7. Sharing Pictures and Videos on Facebook
In this chapter, you discover how to share digital photographs and videos via Facebook.
Before everybody got on the Internet, if you wanted to share photos with your family or friends, you had to make prints and mail them out to everyone, or invite everybody over to your house for an old-fashioned slide show. Today, however, you can share your photos online—and one way is via Facebook.
And Facebook is also a great place to share any home movies you’ve taken with your smartphone or camcorder. It’s easy to upload photos and videos to Facebook and then share them with all your Facebook friends. Not surprisingly, it’s equally easy to view your friends’ photos and videos on Facebook.
Viewing Friends’ Photos and Videos
Some people on Facebook post photos and videos as part of their regular status updates. These photos appear in your News Feed as part of the stream of your friends’ status updates.
Other Facebook users post photos to special photo albums they’ve created in their Facebook accounts. This is a more serious and organized way to share a large number of photos online. You can view these photo albums from the user’s Timeline page.
View Photos in Your News Feed
When a friend posts a photo as part of a status update, that photo appears in your News Feed. You can view photos at that small size within the News Feed or enlarge them to view them full screen.
Within your News Feed, all photos appear within the bodies of the accompanying status updates. (A post can have multiple photos attached.) To view a larger version of any picture, click or tap the photo in the post.
If you’re using the Facebook website, this displays the photo within its own lightbox—a special window superimposed over the News Feed. To view the photo even larger, click the Enter Fullscreen icon at the top-right corner of the photo. (To exit fullscreen mode, press Esc on your computer keyboard or the X at the top-right corner of the screen.)
If you’re using the Facebook mobile app, you see the photo on its own photo page. Swipe up from the bottom of the screen to return to the News Feed. (Or, in the iOS app, tap the X in the upper-left corner.)
View Videos in Your News Feed
Viewing videos on Facebook is similar to viewing photos. When one of your friends uploads a video to Facebook, it shows up in your News Feed as a thumbnail image with a playback arrow on top. Playing a video is as easy as clicking that image.
Navigate to the status update that contains the video and then click the video thumbnail to play the video. In some cases, video playback begins in the News Feed itself. In other cases, playback begins in a separate video player similar to Facebook’s photo lightbox. (The video may play automatically when you scroll to the post, but without sound—kind of like a muted preview. If this is the case, you need to click or tap the video to play it back with sound.)
If you want to view the video at a larger size on the Facebook website, mouse over the video to display the playback controls at the bottom, and then click the Full Screen icon. Click Esc on your computer keyboard to return to normal playback mode.
To pause the playback on the Facebook website, mouse over the video to display the playback controls and then click the Pause button; the button changes to a Play button. To pause the playback in the Android mobile app, just tap the screen. (In the iOS app, you have to tap the Pause button.) Click or tap the Play button or tap the screen again to resume playback.
Click and drag (or tap and drag) the time slider to move to another point in the video.
YouTube Videos
If someone has posted a video from YouTube, Vimeo, or another video-sharing site, playback will probably take place within the News Feed. To view the video on the YouTube or Vimeo site, click or tap the title of the video to open that site in a new tab in your web browser or in the appropriate app on your mobile device. (Click or tap the video itself and it plays within the News Feed.)
View a Friend’s Photo Albums
More serious photographers—and those people with lots of photos to share—organize their Facebook photos into separate photo albums. These are virtual versions of those traditional photo albums you’ve kept in the past. You can then navigate through a friend’s photo albums to find and view the photos you like.
All the videos a friend uploads are stored in a special photo album labeled Videos. You can play back any video from there.
Click or tap your friend’s name or profile picture anywhere on Facebook to open his Timeline page, then click or tap Photos to display your friend’s Photos page.
Click or tap Photos or Photos of Friend to view individual photos of your friend.
Click or tap Albums to view photos as posted in their photo albums.
Click or tap to open the selected album. (Videos are located in the Videos album.)
Share a Photo or Video
If you really like a friend’s photo or video, you can share that item on your own Timeline—with your own description.
Privacy Settings
You can’t share everything you see on Facebook. Some people configure their privacy settings so that photos and videos can be shared only with friends, or not shared at all.
Display the photo or video and click or tap Share. (In the iOS app, tap Share then tap Write Post.)
Enter a description of the photo into the Say Something About This or Write Something box.
Click the Privacy button and select who can view this photo.
Click Post to post this item to your timeline.
Download a Photo
If you find a friend’s photo that you really like, you can download it to your own computer or mobile device for your own use.
On the Facebook website, display the photo and mouse over the photo to display the menu at the bottom of the photo.
Click Options, and then click Download. If you’re prompted to open or save the file, click Save.
