Webshots closing

[riofriotex]

From Flickr (right click, copy, and paste the Medium 640 size):

 

From a PicasaWeb album (also right click, copy and past):

 

 

From Shutterfly (right click, copy and paste):

From Snapfish (same procedure):

 

Photobucket (same process):

 

Just a test here to see how all these services work here on Cruise Critic...

[Cindy]

I signed up for the free 14-day trial on SmugMug yesterday, and I uploaded some pictures so I could play. They're football pictures, not cruise pictures, but I want to figure out how to post them to CC if I decide to use that service.

 

It seems like the site is easy to use and there are lots of neat things I can do with the pictures, I just have to decide what level of service I need if I choose to purchase a subscription.

Test:

[Cindy]

OK...this seems a lot easier than copying the forum code like I had to do with Webshots. Just choose the size - right click to copy - come back here and paste. The picture in the post above is small.

Here's a medium:

 

And this is large:

[Cindy]

Other available sizes at SmugMug for posting pictures are XL, 2XL, 3XL, and Original, but it seems to me that anything over Large would be so big that it would mess up the forum...you would have to scroll back and forth to see the entire picture.

[Sunny AZ Girl]

I signed up for the free 14-day trial on SmugMug yesterday, and I uploaded some pictures so I could play. They're football pictures, not cruise pictures, but I want to figure out how to post them to CC if I decide to use that service.

 

It seems like the site is easy to use and there are lots of neat things I can do with the pictures, I just have to decide what level of service I need if I choose to purchase a subscription.

I have been doing the same thing. So far I really like SmugMug. It is a little pricier than the others at $40 for the basic subscription, but since I am not a professional and have no interest in selling my pictures I don't see that I really need to do more. You can have unlimited photos and it is really easy, as you say, to upload pictures. Do you see a major advantage to the other levels? Personally, I think the $40 is worth the way the albums look and what you can do with them. That is only $3.33 a month. You can also pay $5 a month for the same level of service, but I can't see throwing $20 away. I will just pay annually.

[MDSue]

Has anyone else had problems getting the link to retreive their images to work? I got an email from webshots yesterday with instructions to click on an attached link, but it does nothing when I click on it.

Any advice?

Thanks

[Sunny AZ Girl]

Has anyone else had problems getting the link to retreive their images to work? I got an email from webshots yesterday with instructions to click on an attached link, but it does nothing when I click on it.

Any advice?

Thanks

 

I got an e-mail, but did nothing with it. I decided I don't want it to go onto Smile. I did push a button to upload, but only 600 of my 6.600+ pictures went over and they were all mixed up. I wish I could help you, but it is very confusing to me. too.:confused:

 

If I do nothing more will it just all go away? I have all of my pictures backed up off line anyway. I am transferring them to another on-line photo service, too.

[Cindy]

Has anyone else had problems getting the link to retreive their images to work? I got an email from webshots yesterday with instructions to click on an attached link, but it does nothing when I click on it.

Any advice?

Thanks

 

The links I got didn't work.:( I did go on their website and find the links, and I tried to download the first batch. I waited almost an hour, but none of the pictures ever downloaded.

Since I have all my pictures that were on Webshots on my computer as well as an external drive, I gave up. Instead of sitting for hours hoping for pictures to download, I spent my time deleting all of them from Webshots.

The main reason I wanted them was for the albums/organization, and once I heard the pictures were coming in with no rhyme or reason there didn't seem to be much point in downloading them.

[Desert Cruizers]

I have many photos from our TA from Barcelona on Web Shots, but the bulk of them are already in my album so not lost. I am really trying to decide what I wish to do with them on Web Shots. I signed up for Shutterfly the other day. I will most likely delete the photos.

[MDSue]

Thanks Cindy and Sunny AZ Girl, Webshots sent me instruction how to upload from their website so I guess I'll try that next. I'm not too confident. My pictures are spread out on 4 different computers. I spilt juice on one and dropped another (I guess I'm rough on laptops!). I really should combine them all in one safe space, but I liked having them to share.

What really bothers me now is the idea that they can sell my images for a profit and I don't want that priviliege to continue. I'm going to have to find a safe online storage place to keep my images in case anything happens to my files at home.

