Digital Photography: The Missing Manual

Organizing Photos with Flickr

You’ve uploaded your photos to Flickr and now its time to get organized. On your Flickr home page (http://www.flickr.com), you see a few of your photos and others under the heading: “Everyone’s photos.” In the upper-left corner are some links to other pages:

• Home. Flickr’s home page is a no-nonsense, bare bones screen with big, clear links to the pages where the real business takes place: uploading photos, and viewing photos (yours or everyone else’s). When Flickr has any news or announcements to tell you about, you’ll read it here first.

• Tags. In Flickr, these keywords or phrases are your primary tool for both organizing and searching for photos. But they’re much more than that. In Flickr’s lively online community, tags are a basic unit of currency. Most members add several tags to each photo they upload, hoping to see and be seen by folks all over the world with similar interests. On the Tags page, Flickr displays current lists of the most popular tags for the past 24 hours, past week, and all-time favorite tags.

• Groups, People, Invite. These pages connect you to Flickr groups, your friends, and your family for sharing your photos (see Section 14.5). The invite page makes it easy to lure your pals to Flickr; fill out a simple form and Flickr sends them an email.

The next line down shows more links, including “Photos: Yours”. Clicking it transports you to your personal page, where you organize your Flickr photos. Your photos are shown in the ...