In the Android mobile app, press and hold the photo; then tap Save Photo. In the iOS app, tap the photo, then tap the Menu (three dots) icon and tap Save Photo.
Sharing Your Own Photos and Videos
We’re taking more pictures than ever before, and we’re doing it with our smartphones, tablets, and digital cameras. It’s easy to take out your device and snap a few digital pictures, or even take a short video. Everybody’s doing it.
It’s equally easy to share all those pictures and videos with your friends on Facebook. You can do it directly from your phone, or from your computer.
Share a Photo or Video from Your Mobile Phone
The easiest way to share those photos you take with your phone is from your phone, using the Facebook mobile app. (This example uses Facebook’s Android app; the iOS app works similarly.)
Use your phone’s camera to take a picture and then tap to open that picture in your phone’s photo or gallery app.
Tap Share.
Tap Facebook.
Say something about this photo, if you want.
Tap Post to post the photo as a status update.
Uploading from the Gallery
You can also upload photos you’ve taken previously, from your phone’s picture gallery. Just navigate to and open the photo you want to post; then tap Share and proceed from there.
Share a Photo or Video in a Status Update on the Facebook Website
You can also upload pictures and videos stored on your computer to share in your Facebook posts.
From the News Feed page, go to the Publisher box and click Photo/Video to display the Open dialog box.
Navigate to and select the photo or video file(s) you want to upload. You can upload a single video file or multiple photo files. (To select more than one file, hold down the Ctrl key while you click each filename.)
Click Open.
You’re returned to the Publisher box or screen with your photo(s) added. Click to add another picture if you want.
If you like, enter a short text message describing the photo(s) or video.
Click Post.
Processing Videos
When you upload a video, Facebook must process it into the proper format to distribute on its site. This might take several minutes. You should be informed when the processing is complete.
Upload Photos to a New Photo Album
If you have a lot of photos to share on Facebook, the best approach is to create a series of virtual photo albums. This enables you to organize your photos by topic or date. For example, you might create an album for Summer Vacation, Easter Dinner, Grandkids, or Retirement Party. Organizing your photos into albums also makes it easier for your friends to find specific photos.
This task is most easily done on the Facebook website from your computer.
From your Timeline page, click Photos to display your Photos page.
Click the Create Album button to display the Open dialog box.
Select the photo(s) you want to upload.
Click the Open button to see the Untitled Album page.
Selecting Multiple Photos
It’s easy to upload more than one photo at a time. Just hold down the Ctrl key while clicking files to select multiple files.
Click Untitled Album and enter the desired album title. (Note that this page looks slightly different in different browsers; I’m showing it in Google Chrome.)
Click Say Something About This Album and enter an album description.
Optional Information
All the information you can add to a photo album is entirely optional; you can add as much or as little as you like. You don’t even have to add a title—if you don’t, Facebook uses the title Untitled Album.
Enter a location in the Where Were These Taken? box to enter a geographic location for all the photos in this album. (You can later change the location for any specific photo, as noted in step 12.)
Check the High Quality option to upload these photos at a quality suitable for printing. Leave this box unchecked if the photos will only be viewed onscreen.
In the Change Date section, opt to either Use Date from Photos (each photo retains its original date when taken) or Pick a Date (to have all photos you’re uploading have the same date).
For best possible picture quality for anyone downloading or printing your photos, check the High Quality option to upload and store your photos at their original resolution. Note, however, that it takes longer to upload high-quality photos than those in standard quality.
To enter information about a specific picture, enter a description in the Say Something About This Photo box for that photo.
Click the Settings (gear) icon and select Change Date to enter when this photo was taken.
If you want to enter a location for a specific photo that’s different from the location you set for the entire album, click the Settings icon and select Edit Location.
To tag a person in a given photo, click that person’s face and enter his or her name when prompted.
Photo Tagging
You identify people in your photos by tagging them—that is, you click a person in the photo and then assign a friend’s name to that part of the photo. You can then find photos where a given person appears by searching for that person’s tag.
Click the Privacy button and make a selection—Public, Friends, Friends Except, or Only Me—to determine who can view the photos in this album.
Click the Post button.
Upload Photos to an Existing Photo Album
After you’ve created a photo album, you can easily upload more photos to that album.
From your Photos page, click Albums to display your existing photo albums.
Click the album to which you want to add new photos.
When the album page opens, click + Add Photos to display the Open dialog box.
Navigate to and select the photo(s) to upload.
Click the Open button.
When the next page appears, you see the new photo(s) you’ve chosen to upload. Enter a description for each picture in the Say Something About This Photo box.
To tag a person in a given photo, click that person’s face and enter his or her name when prompted.
To change the default location or date, click the Settings icon and select either Edit Location or Change Date.
Click the Post button. The new photos are added to the existing album.