Susan

[caribill]

Caqn anyone suggest which service now allows you to store a reasonable amount of photos for no charge and:

 

a) You can link to them to display them within threads on Cruise Critic

b) When they show up on Cruise Critic, they do not also display links to the rest of your pictures and your personal information

 

Thanks

[MDSue]

Caqn anyone suggest which service now allows you to store a reasonable amount of photos for no charge and:

 

a) You can link to them to display them within threads on Cruise Critic

b) When they show up on Cruise Critic, they do not also display links to the rest of your pictures and your personal information

 

Thanks

 

I use Photobucket for my pics. There are a couple of ways to share your pics. If you want to just share one image,you can or you can put link for the whole album- it just depend on what option you choose.

 

I'm not sure what the limitations or pictures are before you have to pay a $25 annual fee. I used it for years for free, but when I did a "live" review with pictures last year, they suddenly blocked access to my pictures until I went professional. I really had no choice but to pay or no one would be able to see my pictures. I'm not sure if the reason was because I had too many views or if I had reached my limit of free picture storage.

[caribill]

I use Photobucket for my pics. There are a couple of ways to share your pics. If you want to just share one image,you can or you can put link for the whole album- it just depend on what option you choose.

 

I'm not sure what the limitations or pictures are before you have to pay a $25 annual fee. I used it for years for free, but when I did a "live" review with pictures last year, they suddenly blocked access to my pictures until I went professional. I really had no choice but to pay or no one would be able to see my pictures. I'm not sure if the reason was because I had too many views or if I had reached my limit of free picture storage.

 

Thanks

[Aquahound]

Caqn anyone suggest which service now allows you to store a reasonable amount of photos for no charge and:

 

a) You can link to them to display them within threads on Cruise Critic

b) When they show up on Cruise Critic, they do not also display links to the rest of your pictures and your personal information

 

Thanks

 

I'm using Shutterfly now, and it meets all that criteria.

[johneeo]

I'm using Shutterfly now, and it meets all that criteria.

 

Ditto to that, Shutterfly works well and is free.

[MDSue]

After two attempts to upload my pictures from Webshots back to my computer- I've only received a fraction of my images- Over 1000 images of my Caribbean and other vacations appear to be forever lost. I still have many here and there on 4 different computers, but I could never replace them all.

 

I thought I had gotten them all back until I actually went through them to find out that most didn't transfer. Very frustrating!

[Sunny AZ Girl]

I am there with you, Sue. I was trying to delete my pictures from Smile - they are automatically transferring them! I never completed a request to have that done. They tried to put a shortcut icon on my computer. Then I went to the Smile website and they said I have over 12.000 pictures on Smile. How can that be? I only had 6,600 on Webshots. They have my uploads that I have on Photobucket there, too. I only use Photobucket for web uploads, not pictures. I don't see how I can get them off without deleting them one-by -one. I don't hve time to individually delete 12,000 photos!:eek:

[monakayk]

:mad: I am pretty upset too about all of this about Webshots shutting down and not even sending a notice to me too!

 

I figured it out on my own....when my Webshots Desktop stopped working. I even reinstalled it and it worked fine for one day. Then the next day when I started my computer...it didn't work again..and all of a sudden this download started to happen I didn't authorize about a 'SMILE DESKTOP'. Needless to say my computer firewall stopped it and wanted me to authorize it's download. That is when i did a search on Google about SMILE to see what the heck was going on. Below link is what I found and all the info is on that webpage:

 

http://smile.webshots.com/landing

 

SMILE will not be a public sharing service like Webshots was...and it is only a free 30 day trial period...thereafter...Pay-Up time to keep using it.

 

So if you have photos saved on Webshots and nowhere else...you better back them up before Dec. 1st. Webshots will close down then. The best thing to do about saving personal photos...get an external hard drive....back them up there and also on DVDs. That is what I do besides having them on the computer I use. Better to be safe than lose those valuable-personal photos and be VERY sorry!

 

I really enjoyed sharing my cruise photos (links in my signature) with CC members, but now I will have to place them over on another photo sharing website to do so. I doubt I will have time to do them all again. So no more sharing cruise photos from me for a long while.:(

[MDSue]

After my thrid email to Webshots, I realized that I did probaly get all my pictures back. I just had problems figuring out how they opened from the zip files. They are out of order though, but I'm glad to have them back in one place. Now, I have to hurry up and back them up because my current laptop is acting up.

 

The webshots customer service was very helpful when I emailed them. They promptly replied every time I sent them an email. I'm going to miss their service, but I'm glad they made the effort to return my images.

