Difference between revisions of "Publishing photo sets to Flickr"

Revision as of 18:17, 29 July 2013

Overview

Flickr is used to not only make photos taken by volunteer KDHX photographers available to a wide audience, but also for hosting photo sets used at KDHX.org, which are pulled in via the Flickr API. Before publishing a photo set to the KDHX Flickr account, you must obtain credentials and install the Flickr Uploadr. You'll need to enter the Flickr credentials into the Uploadr the first time you use the tool. Only web editors may upload files to Flickr.

Adding the photos

Open Flickr Uploadr. Select all of the photos that you want to upload (command+a) and drag them into the main pain of the uploader. After a few seconds, the uploader will render thumbnail previews of the images. If any of the images appear with a yellow exclamation-point icon, remove them from the pane and drag and drop again. It's usually easier to remove all images, and drag all of them in again, rather than doing this one at a time.

Titles, tags and descriptions

When photographers turn in photos, they should not have values for the tags or description fields. If they do, you will have to manually remove these values by selecting each image (one at a time) and deleting the value from the meta data pane at right. It's not possible to clear all of these values for all of the photos at once. Photographers know not to enter values for these fields during post-processing, but they may forget.

Titles

The title of each photo should be the artist pictured. Occasionally, there will be a crowd show or some other shot for which it doesn't make sense to use the artist as the label. In that case, use something appropriate, such as "Crowd."

Select all photos of a single band or artist by selecting the first image, and then using shift+click on the last image to select all those between. Enter the title of the photo. At this time, also enter the artist's name in the tag field (using quotes if the name contains multiple words), as well as the genre of the artist.

Do this for each separate artist in the set before proceeding.

Tags

Tags entered in the uploader should be space-separated, with tags containing multiple words surrounded by quotes. Each photo should receive the following tags:

Artist genre venue concert KDHX "St. Louis"

You've already entered artist and genre for each photo. Add the remaining tags by selecting all of the photos (command+a in the main pane) and typing them into the tag field. The literal tag "concert" should be used, unless the photos are of a festival or other event. In that case, use an appropriate substitute.

Descriptions

With all photos still selected, enter the description. For photo sets of concerts, use the following text, modified appropriately:

Headliner performed at Venue on Month Day, Year. Opener opened the show.

Photo by <a href="URL" target="_blank">photographer name</a>.

The URL for the photo credit can be found on the Flickr profile for the KDHX account (not all photogs have a URL). The HTML tags here must be used as-is in order for the links to format properly in the description on flickr.com.

Creating a set and uploading

The Flickr Uploadr can automatically create and populate a set for you. To do this, select all of the images in the main pane (command+a) and select "Create a set..." from the editing (right-hand) pane. In the dialog that appears, enter the set title and description, following the format:

Set Title

Headliner (with Opener(s)) at Venue MM/DD/YY

Set Description

Headlining artist performed at Venue on Month Day, Year. Opener(s) opened the show.

Discover more great media at <a href="http://kdhx.org">KDHX.org</a>.

All photos by <a href="URL" target="_blank">photographer name</a>.

Proof your meta data and hit the Upload button.

At this time, you may begin working on formatting another set for upload by clicking on the small arrow at the top left of the upload status pane. This will minimize the pane and show you the photo and editing panes again. Your upload will continue in the background.

Confirming the upload and setting the main image

Once the files have all uploaded, go to the Flickr page and verify that everything looks alright. Go to the Sets page, click on the new set, and make sure that the set was created with all of the correct photos. Hit Edit to edit the set in the Organize view. At this point, the photos should be displayed in chronological order (opener first, then second band, etc). If they aren't in chronological order, open the Arrange menu and select Arrange by date taken (Oldest first). If this doesn't not properly order the photos, you will have to manually order them.

Select the main image for the set. This is the image that will represent the set in the set listing. It should be an image of the headliner, and should be an image that's attractive and engaging when cropped to the small square. Drag the chosen image form the right-hand main pane onto the set thumbnail in the left pane. Save your changes.

Troubleshooting

Stalled Uploads

Your upload may stall due to a network connection issue. If the uploader appears to be completely stalled (no percentage progress after several minutes) then hit the Cancel button at the top right of the upload status pane. When prompted about stopping the upload for the rest of the batch, select Yes to stop the upload of the entire batch. The upload will stop, and all of the images that haven't been uploaded yet will keep their previously-entered meta data. After checking your internet connection, hit "Upload" again to resume the upload.

Note: When canceling the upload of a set, the image that was partially uploaded may be dropped from the set. Double check that all images were properly uploaded to be sure that this didn't happen.

Errors in titles, tags and/or descriptions

If you notice an error in any of the meta data fields after uploading, you can correct these in bulk. Go to the set's page and select Edit to open the Organize view. From the Batch Edit menu, select Titles, tags, and descriptions. You can then edit meta data for up to 10 photos at once.

Not all of the photos end up in the set

Photos can be added to a set in the Organize view. Go to the set page and select Edit. Once the view opens, you can drag photos from the bottom pane -- which contains every photo uploaded to the photostream -- into the set.