Blog.Photobucket.com

New Photobucket iPhone App!

You've asked and we've been listening! Our new iPhone app is redesigned and loaded with fun and easy features!

Use this app to capture all your special moments and upload directly to your Photobucket albums. Upload existing media from your local camera roll or new shots (and videos on 3Gs) straight from your camera. Looking for a quick "media-snack" during moments of downtime? Check out our Find Stuff categories or search our billions of photos. Easily download images to your device for use as wallpapers, contact ids and more. Share with others via email or grab image URL links to post on your blog or favorite social network. Manage your Photobucket albums and showoff your collection in full screen.

 Highlights include:

* Completely redesigned user interface.

* Search Photobucket's huge media repository, complete with search history.

* Browse Find Stuff categories and search results.

* Orientation-aware full-view images with pinch and zoom support.

* Easy access to image URLs.

* Media upload queue supporting in-app 'background' uploads.

* Album management: new navigation views, create, delete.

* Media management: download, share, move, delete, copy to my album, title and description editing.

Tips and Tricks:

* Navigate Find Stuff categories by swiping left and right over the category images.

* Pause the upload queue and resume when your signal improves, or your airplane lands.

* Delete entries in the upload queue by swiping from left to right over the entry.

* Toggle settings to improve app performance based on your connection.

* Use the app reset function in iPhone Settings to clear cache and restore to fresh-install state.

* Logout via the in-app settings tab.

Learn more here!

 

We are excited to have you try out the new app and look forward to your feedback and additional feature requests.

Macro Photography

  Ever wonder what that little flower looking icon on your camera did?

It’s actually a really fun and impressive mode to shoot photos in.  The mode is called “Macro” and is commonly known for shooting close-up photography. When shooting in Macro mode, you can get really crisp and detailed photos of the object you are photographing. Depending on your lens you can get a small portion in focus while the rest is blurred to make the object you want to focus on stand out. It’s a great mode to shoot flowers, insects, food to show texture or anything you want to see details of. Try it out and check out our Macro category!

 

Fall Color Splash Tutorial

 

Turn your colorful fall photos into unique and eye-catching photos! Try creating a Color Splash photo by selecting certain areas to be in color. Here are some simple instructions on how to create one:

1. Click the "edit" link above the thumbnail you want to edit.

 

2. Select the "Effects" tab, and click the "Greyscale" button to make your photo black-and-white.  

 

3. To add a splash of color: Click the "Advanced Options" button, and select “painted region” from the drop-down menu.  

4. Highlight the part of the picture you want to be black-and-white. The part you don't highlight will be in color. The large black dot on your photo is the brush, drag that around your photo to select the areas you want to remain in black and white.

Voila! You have just created a Color Splash photo!

Calling All Coffee Lovers!

Do you have a special mug or ritual of how you drink your cup of coffee? Whether you are rocking a bathrobe with sleep eyes or a mid-afternoon boost of energy, show us your unique coffee drinking behavior and you could win!

Upload and share your favorite photo of your drinking a cup of joe for a chance to win! Five winners will be selected and each will receive an International Delight Prize Pack which includes a Cuisinart coffee maker and International Delight products. Submit your entries here!

Jack-O-Lanterns Photography Tips

 

Share your creative and spooky Jack-O-Lanterns by taking memorable and fun photos. Here are a few tips on how to take photos of your Jack-O-Lantern masterpiece:

1. Use a tripod, or place your camera on something that’s sturdy, like a table.
2.   Place your pumpkin in front of a plain background or outside with a cool backdrop of plants or vines. Avoid putting it in front of a congested area as the design won’t capture as well.
3.    Light your pumpkin with at least 2-3 candles inside. The more candles you use, the more the pumpkin will glow. 
4. Turn off your flash to maintain the spooky glow of your pumpkin and keep your photo from getting washed out.
5. Use a manual setting or the TV mode to slow down the shutter speed if you are using an SLR camera.  Try a shutter speed of 0.8-2.5 seconds.

Take a few shots and experiment! Show off your Jack-O-Lanterns in our group album: 

Now Supporting HD Video Uploads

Crisp, clean and beautiful, HD video is now on Photobucket! We now support HD Video uploads up to 300MB or 10 minutes in length. We have upgraded our player to accomodate HD support so it is 16:9. Check out beautiful examples of HD Time Lapse videos by director Ross Ching.

Get a Free Pro Account!

Want to try out all the cool features of a Pro Account? From discounts on prints to an increase in storage space, Pro accounts offer more options. Upload a photo or video of something that you are passionate about to the McDonald's Group Album and get a Free Pro Account for 3 months. Whether it's jumping puddles or your cool artwork, share your personality!

Survey Particpants

Spend hours on the web surfing for cool stuff? We are looking for participants to take a short online survey with a chance to  win $1000. Learn more here.

