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Google's Free, Unlimited Google Photos Service Now Available on iOS and Web

Actually, you might be doing something wrong....



I just signed up and checked the first photo that uploaded. The copy on my phone says 2.95MB, while the copy that I shared to my email says 3MB (received by Apple Mail).



So it's the same size, at least for an 8 megapixel photo.



I am pretty happy with Google Photos so far and it is a better deal that iCloud.



I still really like SmugMug though, where you can get unlimited photo and video storage for about $60 per year, less with a discount code.


You are the one doing it wrong, its a fact that (in its unlimited/free mode) it recompress the pictures and videos. If they are more than 16mp or 1080p it recompress AND Downscale. But it recompress every time, means your backed up Iphone pics are not the original but a lower quality version (which, for average user its a good tradeoff, I think)

iCloud Photo Library saves untouched original on server
 
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i dont get it. how can i tell if its actually uploading? when i click the first thing it just says preparing ... since last night?
 
Downscaling? Ewwww... I'd never accept that. Horrible. This will be a deal breaker for most people.

Do most people have more than 16MP?
Although, I think Google'd be smart to charge for a service that offers more megapixels....

Are they nice enough cameras (lens/electronics) that you could actually tell the difference between a 20MP and 16MP image?

Those that do have more than 16MP, why wouldn't most people be willing have an extra copy (i.e. backup) that's off-site even if their photos are downscaled to 16MP? It's better than having no extra copy at all.

If they're just sharing photos for friends to see, 16MP is probably way more than enough (for most people) to view.

(Any reason that involves professional/business photography isn't going to fit in the most people range.)

Gary
 
is anyone having problems with it so far?
i downloaded the mac uploader, and left it uploading my 19 gigs of pics. in the morning it'd maybe done about 20-30%, and there were tons of failures. clicking retry on the failures didnt work.

my camera is 12mp and the pics are from this or older lower res.

Yes almost everything using the Mac Desktop app has failed. This has been disappointing.

Working fine on my iPhone but I don't have all my pictures on my iPhone.
 
Yeah, but if what you are doing is displaying photos on a screen, do you actually need a file bigger than 16M?

If what you're trying to do is display and share a set of photos capturing a moment like your kids playing, no. have you ever noticed the drop in quality of a photo uploaded to Facebook? I can change the resolution of a photo on export from Lightroom and it looks great. I upload a high res photo to Facebook and the quality really suffers. Now I haven't used Google's service so I don't know it will have the same effect on the image quality, but it is reason enough to cause concern. So even though I don't need to display 16MP, it could impact the quality of the down sampled image.

Secondly, the idea of "unlimited" storage makes me think photo backup plan so I don't lose my photos. I don't want my original files changed.

The point is, some forum members were slamming others for saying this isn't for "real photographers". In reality it isn't. This is perfect for the person who captures all their memories on their smart phone. I hope they use it because I know way too many people that lost all their photos when something happened to their phone. Photographers probably want to use something like Amazon cloud drive.
 
Google Photos lets you choose. If you want free then there is a 16mb limit. If you want to keep the original size then change in settings and upload. The space used comes out of your google drive total which you can purchase more if needed. I've been using this for the last 2 years to save big raw files and it works just fine.

For the regular Joe Sixpack, the 16mb unlimited option is perfect. The few of us that want untouched, uncompressed will choose that options and pay the difference if required.

You are the one doing it wrong, its a fact that (in its unlimited/free mode) it recompress the pictures and videos. If they are more than 16mp or 1080p it recompress AND Downscale. But it recompress every time, means your backed up Iphone pics are not the original but a lower quality version (which, for average user its a good tradeoff, I think)

iCloud Photo Library saves untouched original on server
 
How many megapixels are you shooting in right now? It's downsaled to 16 megapixels. That's far, far more than the average consumer uses. Certainly can handle any iPhone photos in their original and full quality, as well as most DSLR cameras any normal person would buy. So what's the "ewwwww" about exactly?
I guess I, like any photographer who uses a Canon 5D camera is not a "normal person" according to you?

Of course anyone who is even half awake will stick to Flickr, who is the only one offering a real, free 1TB photo deal.
 
Wherefore art thou, iPhoto?
Whither has thou gone, Aperture?

Ending Aperture development has certainly been very disappointing, to say the least. On the other hand iPhoto got replaced by the clearly superior Photos.
 
If you're using a 5D then no, you are not a "regular" user. Google photos, like Apple Iphotos is aimed squarely at the 99% of users who's primary camera is their phone or a point and shoot. Not a 5D or a 7D or whatever.

For those of use who are in the minority, and want to save our raw images or large jpegs then we have to use something else or pay for the extra space.



I guess I, like any photographer who uses a Canon 5D camera is not a "normal person" according to you?

Of course anyone who is even half awake will stick to Flickr, who is the only one offering a real, free 1TB photo deal.
 
Actually, I know several people who do. ;) Think about professions in the field. But they are using other platforms that do provides them with these options.

I will not grand Google acces to all of my foto's, e-mails, agenda, twitter msg's etc, knowing that Google is using all of my data to get a profile of my interest for commercial purposes. No thanks. :apple:

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Image

And Apple doesn't give anything in return???

The 16MB limit was not meant for the. 0001% of professional DSLR photographers. Sorry. Next.
 
It's honestly extremely nice so far. I already like it better than Apple's Photos app.

The fact that it can search for things within your photos should be a pretty good indication that you're data-mining the F out of you though. Also Google, I'm pretty sure some of these things aren't "cars"...

Image

Flickr is doing something similar, although only in the full web site for now (not the iOS app). It's using image recognition to build smart albums like "people", "architecture", "landscapes", "animals", etc.

I'm using both iCloud Photos (200GB plan) and Flickr, both of which store full-resolution photos without recompressing or downsampling.
 
Apple could have owned this market a long time ago with a bit more generosity.
Most people I know hate iCloud because their first/only interaction with it is a very annoying message telling you that it´s full and Apple pushes you to buy an upgrade or you can start to mess around with setting and turn stuff off and so on.. Not a very Apple-like user experience.

If they matched iPhone/iPad sizes most people would love it "because it just works" (like Apple stuff is famous for) and give up the other 50 suppliers that offer something usable for free, but don't integrate as well..
 
The 16 limit is because the service is geared towards mobile, where 16mp is a bit extreme.

I guess the question is, what's the catch?

The catch is that it's not actually free. It's just that somebody else is paying for it instead of you.

The "somebody else" is advertisers (as with all of google's services). You do the math. :)

And the other catch is that google will recompress your images so you'll lose quality. So don't use it for archiving pictures, it's for sharing/viewing only. Otherwise you get 15GB for free if you want to keep your original resolution and quality.
 
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