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From Lightroom to facebook to Express (and back)
More than any other recent time I have really had trouble writing this blog posting. Not because I did not know what I was going to write about but mainly because the topic is currently in constant flux and the entire (virtual) landscape it is built on, is littered with the corpses of beta users who have wandered here just a bit too soon.
What I am of course talking about is the brave new world of virtual social networking sites and their relationship with image sharing and now even image manipulation sites that also exist in the same virtual space. I have to admit that I am one of the few photographers on the planet that was never seduced by pbase, Flickr, or any of the other photo sharing sites, but as of late I have been developing both a personal page and a number of (photo) groups on facebook.
I don't care for all the silly little games on facebook, but I do like the way it allows me to easily communicate with both individuals and groups of people scattered across the planet. And even more I like the way it allows me to create special interest groups for the various projects I am working on.
My most successful facebook group so far is Nikon Digital SLR Photography. I originally built the group to promote my Nikon Digital SLR pocket guides, but it is now developing into a much larger entity that has attracted close to 700 members in the last month and now has a virtual board of 20 officers that will take it into who knows what dimensions.
My biggest problem is that the photo gallery on this group has only one flat file and already holds close to 1,000 images. I still don't have a solution for this problem but since the solutions on the personal (profile) page part of facebook are getting pretty sophisticated, I am hopeful that a solution for the group page photo album will soon be found.
On facebook the photos that you share with various groups in the facebook world are stored in a photo database that is accessed from your personal (profile) page. There are various applications that allow you to present albums and slide shows from your profile page.
Image 1 - Adobe Photoshop Express - grid view of images on my facebook photo album
The newest application to stake a claim in this area is Adobe Photoshop Express. Amazingly Photoshop Express allows you to access your facebook photos directly and edit them in virtual space. I am now in the position of having used the following workflow on some of my images:
1. Originally edited in Adobe Photoshop CS and/or Photoshop Lightroom.
2. Uploaded from my computer to the Photos application in facebook.
3. Accessed and edited directly from facebook in Adobe Photoshop Express
4. Saved the Photoshop Express changes in the photo's facebook album location and/or downloaded the image back to my local hard disk drive.
image 2 - Adobe Photoshop Express - the Edit Photo interface (is this the future look of image editing for most photographers?)
The only thing that seems to be missing from this workflow at this time is a direct path from Lightroom to Photoshop Express and back. Who knows? By tomorrow this may exist.
FYI, I'll be releasing an Export-to-Facebook plugin for Lightroom 2.0, once Lightroom 2.0 has been released. It'll be added to the Export-To plugins I already have for Lightroom 1.x: Zenfolio, Flickr, SmugMug, and PicasaWeb.
Thanks for the comment Jeffrey and please put me on your email list - george@dpmac.com - I am very interested in staying up to date on this.
I use Jeffrey's wonderful Export To Flickr plugin, and have an app in Facebook (zuPort Flickr) that monitors my Flickr account and posts on Facebook when I've uploaded new photos. It also provides a Facebook interface to the Flickr photos.
I've heard and read so much about Facebook grabbing the rights for picures uploaded to Facebook and that when you joined you pretty much agreed to let Facebook do whatever they want with your pictures so I don't upload a single picture to facebook!
You wouldn't catch me DEAD uploading to Facebook any photo I've taken. Check out the Facebook terms of service regarding uploaded images:
"By posting User Content to any part of the Site, you automatically grant, and you represent and warrant that you have the right to grant, to the Company an irrevocable, perpetual, non-exclusive, transferable, fully paid, worldwide license (with the right to sublicense) to use, copy, publicly perform, publicly display, reformat, translate, excerpt (in whole or in part) and distribute such User Content for any purpose, commercial, advertising, or otherwise, on or in connection with the Site or the promotion thereof, to prepare derivative works of, or incorporate into other works, such User Content, and to grant and authorize sublicenses of the foregoing."
I'm not saying you guys are wrong (you are probably right) but I am not interested in being that paranoid about my images. I have made a pretty good living from photography for close to forty years without worrying about people ripping me off and I am not about to start losing any sleep over it now. The few images I show on facebook are there for people to enjoy, facebook's lawyers and their convoluted terms of service documents do not bother me.
Having said all that, I have been known to occasionally search someone out, who I think has taken advantage of me and settled a dispute personally.
MySpace http://www.frogmix.com/search/my+space has done a great job in bringing down the walled garden. Why do you think the strategy hasn't worked for them in terms of attracting more users, engagement, etc? I think FB has played their cards correctly. Build a walled garden and slowly start opening up when you have more than sealed the SN space.