International Photographers Association of Los Angeles 洛杉磯國際攝影家協會

I have a question on how a photo site like Flickr operates.

I have been uploading my picture in full size (3000x2000) to the flickr site hoping to store them in full resolution quality besides allowing my friends to view them.

When viewing Flickr site at single photo option, it does allow the viewer to select from various resolutions (if not protection is not enabled). However when viewing under the slideshow option, I've realized that my photos took a long time to load and that really slowed down the viewing process significantly.

I thought Flick is a sophisticate photo host that should be smart enough to handle the photo formats automatically for optimal bandwidth and efficiency. It seems that Flickr might be sending the full size photos during slide show. I can expect a normal forum like us to have the users resize their own photos before uploading. However, Flickr is a commercial photo storage site and as such it should know what is the best sized photos for slide-show viewing and it should have downsized or compressed the photos appropriately.

Could someone clarify how Flickr actually works when viewers are viewing the photos? Thanks a lot in advance.

BTW, some of our photos may come with our sweat and may have some values. I am curious if one should send the full size photos to Flickr. Even if we disable the download option there, I am aware one could easily hack and download them. So, what is the best practice? May be I should resize them before uploading them.

Your thought?

Thanks in advance for your comments and opinions.

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Paul Cao
http://www.flickr.com/pcaophotography
Nikon D70 + Kit Lens

使用Flickr最好自己先将片子压缩，否则它会将你的片子自动压缩，它的压缩质量通常不好。
对于免费用户，最大好像Flickr可以上传1200左右的尺寸（大概），再大就不行了。
想上传更大的图片，必须是收费用户才行。

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小站开始运行，敬请多提意见！

www.landscapeshot.com

Thanks.

I have a pay account and there is limitation in term of sizes or number of files uploaded for data storage.
I am just curious if Flickr compresses or resizes the file automatically when the viewers view them in slide show.
The auto resizing option seems to be a natural approach to reduce bandwidth. Of course, the compression rate or reduced size should be reasonable with users selectable/controllable options which is available when viewing selected single photo.

Thanks

_________________
Paul Cao
http://www.flickr.com/pcaophotography
Nikon D70 + Kit Lens