Why this is cool

Hitherto, both Facebook and Google+ limited your photos to 2048 pixels across. This was depressing to me and other photographers that take HUGE photos, many of mine over 7000 pixels across. I share a new, original-sized photo here every day on the blog, and all my work is Creative Commons Noncommercial.

Basically, I want people to have the original-sized photo to enjoy! I know many other photographers disagree with me and they only want to share tiny images with huge watermarks using horrible fonts. That’s okay. This isn’t for them.

But if you’re like me, and you want to upload the original size images to Google and also share on Google+, well now you can!

Steady Progress of Google+ and Photos

I notice many various products are starting to gel together at Google. It’s a little clumsy here as the streams are colliding, but I think it will become more efficient over time. For example, the Google+ stream and Google Drive used to be totally different products, but now they are coming together. Same with Search and YouTube and Calendar and everything. It takes a while to get your head around because we are used to a bunch of Single-Purpose Silos, but when you start to use them all together and think about it like that, it makes sharing and life-integration easier.

For example, I now use my Android phone to take a video, upload to YouTube, then share to a private family circle on Google+. All my family isn’t on Google+ yet, so it uses Google mail to send it around. I wasn’t experiencing that kind of integration a year ago! I used to do one thing, then another thing, then another thing, then email everyone after I put together various silos. This is the way a lot of people still think about the internet… using many silos to do discrete tasks and then piecing it all together on your own, but it doesn’t have to be like that. I know I sound like a Google fanboy, but, Jesus, I use a lot of their products. It’s like saying you’re an Oxygen fanboy.

How-to Upload Full-Rez Photos to Google+

1) Go to your Google+ settings at www.google.com/settings/plus

2) Check the box indicated in the screenshot below.

3) Get on Google+ and go upload a photo! Now the full size will go up there!

Be sure to Note

Any photo greater than 2048 pixels will go against your Google Drive allotment, and you will need to buy more space if you want more!

Bonus Information – Using the Photo on your Blog and URL Analysis

Here’s something I discovered by accident. It’s geeky but I was excited by it.

I was trying to figure out, “Okay WHERE exactly is my image being stored on Google?” Well that part is a bit confusing. I r-clicked the image in the Google+ display to get the source and it gave me:

https://lh3.googleusercontent.com/-qC_X6syDOPw/UUujxK_5AeI/AAAAAAAGEYw/zxsYDVN66Sw/s1161/Trey+Ratcliff+-+Milford+Scene.jpg

Aha! See that “s1161”? That is the horizontal dimensions. It chose that dynamically based on the width of my window. So, by simply changing that number, you can have Google serve you up whatever size you want!

If you make it “s0”, it wil be full-size! And my friend Dave Veffer says “if you do ‘s0-d’ it forces a download so appending -d at the end of the size specification will make the image download…useful in some situations”.

For example, this image is actually 5845×3204 pixels – we get the original with that “s0” in the URL:

So the full rez is: https://lh4.googleusercontent.com/-LJpqE2A5z8E/UUujxFpc-tI/AAAAAAAGEZM/oNvVoOYoqMw/s0/Trey+Ratcliff+-+A+Tableau+Vivant+of+Horses+in+Iceland.jpg

More Google Drive Updates Coming Soon

I got a note from a gentleman at Google Drive that says there are More New Updates coming in a week or so… ways to embed with various image sizes, permanent links, and more.

Integrating the images into your Blog

These images that I have below are being served up by Google. Don’t have Google send you a HUGE image that you then downsize using HTML. Have it send you the exact size you want. In this case, I’ve asked for all the images to be 900 pixels across. I’ve then hyperlinked to their actual size on the Google servers.

What Could They Improve On?

Well, I’m still using SmugMug to serve up my daily images here on the blog. See my SmugMug Review for more. I do this because:

1) People like to order limited edition prints (thanks everyone btw!) 🙂 It’s very easy to begin the print-ordering process through SmugMug
2) I like how clicking on an image takes you to a proper portfolio or slideshow. I can’t figure out a good way to do that using a Google Photo Album yet.
3) I have a feeling that SmugMug is about to make a major update to their whole UI. (Why doesn’t Google just buy SmugMug and make my life easier!!) 🙂

For example, I’ll put the “Daily Photo” below so you can see the difference. If you click on the photo, you go into my nice portfolio view. Under the photo is the friendly SmugMug link to get a print.

Ways for Google Photos / Drive to Improve – Your ideas?

I’m interested in your ideas too. Here are a few of mine:

1) I’d like the automatic Google Photo upload to just take the full rez photo if I click a checkbox (instead of having to do this Google-Drive-end-run). If you have space on Google Drive and don’t mind your photos taking up all the GB, then just let me.

2) I’d like better album / portfolio management. Now that I have photos in Google+ photos (many at 2048) and now more in Google Drive (at original size), it’s becoming a terrible problem or organization. I’m not totally anal, but I also feel too scattered and that makes me digitally-uneasy!

3) Your ideas? Drop them in the comments! 🙂