster that Flickr Slide show takes the Flickr generated and stored 1024 pixel width downscaled “large” versions of your images and up-scales them to a suitable size according to the users display area. I do not know for certain if this is true. I also note in Flickr the “show all sizes” option on an image now shows far more options than it used to. If the upscale from a downscaled copy display process is true, then perhaps Flickr now has more choices to upscale from. I wonder if Smugmug simply downscales from your original for display purposes.

4) Anyway, my experience is that SmugMug simply seem to get it right.

5) My open letter response to the query sent to me by Flickr staff …
http://www.flickr.com/photos/alanandkate/6866603889/
Did result in a very brief e-mail from them suggesting they were having difficulties with the aspect ratios of my shots (16:9, 1:3 etc) – possibly even a Flickr bug which they would look into.

6) They never came back with anything else, SmugMug continues to deliver much better – I’ve never looked back and will not run my photo competitions on Flickr again.

7) I retested the issue on this photo a few months ago – it is still not good. I only keep Flickr for the social side and access to specialist groups such as mountain photography etc.

I hope you are right about Marissa as Flickr is still important to me. However I suspect the Flickr issue is more than just technical now and is equally about where Flickr sits in the market. In my view, for the serious / pro photographer other facilities including SmugMug are better places to be, and in the social photography space Flickr is now under attack from the social networks who are taking the photography side much more seriously. In my opinion Flickr is very slowly being squeezed. On the plus side they have huge critical mass and inertia, but then again IT history is becoming littered with companies and products that thought they had good inertia – including the Yahoo search engine at one time.

I’m not a pro, just a keen (not very good) amateur, and I sympathise with Sam. I know too well the client is always right principle – perhaps Sam you could press the SmugMug trial button and publish two ways to illustrate the point to your client? It’s especially easy to do if you use something like Lightroom.

Alan.

PS – Sorry for the long post.

edit ...
PPS - If anyone from Smugmug reads this - keep up the great work, especially on the Lightroom plugin which is excellent, whereas the Flickr plugin for Lightroom seems to bounce from workflow busting bug to the next bug.

Thanks for chiming in Alan!

Yes, I think Flickr is what it is and there doesn't seem to be a way to "trick" into producing better images.

Originally Posted by Alans Grin Hi Dan, PS – Sorry for the long post.