Tutorial: Flickr & Photos- Part 1 (Flickr signup)

Do you have photos from conferences or other UGR events just sitting on your computer, digital camera or camera phone?!? We’ll help you share them!

You have probably noticed by now the stream of photos to the right and the photos showing up in blog posts from events and maybe thinking that you would like to share your own photos from UGR events this summer (but you don’t want to sign up for a Flickr account or you don’t know how?) Well, you are about to learn how to do it all with our “Flickr & Photos Tutorials”!

This is going to be a long segment so we’re breaking them up into individual posts- should have them all up in a couple days max. BUT within them you will learn how to join Flickr, become a member of our Flickr Summer 07 UGR Group, send photos to our Flickr album via Email and desktop clients (because we like to make things easy), place your photos on a map and see a world view of your photo locations AND send your photos to the new UGR photo blog via email dedicated for students and faculty who want to blog about their UGR experiences and events (academic and social) through photo emails! Everything is separated into sections so feel free to jump to what you want to learn about and as always, contact us if you have questions!

In this segment you will learn how to Get a Yahoo Account, signup for Flickr, Modify Your Flickr Account Settings, Personalize your Flickr web address and Upload your first photo(s)

Step By Step Flickr Signup
We are using Flickr rather than other photo hosting services simply because it is easy and integrates best with all the features we want (and personally I think it is best especially for blogs but it is debatable depending on your needs). There are tons of other services available and I encourage you to look into them. That being said, getting started with Flickr is easy not to mention FREE.
View the Tour of what you can do with Flickr

Get a Yahoo Account!
First you’ll need to get a Yahoo account (a yahoo email address is required because Yahoo owns Flickr and recently combined the two companies so in order to get into Flickr you need a Yahoo email account but you don’t need to use the email account, I don’t…just the login and password for Flickr.
Sign up for a Yahoo Account (typical sign up stuff with security code- takes 2 minutes.)

Once you have signed up you’ll get a window like the one below with the information you just filled out along with a button to continue, click it and you’ll be sent to the Yahoo home page.

Sign up for Flickr
Go to the url bar up top and type in http://www.flickr.com

You’ll be taken to Flickr’s homepage where you need to click the sign in link on the top right

The page will look familiar (first page you started at to sign up) Enter in your new Yahoo! ID and Password
If you are brand new to Yahoo and Flickr you are going to get a page that might confuse you (see below)

It will ask you to either make a new Flickr account OR merge your yahoo account with an existing Flickr account. Remember how i mentioned that Flickr and Yahoo merged? This window is to help transition people who have a Flickr account but no Yahoo account. If you are signing up new to both Flickr and Yahoo use the ‘Make a new Flickr account’ box on the left

Now you’re set, just a few more things before you get started posting and sharing your own photos with the world (or your own group of friends and family)

Your Flickr Account
At the bottom of the intro page the first time you sign in (and the top right from here on out) you’ll see a My Account link. Use this to make changes to your account and set up features such as groups, contacts and privacy settings. You can play around with the all but I’ll highlight just one for you now

Your Flickr Web Address
By default, your flickr address (site where all your photos are hosted) is flickr.com followed by a ton of numbers. If you want this to be a name rather than a bunch of numbers (like flickr.com/photos/missouriugr- something more personal and easier) click on the ‘Create your own memorable Flickr web address! link. Here you can create an alias. THIS CANNOT BE CHANGED SO CHOOSE WISELY OR WAIT TO CHANGE IT UNTIL YOU FIGURE OUT WHAT YOU’LL BE HAPPY WITH

Uploading Photos
Now that Flickr is set up you’re ready to start uploading. Click on the ‘You’ button on the top left under the Flickr logo.

Click on the Browse button for a photo you want to upload. You will then be able to give it a title, description and tags. Save it and you’ll be taken to your photo, that’s it, it is that simple, repeat, repeat, repeat.

Couple things to keep in mind as you start out. To keep Flickr free you’re allowed 100MB a month- use it wisely by decreasing your file sizes, I’ll touch on this in Tutorial 5 with software recommendations- free and cost..

Also, look around inside the ‘Privacy and Permissions’ tab in Your account and make sure the settings are the way you want them.

Final Thoughts
I think that’s enough for this post. Next up will be Part 2-Flickr Groups, Part 3-Email & Flickr, Part 4-The UGR Photo Blog and finally, Part 5- Everything Else and questions answered. IF YOU HAVE FLICKR OR PHOTO QUESTIONS PLEASE SEND THEM OR REPLY TO THIS POST OR FUTURE TUTORIAL POSTS SO I CAN MAKE SURE YOU GET ANSWERS WITHIN THESE NEXT POSTS OVER THE NEXT COUPLE OF DAYS!

Lastly, take pictures, take pictures, take pictures- you take them we’ll help you get them uploaded!