The form you see in Figure 2.2 is the standard Flickr uploading form. Note that on the left it keeps track of the fraction of your monthly upload capacity that you’ve used. Here, that’s 0% because we haven’t uploaded anything yet.

The standard form is a good one, and it has served Flickr for a long time, but it’s somewhat limited. You can upload only up to six images at one time, as you can see in Figure 2.2, and you have to browse to each one separately (no drag and drop). You can add tags only to the whole batch en masse.

The standard form has four sections:

In the first section, you specify the images you want to upload. Suppose you’ve decided to upload some images from your recent Hawaii vacation. Just follow these steps:

The second section of the standard form lets you associate tags with the images en masse. You can’t specify individual tags here.

Tags are used to make photos searchable on Flickr. You can search for images by tag. In the Add Tags to the Whole Batch? text field, list any tags you want to connect to the images. For example, you might use the tag Hawaii for your Hawaii images.

If you have a tag that’s made up of two words or more, surround that tag in double quotation marks (like “Hawaii Beach”). You might also note that Flickr automatically strips out words such as “and” or “the” from tags.

The third section of standard upload form lets you set the privacy of your images with these controls:

The default privacy for your uploaded photos is Public (this item’s radio button is selected), which means no privacy at all; anyone can see the images.

If you want to make your images more private, click the Private radio button. If you leave just that radio button clicked, only you can see the images. To expand that to people you’ve listed as friends or family (see the next lesson), check the check boxes in front of the friends or family items.

The fourth section in the standard upload form is the Advanced Options section. Click Show Advanced Settings to display these options, and you’ll see a heading followed by three check boxes:

The safety level is the suitability of your images and video, and the default is Safe (that is, safe for viewing by minors). You can also set the safety level to Moderate or Restricted (not suitable for minors). Under the Flickr community guidelines, you’re responsible for setting your content’s safety level.

The Advanced Options section also lets you set the content type of the upload to one of three settings:

And finally, you can block your upload from public searches with the advanced options by clicking the Yes check box:

When you’ve filled out the standard upload form to your satisfaction, click the Upload button at the bottom of the form. Your images will be uploaded, and you’ll see the page that appears in Figure 2.4, where you can configure your upload.

Figure 2.4. Configuring an upload.

The top two boxes let you perform batch operations—connect the same tags to all images in the upload and add the upload to a set. We haven’t created any sets yet (that’s coming up in the next lesson), so skip down to work with the individual images in this upload.

For each uploaded image, you can set its:

Each Flickr image usually has all three of these items set. The title is just what it sounds like: a title for the image (which appears above the image in your photostream). The description gives more information about the image, and now you can set tags on an image-by-image basis.

Fill out the Title, Description, and Tags boxes for each image in your upload and click the Save button at the bottom of the page. When you do, the uploaded images are added to your photostream, which appears in your browser, as shown in Figure 2.5. Success! You’ve uploaded your first images.

Figure 2.5. Your new photostream.

Flickr acknowledges that you’ve uploaded your first photos. Take a look at your home page (click the Home link at the top of any Flickr page), and you’ll see that Flickr has checked off the Upload Your First Photos item in its Getting Started list, as shown in Figure 2.6.

Figure 2.6. Your home page.

Now you’ve uploaded your first images. Not bad!

That’s how to upload images using the standard form—still the way that most people upload to Flickr. But there’s a new form, too, so let’s take a look at it next.

If you’ve got the latest Flash player installed (and JavaScript is enabled on your browser), you can use Flickr’s new Flash-based form for uploading.

Just go to your home page (Flickr.com and log in if Flickr doesn’t log you in automatically), and click the Upload Photos & Video link, which brings up the Flash-based form you see in Figure 2.7.

Figure 2.7. Uploading with the Flash-based uploader.

Click the Choose Photos and Videos link to open an upload dialog, as shown in Figure 2.8. (This dialog box will look different depending on which browser you’re using.)

Figure 2.8. The upload dialog box.

If you just want to upload one photo, double-click that photo. If you want to upload multiple photos, hold down the Ctrl key (Mac users substitute the Command key), click the photos you want to select (or hold down the Shift key to upload a range), and then click the Open button.

The Flash uploader displays a list of the photos you’ve selected, as shown in Figure 2.9.

Figure 2.9. A list of photos to upload.

By default, the Flash version lets you set the privacy level of only the photos you’re uploading, as you can see in Figure 2.9. To see more options, click the Show More Upload Settings link, and you’ll get these options:

After you’ve set the options for all the photos you’re uploading, click the Upload Photos and Videos button. That uploads the photos and displays the message “Finished! Next: Add a Description, Perhaps?”

Click the words Add A Description to see a new page (the same as shown in Figure 2.4), which lets you add descriptions, titles, and tags for all uploaded photos.

After entering the descriptions, tags, and titles for your photos, click the Save button at the bottom of the page.

When you click the Save button, Flickr takes you to your photostream page, and you can see the newly uploaded photos as part of your photostream, complete with tags, descriptions, and titles.

As you can see, the Flash uploader is just like the standard uploader—just a little slicker.

To upload your photos, you need to be signed in to Flickr, so click the Sign In button in Uploadr.

To sign in to Flickr, follow these steps:

Now you’re ready to use Uploadr. The easiest way is to drag photos into Uploadr.

For example, in Windows, open Windows Explorer and navigate to the photo you want to upload. Then drag that photo or photos onto the text “Drag photos and videos here to get started” in Uploadr. Doing so displays the dragged photo in Uploadr, as shown in Figure 2.12.

Figure 2.12. A new photo in Uploadr.

Select the photos you want to add information to, and enter the titles, descriptions, and tags.

Then click the Upload button. After the uploading process is finished, you’ll see a dialog box with this message: “Your upload is complete.” Click the Go to Flickr button to open the description page shown in Figure 2.13.

Figure 2.13. Editing a photo’s settings.

On this page, you get the chance to edit a photo’s title, description, and tags. After making any edits you want, click the Save button. Your newly uploaded photo appears in your photostream, as shown in Figure 2.14.

Figure 2.14. A new photo in your photostream.

Cool. Now you’ve uploaded a new photo (or photos) using Flickr Uploadr.

Now let’s upload using email.