Friday, June 28, 2019
We’re in the middle of a photography boom: The number of photos taken worldwide jumped from 660 billion in 2013 to about 1.2 trillion in 2017, according to Statista.
What’s behind it? Smartphones, mostly.
Of the total amount of photos taken in 2017, 85 percent originated from a smartphone, the website said. It shouldn’t be so much of a surprise when you look at cellphone camera specs, which grow more and more advanced every year.
But, snapping photos on your smartphone has likely led you to another problem: hundreds of pictures eating up all of your phone’s storage.
We’ve all been there — when you’ve tried downloading that latest podcast or a Netflix movie, only to be rebuffed because of storage issues. You take a look at what’s using it up and of course, it’s those high-quality photos. At that point, you’re likely looking for a fast photo upload to get your phone back into service.
What to do? Our Kinetic by Windstream team has you covered.
First, let’s talk a little about upload speed, the rate that data is transferred from your device to the Internet. Traditional broadband — DSL and cable connections — has increased download speeds to 100, 200, 300 Mbps even, but the same can’t be said for upload speeds, which usually top out at about 10 Mbps.
Depending on the amount, size and quality of the photos you’re uploading, 10 Mbps can easily drag on, turning the process into an hours-long one.
For the fastest photo upload, use Gigabit Internet. This connection uses fiber-optic cables to give you ultra-fast, one-gig speeds for downloads and uploads, meaning your photos can be online in a matter of seconds or minutes.
Now, that you’ve got a better grip on the speeds that you need, you’ll want to then give some of them a little sprucing. Take a look at some of the best photo editing apps:
The gold standard in photo editing, Adobe has a few products to get the job done — Lightroom CC and Photoshop CC, both now cloud-based apps.
The difference lies in the functionality of the programs. Photoshop is the king of photo editing, allowing users to make changes down to the pixel. Lightroom has a few of the same features, but it also lets you manage your photos overall. In short, if you’re new to photo editing, start out with Lightroom. Once you get more advanced, you may prefer Photoshop — or even both, together.
Note that Adobe has moved its Creative Suite to the Creative Cloud, meaning that instead of needing a CD-rom to run the program, all you have to do is subscribe monthly using your Kinetic Internet.
A software, DxO PhotoLab allows users to edit specific areas in images and make complex adjustments with just a few clicks. Take, for example, the Control Points feature, in which you can manually select the spaces you want to edit by simply clicking on that part of the image. PhotoLab also includes several features that will automatically correct for exposure and atmospheric haze to optimize all of your photos. To learn more about this software’s features, click here.
For a free option, try the photo editing programs that usually come with your computer — Microsoft Photos for PCs and Apple Photos for Macs — that both sync up with cloud-based storage services, OneDrive and iCloud, respectively. With both, users get basic photo editing tools, such as rotating images, cropping and adding filters. Microsoft Photos will search your photos for people, places and things and automatically tags them for you. Similarly, Apple Photos will curate your photos by activities, trips, holidays, people, pets and others, and place them in a collection just for you.
You uploaded and edited your photos. What’s next? Storing them. We’ve mentioned a handful that may come along with the photo editing apps, but let’s take a look at a few more popular cloud storage options:
Google Photos lets you upload unlimited photos (up to 16 megapixels) and videos (up to 1080p) for free. The service also provides automatic organization, making your photos easily searchable using generic terms like “birthday.” It also allows friends and family to upload and share photos in a joint album. Better yet, Google Photos alerts you when your phone is low on space and will prompt you to start an upload.
Adobe comes with storage! Wondering how to upload your photos to the Creative Cloud? It’s as simple as clicking the “Upload Files” button or dragging and dropping the photos that you want in “Your Work.” The “Your Work” section will include all the files synced with your computer, your Creative Cloud libraries, artifacts of your source files, files shared with you and those that you’ve deleted. The storage amount and cost will differ based on your Creative Cloud membership.
Flickr says its two main goals are to help users make their photos available to those who matter most to them and to enable new ways of organizing photos and video. The company has made its services easy to use for any kind of photographer. It currently allows users to have 1,000 photos stored for free, though an unlimited amount — along with no ads and video support — can be purchased for $49.99 annually.
Know that these apps and services aren’t just for photos you’ve taken on your smartphone. Digital cameras are still alive and well, and their output can still use the same touch-ups and loving as those from a smartphone.
Regardless of what device you’ve used, though, your Internet speed should be up to par for you to get that fast photo upload. Learn more about how Kinetic Gig can help, and see if it’s available in your area today!
