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| by Ed Krimen, February 2004 |
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We want to ensure that using Photobird.com is as easy and efficient for you as possible. So, in this article, we highlight the 10 most useful features on Photobird.com when sharing your digital photos. (Also, see what our customers are saying about Photobird.com and what features they like the most.)
1. The "breadcrumb trail"
When you are viewing an album or a photo, in the upper left corner of the page, you will see a "breadcrumb trail" — a horizontal list of the albums you have most recently looked at. When looking at a photo, you will see the name of the photo at the right end of the breadcrumb trail.
This breadcrumb trail of albums and photos serves two purposes: first, you can use it to find out which photo albums you have clicked on. Second, you can click on the names in the breadcrumb trail to go directly to that album.
For example, when you are looking at my photo of the men playing chess (photo 1 on the left), you can see the breadcrumb trail that looks like this:
ekrimen / Europe / Zurich / 09chess
When you click on "Zurich", you will go to the photo album from Zurich, Switzerland. When you click on "Europe", you will go to the photo album of photos from Europe. And when you click on "ekrimen", you will go to my "top-level" photo album, where you can click through all of my photo albums.
You should also notice that this "breadcrumb" trail is fully represented in the web link in your web browser's address bar.
To link directly to the photo — to share it in an online message board or eBay online auction, for example — you can click on the photo, which will display the photo by itself with ".jpg" on the end of the filename. We have created these features specifically to make sharing photos easy for you.
For a visual explanation of the breadcrumb trail and other features on Photobird.com, take a look at the screenshots in Help / Using Photobird.com.
2. No ads on your albums. No login required for visitors.
When we designed Photobird.com, we really wanted a clean, user-friendly interface that made your photos stand out. Showcasing your photos and making it easy to share them are our primary goals.
This means that the design must be "clean" and professional, with no advertisements and solicitations on your photo albums.
We also wanted people to be able to view your photos without a hassle and no login required, just as if you had built your own website to show your photos.
3. Home
To get back to the Photobird.com home page, to access the Make Photo Albums, Look at Pictures, or Share your Photos buttons, click the Photobird logo in the upper left corner of the page.
4. Change photo display size
One of our first goals with Photobird.com was to make it easy for you to share your photos with as many people as you wanted. We had to keep in mind that more than a third of web users use a screen resolution of 800x600 pixels or smaller.
Therefore, to allow enough room on your monitor to show the photos clearly, we decided to resize your photos down to 640x480 (while still keeping your original photos). This design works well for most people, but some people want to be able to show their photos at a larger size, so we have that feature available too.
Photobird.com subscribers can change the photo display size for any number of photo albums. They can change the photo display size for one photo album, or for all of their photo albums — it's their choice. Subscribers can change the photo display size when they are logged in and when they click the Edit Album Options button.
5. Send to a Friend button
The Send to a Friend button is on every page and makes sharing your digital photos and photo albums really easy. Just click the Send to a Friend button, enter your friends' e-mail addresses and your name and e-mail address, preview your message, and click the Send button.
You can also edit the message we've automatically included to add your own comments. Just be sure to include at least one link in the message so that your friends can click the link to see your photos on Photobird.com.
6. Photo albums within photo albums
Photobird.com allows you to have an unlimited number of photo albums within photo albums. This feature allows you to organize and categorize your photos in an easy and efficient manner.
For example, if you take a look at my photo album at www.photobird.com/ekrimen, I have a few photo albums shown there. When you click on the Europe photo album, you can see photos from Europe. Within that Europe photo album, there's also a few photo albums of cities in Switzerland.
This "hierarchical" structure allows you to easily and efficiently organize and categorize your photos better. Photobird.com makes it incredibly simple to create this "photo album within photo album" structure.
Here's how: When you want to make a new photo album and add photos, click the "Make a New Album" and "Add Photos" buttons; these buttons are displayed after you click the Login button and log into your account. When you click the Make a New Album and Add Photos buttons, be sure that you are looking at the correct photo album where you want the new photo album and new photos added.
For example, one way I could add a "Paris, France" photo album is the following:
- Go to www.photobird.com/ekrimen/Europe.
- Click the Login button and enter my username and password.
- Click the Make a New Album button and enter "Paris, France" as the title.
- Click the "Add Photos" button and start adding photos.
