21 Flickr Tips for Photo Fanatics

The story goes that 10 years ago, the URL "flicker.com" wasn't available, so rather than totally rename a then-fledgling photo storage and sharing service, the founders went with Flickr instead. It took some pushing to get accepted. Then, the dropping of the "e" before "r" as a form of brandability became a little too accepted. Just ask Tumblr and Quikr and Picr, to name a few. Even Twitter started as Twttr, eschewing all vowels. (Flicker.com now belongs to Flickr, but the brand remains the same.)

Yahoo, in particular, likes companies that drop the "e," having bought Flickr and Tumblr. Yahoo has owned Flickr since 2006, and while some say Flickr has become the "poster child for Yahoo's failures"—mostly because Yahoo's internal struggles left it languishing with none of the flash and attention Instagram garners for Facebook—we'd argue that Flickr is arguably the best photo-sharing service going. Especially after its big overhaul in 2013, where it added an incredible of amount of free online-storage space, among other changes. That, plus new releases of the mobile Flickr apps, have earned it an Editors' Choice award or two here at PCMag.com.

Where Flickr fell behind in the past was in the all-important mobile space, where Instagram and others took up the slack, and then got major play with multi-billion dollar acquisitions. (Facebook bought Instagram for $1 billion in 2012; naturally, Facebook has also been accused of "killing Instagram.") But remember, Instagram originally didn't do much more than offer some photo filters. It didn't even offer video support until it got scared by Twitter's Vine.

Guess who's got Instagram/Vine-esque video support and photo filters on mobile now? That's right: Flickr. And it offers 30 seconds, not just six (like Vine) or 15 (like Instagram). In fact, the image filters are live (which you can read more about in a bit), and with the new mobile apps, Flickr is more Instagram-y than ever.

Also, a terabyte (TB) of storage is an unprecedented amount of free space, capable of holding upwards of 400,000 pictures taken at 8 megapixels. Google+ Photos only gives you 15 Gigabytes (GB), which is shared with Google Drive and Gmail—a TB of online storage at Google costs $10 a month.

Of course, there are other limits with your free Flickr: images can't be over 200 Megabytes (MB) each, and videos must be under 1GB in size and under 3 minutes in length; honestly, videographers should stick with YouTube.

In the end, Flickr truly stands out for one core audience: photographers. While Instagram and Facebook are great for sharing casual images, Flickr's tools and interface and information all scream out for artists with a camera to them seriously. From the camera info stored there to the ability creators have of tagging and copyrighting images, Flickr is an amazing service for those serious about pictures and photography. So take a walk with us, won't you, to look at the best tricks that will help you get the most out of Flickr, both mobile and desktop, in every way.

1. Edit Images After Upload

Flickr is typically considered a storage-and-share service, but the Web interface also offers image-editing tools, courtesy of Aviary. Aviary once had an online image editor (and still does have apps for iOS and Android). But it now only offers desktop editing through big partners like SquareSpace, Twitter, and Flickr. To edit a Flickr image, click the Edit Photo icon when viewing a pic—it looks like a pencil in a square. Select Enhance for the full suite of tools, including special effects, frames, stickers, or more basic tools like changing the size, cropping, focus, warmth, fixing red-eye, or adding text. Making a change, however, doesn't overwrite the old image, it creates a new one.

2. Don't Overlook the Social Aspect

The "sharing" part of Flickr isn't limited to just showing off your pics via other social media. There's lots of sharing to be done on Flickr itself, as your initial view upon log-in is a timeline (they call it the photostream) of the latest images from people listed as your Flickr contacts. Match up your Facebook, Google, and Yahoo contact lists to see who among them has an existing Flickr account, then add them one at a time or in bulk. You also get to differentiate them as friends or family.

3. Use the Flic.Kr Shortner

When you share a link to Flickr, the site will automatically use a shortened URL from the Flic.kr domain (rather than flickr.com, which is three precious characters longer). To generate your own shortened Flickr URL, go to URLkr and enter the full Flickr.com URL. Cut and paste the shorter URL as needed. Or on the Flickr site, when looking at a picture click the Share icon (the arrow) and under Code select Link to see it. It should be the same as one generatd by URLkr.

4. Email: Still the Killer (Flickr) App

While most people upload pictures direct from smartphones these days, don't forget email with pictures attached. It's still a huge way to share. It's easy to send a picture to Flickr for storage. Access your Flickr email settings and create unique email addresses to do just that. There's also email options to send an image or video directly to a blog or to Twitter.