[Sunny AZ Girl]

Sue - would you mind sharing Webshots e-mail address? Everything I click on the site just directs me to their blog.:confused:

[MDSue]

Sue - would you mind sharing Webshots e-mail address? Everything I click on the site just directs me to their blog.:confused:

 

Hi, I can't remember how I intially contacted them, but the return address I have in my correspondence is customercare@webshots.com

 

Good luck. I told them that my main concern is that I do not want anyone else to be able to upload my images to use for business purposes. Until I read that here, I don't really think I gave it much thought. I had a total of 35 uploads from webshots over the years, but just assumed they were for other people's personal use. I would hate to see one of my pictures featured in an advertisement somewhere knowing that I never received any compensation or credit for it.

 

Susan

[Sunny AZ Girl]

Hi, I can't remember how I intially contacted them, but the return address I have in my correspondence is customercare@webshots.com

 

Good luck. I told them that my main concern is that I do not want anyone else to be able to upload my images to use for business purposes. Until I read that here, I don't really think I gave it much thought. I had a total of 35 uploads from webshots over the years, but just assumed they were for other people's personal use. I would hate to see one of my pictures featured in an advertisement somewhere knowing that I never received any compensation or credit for it.

 

Susan

That is my concern, too. I have also had quite a few uploads. Thanks for the e-mail address!

[Cruisin' Chick]

Has anyone else had problems getting the link to retreive their images to work? I got an email from webshots yesterday with instructions to click on an attached link, but it does nothing when I click on it.

Any advice?

Thanks

 

After my thrid email to Webshots, I realized that I did probaly get all my pictures back. I just had problems figuring out how they opened from the zip files. They are out of order though, but I'm glad to have them back in one place. Now, I have to hurry up and back them up because my current laptop is acting up.

 

The webshots customer service was very helpful when I emailed them. They promptly replied every time I sent them an email. I'm going to miss their service, but I'm glad they made the effort to return my images.

 

 

I got the email from smile about the zip file(s), but when I clicked on the link, it seems to me that nothing happened. I don't know if they sent me a non-working link, or that it's someplace on my computer, but if that's the case, how do I find it? So I sent an email to them. Will have to see.

 

Many of my photos were backed up on flash drives, but some are images I've scanned in (like from school programs, etc.), and I'll have to see if I was able to back those up on flash drives before my ancient computer gave up the ghost last month.

[MDSue]

I got the email from smile about the zip file(s)' date=' but when I clicked on the link, it seems to me that nothing happened. I don't know if they sent me a non-working link, or that it's someplace on my computer, but if that's the case, how do I find it? So I sent an email to them. Will have to see.

 

Many of my photos were backed up on flash drives, but some are images I've scanned in (like from school programs, etc.), and I'll have to see if I was able to back those up on flash drives before my ancient computer gave up the ghost last month.[/quote']

 

I would definitely email customer care for advice. They sent me instructions on how to upload them directly from the website. The first email I got from them didn't work either, but I was able to upload he files from the website.

 

This is the exact instructions I got:

 

We're sorry that you had this trouble downloading your photos. If you have received notice that your photos are ready to be downloaded, you can use these steps to locate the zip file(s) and save your photos to your computer. Please note that we recommend using the Firefox browser (http://www.mozilla.org/) to access Webshots to download and save your photos.

 

1. Go to http://www.webshots.com by typing the URL in the address bar of Firefox. Sign in to your membership.

2. Paste http://community.webshots.com/features/downloads in the address bar of Firefox.

3. Click the "Download my personal photos" button. If your photos are ready to be saved, you'll see the zip file(s) after clicking the Download button.

4. Your photos will be bundled into manageable Zip files. Your videos and Picture Show videos will be listed as individual links for download.

5. When you click on the link for a zip file, winzip will open. This will show the albums (folders) included in the zip file. Select a folder and then click Extract. Now, choose a folder on your computer to save the photos to and click extract at the bottom of the window. Repeat this process for each folder in the zip file.

7. If you have more than one Webshots membership, you will need to log in and initiate the download process within each of your Webshots accounts.

 

SPECIAL NOTE: The files you download in this process will be available for 2 weeks. Please DO NOT DELETE OR MOVE YOUR PHOTOS AND VIDEOS from Webshots until you have downloaded and saved all the files to your computer or other storage media! If you miss the two week window, you can initiate the download process again, but ONLY IF YOU HAVE NOT DELETED YOUR PHOTOS from Webshots.

 

PLEASE be aware that once photos are deleted, we are unable to recover them! DO NOT DELETE any personal photos or videos until after you have securely downloaded and saved them to your personal computer or storage media.

 

Good luck!

Susan

[nybumpkin]

MDSue - That's very helpful. Thanks for sharing. The only album I really need is the cruise on Carnival Legend, but it would be really nice to get those photos back on my hard drive.