Photobucket a new wrinkle

[BigDaddy]

I stopped sharing links with my photobucket account when the first debacle started in 2017.  This is the only forum I share pics in and I am not a prolific picture poster, despite my total post count.  Since then, some of my pics disappeared from the site.  Today I got this notice

ATTENTION

Your account is over the free limit.

The photos you are sharing on Facebook, forums, blogs and other websites are nearing the maximum allowed bandwidth that your account level allows. Free accounts are limited to 25MB of bandwidth per month.

I can't believe our forum newbies, who like to find old threads, are finding that many of my photos to put me over the limit.  I can still log in and they tell me I have reached my maximum of free storage.  Wonder why they never told me that before?

My guess this is part of a new business plan. They will not be getting the requested $6.95/mo from me.

[carl425]

BigDaddy

Free accounts are limited to 25MB of bandwidth per month.

25MB is nothing.  A high res jpg can easily be 4-5 MB.  That's only 5-6 views a month.

[hon30critter]

Hi Henry,

I got that notice several months ago. At first I ignored it and just copied my photos from Photobucket to Imgur. Then Imgur changed their website making it very difficult to find my photos on their site. Apparently the Imgur photos are still visible on the forums, fortunately.

I decided to go back to Photobucket despite the cost, primarily because I have posted a fair number of photos using Photobucket and I wanted them to be visible to forum members again.

There are methods where you can set up your own photo hosting system, but I haven't a clue as to how that is done. Maybe someone who knows will chime in.

Dave

[BigDaddy]

Thanks, Imgur deleted your list of albums page.  If you click on your user name, then images, it shows them all.  At the top you can choose a particular album.

I have no interest in starting my own webpage or photo hosting system.  At one time I tried and found that the free tools offered by my Internet provider, created a pretty crude webpage.  I don't want to spend the time to learn another program.

[richg1998]

That is why I deleted all my photos from PB and closed the account.

All my photos are on an external hard drive.

I gave up sharing photos. I don't need that much attention.

I can share a photo on the MRH forums without a photo hosting site though but that is rare.

Rich

[dstarr]

Yeah,  I have been getting those notices too.  I have no intention of going back to Photobucket.  I have been using www.trainboard.com , it's free, and my photos persist.  Uploading is a little clunky but it works.

[doctorwayne]

BigDaddy

....The photos you are sharing on Facebook, forums, blogs and other websites are nearing the maximum allowed bandwidth that your account level allows. Free accounts are limited to 25MB of bandwidth per month. I can't believe our forum newbies, who like to find old threads, are finding that many of my photos to put me over the limit.  I can still log in and they tell me I have reached my maximum of free storage.  Wonder why they never told me that before?....

I doubt very much that your bandwidth is being used-up as you suppose.  After I had had a free account with photobucket for some time, I began to find that my monthly bandwidth allotment was being used-up in less than two weeks (it automatically renews every month on the anniversary of the date on which you joined).  
I found it difficult to believe that the three forums to which I belonged at that time would account for that amount of useage, despite the fact that I'm sometimes known as "Wayne of many photos".

I pestered photobucket for more info, and they eventually sent me a transcript showing monthly traffic.  While the Model Railroader and Big Blue forums accounted for a fair amount of the useage, the bulk of it was by bots belonging to various search engines.  

I opted for a paid account, and was given a very good rate that took me through the approximately 6 months left on my free account (mid-August), and they then extended it to the end of that year (when the rates were set to go skyward).
At that time, I was able to secure what I deemed to be an acceptable fee for using their services (definitely not the almost $500.00/year figure which was being tossed about) and I remain with photobucket to this day.

Their tech support staff has always gone out of their way to assist me when problems arise, and I can't say enough good things about them. 

The site has apparently been sold, and while it seems a bit slower than in the past, it still works fine for me. 

Regardless of the file size of the photos you store there, the site automatically re-sizes your photos.  That's why the over 6600 photos I have there have used-up only 5% of my allowable storage, while my bandwidth allowance, for a paid account, is unlimited.
That amount of storage space, by the way, was the same as when my account was free.

Wayne

 

 

[mbinsewi]

I must of up graded in Photobucket before any big changes, I still pay $15 a year with no commercials, pop-ups and posting as I wish.

I guess I'll see how long that last.

Mike.

[riogrande5761]

dstarr

Yeah,  I have been getting those notices too.  I have no intention of going back to Photobucket.  

Same here.  I have copied most of the photo's I care about off of Photobucket and deleted enough to get down to what they said was their free servcie.  Even after getting to that point I still get the pestering emails.  I've set my email to filter them out now.

[richhotrain]

Photobucket?

I stopped using it the day that PB imposed fees and blocked all of my photos on this forum. I didn't even bother to delete my photos on PB since they were only copies of my originals stored elsewhere. I have not heard back from PB since that day.

Rich

 

[ATLANTIC CENTRAL]

My Photobucket experiance is similar to Dr Wayne, and I have no problems. Every once in a while the site is slow or glitchy, but it always seems to be fine in a few hours.

Still can't get my head around two ideas, why people think stuff like this should/could actually be free?

And, why anyone would have their photos only on a site like Photobucket?

But that's just me......

Sheldon

[AntonioFP45]

Hi guiys,

This is for the modelers that encountered difficulty finding their photos / albums on IMGUR after the website update last year. I wrote to Imgur and received a courteous response the next day. Several options, but I chose the option that's easiest for me:

1. Sign in.

2. When your page comes up; you'll see your name on the upper right hand corner.

3. Click on your name, and a box will open up below it with the choices: 

     Posts.   Favorites.   Comments.   About.   Images.

4. Click on: Favorites.

5. Once on that page, Click on: Posts.

6. Look towards the left. Click on the word: "Hidden". All of your photo albums will appear and you can explore and link, as normal.

So far, I like it.

High Greens

 

 

 

[BroadwayLion]

carl425

25MB is nothing. A high res jpg can easily be 4-5 MB. That's only 5-6 views a month.

 

If your image is that large you are doing things wrong.

First, your monitor, no matter how good it is cannot possibly display an image at that resolution. That high resolution is only for printing on a press or photo printer.

For all web based applications photos should be in the 100-200 KB range, a tiny fraction of the 5 MB range.

 

Any photo program can do this for you just by asking it to.

 

The LION uses ImageResizer which disappears into the interior of your file explore system and appears as an Resize Image option when you right click on the photo.

THIS will produce perfect pictures for the monitor and will not eat up any bandwidth at all.

 

Download a free copy of ImageResizer from

https://www.bricelam.net/ImageResizer/

 

I should download a new copy, mine is v 2.1, the new one is v 3.1.1

 

ROAR

[BNSF UP and others modeler]

Also note that if you have a gmail account, you can go into your google drive, create a google docs document, and insert all the pictures you want to in there. Then, you just select and copy the image you want and then paste it in your response. Works great for me and is free.