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Picasa vs. Flickr for photographers

Publishing your pictures on the web is a crucial matter for most photographers. It’s great for showing your pictures to friends and to get feedback from other photographers. There are a lot of picture sharing sites out there, though Yahoo’s Flickr and Google’s Picasa Web Albums seem to be the most popular and attractive ones. Both offer a free version, with the posibility to opt in for pay-services. But let’s compare the free versions of Picasa vs. Flickr in detail!

Flickr, positive:

• very popular with photographers, it’s easy to browse millions of great pictures
• easy to view large versions of the images
• great intuitive user interface: clean layout, focus on content, easy navigation

Flickr, negative:

• You can only have 200 photos online at a time (they don’t tell you about this before you reach the limit—watch out!)
• Image width is limited to 1024px (in landscape format) in free version
• You can only upload 100MB per month (which is enough for most people though)
• Full version costs ~25$ per year, removes all the restrictions

Picasa, positive:

• no restrictions in image size
• no restrictions in the amount of photos

Picasa, negative:

• Alters the images in some cases. It seems to increase contrast near edges in the image, similar to the “clarity” option in Adobe Camera Raw (Photoshop) and Lightroom. This is good in some cases, but you won’t have any control. Very poor! See below for an example.
• User interface is not as nice as Flickr, and you won’t meet much more people being into photography.
• You won’t be able to see the full resolution of the photos at a glance. You can zoom in, but you will only see a cropped version.
• Overall upload is restricted to 1GB.
• Additional 20GB will cost 5$/year.

Conclusion:

Flickr is in general much better than Picasa, both feature-wise and general-experience-wise. Flickr is more a social network about photography, while Google is just a place where you can upload your pictures. On the downside, Flickr is much more expensive if you want to use the full version. So if you don’t mind for reaching the limit of the free version and having to pay 25 $ per year, Flickr is your choice!

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7 Responses

1. Sanjay Singhaniya says:

   November 5, 2010 at 5:41 am

   I am shocked to know that picasa alter photo. What if we download the photos again? Would we get original version or altered version?
   Many photography enthusiasist wont like to alter the photos they have uploaded. Please let us know if there is any option to disable the feature.
2. david says:

   January 22, 2011 at 4:46 am

   Yes, Flickr full version costs 25$ per year, but that includes unlimited space. With Picasa, you play $$ for more and more space.
3. Varsity Photos.net says:

   January 28, 2011 at 6:19 am

   Flickr & Picasa are good and I use both, however, SimpleViewer allows you to post your Google ads without hassle or fear of having your account deleted (flickr):

   http://www.varsityphotos.net/ag/ag_main.htm

   http://www.varsityphotos.net/michele/mchele_main.htm
4. admin says:

   January 28, 2011 at 11:23 am

   Yes Simpleviewer is a great tool. However I don’t use it any more because it requires flash, which renders it unusable on iPhone/iPad etc.

   There are lots of good galleries out there which don’t need flash, like lightbox/fancybox and so on.
5. Varsity Photos.net says:

   January 29, 2011 at 5:33 am

   I think the new (free) version remedied the flash problem. One of my models said she could now view it on her iphone.
6. Varsity Photos.net says:

   January 29, 2011 at 5:36 am

   I don’t own a smartphone but could someone send one of these links to a mobile device to see if it’s viewable?

   http://www.varsityphotos.net/danielle/danielle_main.htm

   http://www.varsityphotos.net/brit/brit_main.htm

   Thanks!!
7. Brighton Photographer says:

   February 2, 2011 at 4:53 pm

   I have just written a post about using flickr for professional photographers that has sparked quite a debate see the comments section of the post:
   http://heatherbuckley.co.uk/lomo-kev-and-using-flickr-for-photographers/

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