When I'm looking at my Europe photo album and I click the Make a New Album button, the new photo album will be inserted there.
Likewise, the photos you add are put in the album you are looking at when you click the Add Photos button — exactly like a real, physical photo album!
For a couple more examples of photo albums within photo albums and ideas for organizing your digital photos, take a look at Steve Hjelmstad's "Cycling summer of 2003" album (photo 2) and David Roy's colorful collection (photo 3).
7. Download original photo
As you know, for your convenience, we automatically store your original photo when you add it to your photo albums. We also allow you to easily download your original photo in case you need a copy of it.
One reason you might need your original photo from Photobird.com is to print your photo on a printer connected to your computer. Or, for instance, let's say you're over at your sister's house and your niece likes one of your photos so much that she'd like to print it out on her printer to hang on her wall. You oblige, login to your Photobird.com account, download your original photo, and print it out on her color printer.
When printing a photo, it's always best to print it at its highest resolution for best results; usually, the larger the photo file is, the higher the resolution it is.
Soon, you will also be able to order professional-quality prints through Photobird.com, and have them delivered to you.
8. Comments and ratings
One of the most exciting and configurable features on Photobird.com is comments and ratings. We want you to have as much control of your photo albums as possible, and the comments and ratings feature is a good example.
With comments and ratings, you can "turn on comments" to allow people to leave public comments about your photos in your photo album — similar to a guestbook. If you want people to rate your photos, turn on ratings too. Therefore, you have three choices: allow comments and ratings, allow comments only, or the default: do not show comments and ratings.
Moreover, we allow you to select only specific albums and photos to have comments and ratings. For example, you may want people to comment and rate your artistic photos, but you don't want people to comment and rate photos of your birthday party. The comments and rating feature on Photobird.com is very configurable. It's available to subscribers when they are logged in and when they click the Edit Album Options button.
9. Password protected albums
Security and privacy are extremely important to you, and we take those issues very seriously. We understand that while you want to be able to easily share your photos on the Internet, you may not want everyone to see them.
Therefore, when you make your photo albums on Photobird.com, you choose who should see your photos. We don't show your photos on the Photobird.com home page or the Look at Pictures page unless you ask us to. You can make your photo albums as private and as public as you'd like. We offer this fundamental level of security, which is very private.
Photobird.com also offers an additional level of security for more control: You can assign passwords to all or some of your photo albums.
When you assign passwords, any photo albums within the password-protected album are also password-protected and require visitors to enter the correct passwords to view the contents of the photo albums. (Keep in mind that the Photobird.com Terms of Use still apply to the material you add in your password-protected albums.)
Password protection is configurable and useful when, for example, you want to show your artistic photos to everyone, but you may not want everyone to see your family photos. The password protection feature is available to subscribers when they are logged in and when they click the Edit Album Options button.
10. Hidden albums
There may be times when you want some additional privacy beyond the fundamental privacy level that Photobird.com provides; but perhaps you don't want the hassle of requiring people to enter a password to view private photos. In that case, we offer you the ability to hide albums.
Hidden albums are not displayed in your collection of photo albums. To access hidden albums, visitors need to know the direct links to the hidden photo albums.
For instance, in my photo album at www.photobird.com/ekrimen, you'll see that I do not have a photo album listed named "Florida". However, when you go to www.photobird.com/ekrimen/florida, you'll see the photos in that photo album, such as the photo of Miami South Beach above (photo 4). My Florida photo album is hidden.
Subscribers can hide albums when they are logged in and when they click the Edit Album Options button. (Keep in mind that the Photobird.com Terms of Use still apply to the material you add in your hidden albums.)
Our goal is to make Photobird.com an easy and attractive way to share your photos online and to create your own online photo album. We also want you to have control over your photo album so that you can configure it the way you want — without having to learn HTML or any programming languages. As we listed above, these configurable features are available now! More features, that are not listed above, are coming to Photobird.com soon!
For more information on Photobird.com, you might find these pages helpful:
We hope you enjoy using Photobird.com. Please let us know what you think.
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Ed Krimen is an accomplished photographer who has taken thousands of digital photos. As co-founder and CEO of Photobird.com, Ed wants to make it truly easy for you to create attractive online photo albums to share your photos with your friends and family.
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