5. Extra Email Privacy, Tags

If you want some extra privacy for your images, append the following to the address: +friends, +family, +ff, +private, or +public. The first three make the image in the email visible only to people you consider friends, family, or both; the +private means only you see it; +public naturally means it's visible to all. The syntax would be [email protected] (where the "foo13bar" part is your unique, magic email address assigned by Flickr.)

To tag the image, just add tags: followed by a comma-delimited list of tags to assign, in either the subject or the body of the email.

6. The Diff Between Groups, Albums, Sets, and Collections

Flickr uses a lot of different terms that sound similar. Here's the gist:

Albums (previously called "Sets")—That's a grouping of photos under a special name which you have to create and curate. Remember, if even one image in an Album is public, then all the images are public, even if you individually have them marked as private. (To the contrary, Flickr told us: There are only two ways someone could view all images in an album: if 1) ALL images are public or 2) if the account holder manually shares an individual Album with a Guest Pass. )

Collections—Those are groupings of Albums (or groups of Collections, up to five deep). You can create them with the Flickr Organizr.

Group—A collection of photos visible to a select set of Flickr users who can view or add images. When you create a group, you can make it open to all or to just those over 18, and whether is open to all or just invitees. Private groups can be used for friends and family only.

Galleries—This is also a collection of photos, but not your own. You can put up to 18 videos and photos of a topic together as a gallery, with pictures from fellow Flickr user, assuming the permissions on the image allow it. The image also has to be both public and rated "safe." Flickr will notify the owner of the photo that you've added it to a gallery.

7. Get More Space Using Flickr

Let's harp on that 1 TB of free photo space for a second. If you aren't willing to pay for online storage, but want to use a synchronization and backup service like Dropbox, OneDrive, or Google Drive, then Flickr could be your savior if you've got a lot of images. Rather than place any pictures on those services with limited space, offload them all to Flickr, as images are notorious space hogs, especially if taken with a high-megapixel digital camera. (Image)

8. Auto Upload Mobile Photos

The new versions of the Flickr apps for iOS and Android feature the ability to automatically upload every single image you take on the smartphone or tablet to Flickr. Pictures are all marked as private until you go into the app or the website and change it, or until you share them via Flickr to another service like Facebook. All those photos are added automatically to an album called "Auto Sync." Make sure you have your "Background App Refresh" turned on for Flickr in the iOS settings. (There are reports of a bug that makes this work only sporadically on iPhones, so keep looking for app updates.)

If you use a regular digital camera, you can still upload directly (maybe not automatically) with some of them that support Wi-Fi, or use an Eye-Fi card that puts Wi-Fi in the camera in place of the standard SD card used for image storage.

9. View Images at High Res

The typical photo page on the Flickr website shows you an image that fits on the screen. But if you want to view or download the picture in question at the highest possible resolution available, add "sizes/o" (that's the letter "o," as in "original") to the URL. You'll get a page viewing the original size of the image. "l" would show the large version, "m" for medium, etc. Click the Sizes on these pages to get all versions from 75x75 thumbnail on up to 2048 pixels wide, and then one extra if the original is even larger. These sizes are only available if the owner allows it.

10. Set the Photo Licensing

Photographers generally own the complete copyright to what comes off their camera (unless it was taken by a monkey). Flickr allows image owners to use Creative Commons licenses, so if you want to make the image a bit more open source and available to the masses for reuse and remixes, that's an option. Set a default license type for all uploads, or go into each image and change it as you see fit. When viewing an image, scroll down and click All Rights Reserved to change it to a CC license of your choosing.

11. Search for Creative Commons Images

There are over 27 million Creative Commons images on Flickr you can use for your presentations, brochures, fake friends, etc. You just need to know how to find them. Thankfully there are multiple tools to make it possible. You can search by color, by tag, by your own pathetic drawing, even by letters that appear in the image.

12. Label for Safety

By default, most Flickr images are considered and marked as safe, meaning they're okay for any one to see, of any age. But you can label images as moderate (when you're not entirely sure it's okay for a global audience) and restricted (when you absolutely know for sure it's not for the kids.) Change the individual safety level of each picture by viewing it from the Web on a PC (you can't change it on the mobile apps)—just scroll down to Additional Info. You also have the option of setting default filters on your account, so all the images you upload get set to moderate or restricted. Definitely do not try to set an obviously adults-only image to safe—that's a good way to get your account banned. Your "buddy icon" can only be safe; if Flickr finds different, you get a warning. After two incidences, they'll delete your account.

