First off, let me apologize for my prolonged absence from the blog. I've been missing for an entire month! All I can say is that it’s been a busy few weeks at work and the last thing I felt like doing over the past few weeks was spending additional time in front of the computer. April is the cruelest month.
With that out of the way, I wanted to introduce the first in a series of blog entries that will serve as a guide to some of the more popular cloud backup options that exist. These are really a follow up to the promises I made in February. Over the next few weeks, we’ll be taking a look at Amazon, Dropbox, iCloud, OneDrive, and some social media platforms as a means of backing up your photos to the cloud. If you aren’t backing up your photos at all, start here. For those of you ready to choose a cloud service that meets your needs, keep reading.
Today we’ll start by taking a look at Google Photos:
Free Storage Option: Google Photos allows for unlimited free storage (as long as your photos have a resolution of 16MP or less). More than ample for most smartphone cameras. However, if you need to upload resolutions of more than 16MP, you are limited to 15GB of free storage.
Paid Storage Option/Annual Cost: If you’re willing to part with some cash, you can purchase 100GB, 1TB or 10TB options at $24, $120 or $1200 per year, respectively.
Compression: Another drawback to the free service is that your photos will be compressed. Is seems that only the paid option leaves your photos in their original state. This is a serious drawback to the free service as it leave your cloud backup file degraded in quality.
JPG Support: Yes
TIFF Support: Yes
RAW Support: Yes
Device Support: If it has a screen and an internet connection; there’s probably a Google Photos app for it.
Ease of Backup: Automated
Ease of Restoring: Automated
Other Benefits: Since Google is a huge company, there is integration with other Google services, such as: Gmail, Google Drive, etc...
Privacy: God only knows...
Licensing: “While you keep ownership of your photos, Google grants itself and companies it works with a "world-wide license to use, host, store, reproduce, modify, create derivative works (such as those resulting from translations, adaptations or other changes we make so that your content works better with our Services), communicate, publish, publicly perform, publicly display and distribute such content. The rights you grant in this license are for the limited purpose of operating, promoting, and improving our Services, and to develop new ones. This license continues even if you stop using our Services.” (Yikes)
Next week, we’ll take a closer look at Flickr.
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Feature Photograph of the Week - Dark Lighthouse
A lighthouse in shadow in the Haro Strait in BC