13. Flickr via RSS

If you're an RSS addict with a Feedly account filled to the brim with feeds you read constantly, add a little art. Flickr has a number of RSS feeds, whether you want to follow the photostream of a friend, all the favorites marked by a select users, or just the public photos and video. You can find a complete list in the Flickr App Garden with parameters to customize them. In Feedly, pictured above, you can also just add the photostream URL for anyone you like to follow, which is pretty easy. The Flickr RSS Feed Generator will create a feed based entirely on image tags.

14. Dual Exposure/Focus in App

When Flickr updated its mobile app for iOS, it added features you don't get on the integrated iPhone/iPad camera software. One of the coolest is the ability to perform a two-finger tap on the screen and lock focus and exposure in two separate areas of the picture. Focus is the blue square, exposure is the red circle. An extra touch on each will lock it in, even if you move the device, rather than continuously focus and expose the image on screen as usual. (Image)

15. Swipe for Composition Overlays

Whether you like the rule of thirds, portrait framing, or the Fibonacci spiral for composing the best pictures, the Flickr iOS app's camera has you covered (with those and more). Swipe left or right, or up or down in landscape mode; you'll get a new overlay that will help line up everything in the shot. (Image)

16. Filter Before You Shoot

We all love Instagram for applying cool filters to photos we want to upload. But Instagram only puts the filter on after you take the image. Flickr's update for iOS has live filters with names like "Iced Tea" and "Dublin"; they're "live" meaning you can see what the effect looks like before taking the shot. There are 14 filters to try. Click the color Venn diagram icon to access them. The filters also work for taking videos. Unfortunately, live filters hasn't come to the Android app yet, but you can still apply them after a still shot.

17. Shoot Vids Like Vine

After Vine debuted its square-shaped, six-second video recorder+sharing last year, Instagram did the same. Flickr now offers a version on its apps, with a 30-second limit and (on iOS) the ability to do a quick undo of the last bit of your shot. It's not like Vine or Instagram in that you don't press and hold the screen to record; a tap of the red button starts and stops the recording, so you lose the granular control that makes stop-motion recording possible. (Image)

18. Auto Rotate Flickr Shots as Wallpaper

Lifehacker and Hacker News came up with this great way to use Flickr (or any photo sharing service) as a source for constantly adding new wallpapers on your desktop computer, utilizing IFTTT for the automation. Simply tell IFTTT to monitor your Flickr account or a public group, and use the recipe to copy all the images to a folder in Dropbox or a similar service. That folder is synched to your PC. Then, instruct the operating system to use that local folder as the source for wallpapers.

In Windows, right click the desktop and select Personalize, click Desktop Background, then in Picture Location point to the folder. Select "Change picture every..." and choose a time frame for rotation. This works for making screensavers, too.

On the MacOS, right click the desktop, pick Change Desktop Background, then in the left column find the folder. Click Choose. Back on the Desktop & Screen Saver window, check off the box next to Change Picture and set a timeframe.

19. Pick a Popular Camera

Wondering just what kind of camera was used to create your favorite images on Flickr? The service will tell you, in the data under each picture (if it's available in the metadata of the photo—most digital cameras assign it.) Visit the Flickr Camera Finder anytime and see current stats of the most popular cameras used across the site. As of today, the top four cameras are all Apple iPhones, with the Not. 5 slot going to the Canon EOS Rebel T3i. You can narrow it down by camera type, too—the most popular point-and-shoot is the Sony DSC- RX100.

20. Try Third Party Apps

Flickr makes it possible for many great third-party apps and programs to use the service. Here are a few worth checking out:

Glimmr—Free for Android, some say it's a much better way to navigate photos than Flickr's official app. It will also auto-change your device's wallpaper.

Lurvely—A site that connects to many Flickr accounts to offer a look at the best photography there; it's an ever-growing gallery of beauty.

Retrievr—Not sure how to find a picture you want? Draw it. Retrievr will try to match your drawing to Flickr pics.

Uppr—A MacOS-only tool that auto-uploads any picture placed in specific folders to Flickr, even your iPhoto library.

21. Delete a Flickr Account

Whether you have too many Flickr accounts or just don't want yours anymore, it is possible to get rid of your Flickr account. Just keep in mind that it takes at least 90 days for all the info to leave Yahoo's servers, even if it isn't publicly accessible. That also gives you a 90-day grace period to change your mind and come back.

To delete, go to your account, and click the link at bottom reading "Delete your Flickr account." You'll have to give some OK replies to prompts, but after that...buh-bye.