Send Photos to Your Phone

Our new Send to Phone option allows you to send your favorite photos from your album or cool images you find on Photobucket directly to your phone. Send photos to your phone to make them your wallpaper, forward them to your friends or make them a contact ID photo. Look for the “Send to Phone” link and blue phone icon on any image to get started. For more information and instructions see our tutorial.

 

Upgrade to Our New Pro Account

We are excited to announce our new Pro Account option!  Whether you are looking for higher resolution or a discount on printing your photos, upgrading to a Pro account is a great way to get more out of your Photobucket account. By upgrading to Pro you get the benefits of:

• New price—$24.95/ year (or 2.08/month)
• Unlimited storage.
• Uploading high res photos. (image size 4000x3000)
• Videos up to 10 minutes
• 10% discount on Prints and photo products.
• No ads in you album
• More cool stats

Learn more here!

Our New Homepage!

You've probably noticed our new look as we have recently freshened up our homepage. The first tab shows some of the fun categories you can discover from our Find Stuff area . The second tab,  "What's New", is our hub for all news, contests and cool ideas. Thanks for stopping by and let us know what you think about the new look!

Get Featured on Photobucket!

One of our popular categories in Find Stuff is our photography category. From cool light graffiti to beautiful landscapes we have a great collection of all your awesome photography skills.  Check it out here!  We are looking for cool, interesting and awesome photos to feature in our Photography category in Find Stuff. Submit your favorite photograph that you've taken to featuredimages@photobucket.com and your work could be featured!

GLEE Gold Star Contest Winner

Thousands entered our GLEE Gold Star Contest showing off their talents, from singing their favorite song to showing their cool dance moves, but one stood out from the pack.  We are proud to announce the winner of the GLEE contest, Carolyn Klasnick. Check out her funny and creative video about her preparing for an internship.

Check out her video!

Official Photobucket gear is now available!

You can now purchase employee exclusive Photobucket branded goodies from our online store.  Check them all out here.

These are the real things that your favorite Photobucket employees are wearing: Choose from the uber-cool long sleeve navy t-shirt (often seen on our CEO)  or a classic Photobucket baseball cap.

Stay hydrated with a Photobucket water bottle.  Our developers keep proper levels caffeine in their systems with their Photobucket mugs.  

Go ahead and show your Photobucket love! Go shopping now!

Visual Search On Photobucket

Photobucket has teamed up with the new Microsoft Silverlight technology to deliver a cool new way to browse photos. When you are checking out photos in our Find Stuff  area, look for the "Try Visual Search" link in the lower left to get started.  Type in any term you want and discover thousands of images! Try it out here!

Photobucket introduces visual search powered by Microsoft Silverlight

User Friendly Search Integration Encourages Sharing and Facilitates Image Discovery

San Francisco, Calif. – date, 2009 – Photobucket (http://photobucket.com), the Web’s premier standalone photo and video-sharing site, today launched Photobucket Visual Search, a new and compelling way for users to browse photos and videos on Photobucket. Leveraging Microsoft’s Silverlight technology, Windows Live Services and Photobucket’s Open API platform, Photobucket Visual Search presents search results in an easy-to-browse interface that delivers an enhanced search experience for Photobucket’s more than 80 million users worldwide. 

Photobucket introduces native photo upload solution for Palm Pre

Native Integration Enables Easy, One Click Uploads to Photobucket.com

SAN FRANCISCO, CALIF. – June 8, 2009 – Photobucket (http://photobucket.com), the Web’s premier standalone photo and video-sharing site, today announced the availability of a native photo upload solution for the new Palm® Pre™ phone.  As a pre-installed photo upload partner, Photobucket lets Palm Pre users easily send photos taken on their mobile device to a Photobucket album without having to download an application.  Users just take a picture and tap on the Photobucket entry to send the picture to their Photobucket account.(1)

How to make a Twitter background on Photobucket

This was something fun I did today. Use Scrapblog to create a custom background for your Twitter profile. Scrapblog is utterly amazing. We think you'll have fun.

Here's how:

1. Click "create scrapbooks" from the menu in your album on Photobucket
2. Scrapblog window opens
3. Choose any theme that takes your fancy. Don't worry. You can change it all later.
4. At the bottom, delete all the pages but one.
5. Choose "get photos" on the left, and pick the best photos all about YOU.
6. Choose "get stickers." Have fun with that.
7. Choose "get backgrounds." More fun.
8. Use the crop feature to make cool shapes.
9. Rinse. Repeat. Potentially play for hours.

Once you've saved your Scrapblog, go to the folder on Photobucket that is called "scrapblog-name of your scrapbook". You'll find a static JPG. Grab that and save-as to your desktop so you can upload it to Twitter. (There should be an easier way, huh?)

The trick for Twitter backgrounds is:

1. Make sure you tile the image when you upload to Twitter.
2. Put all your pics down the left hand side. Then they'll appear both on the left and the right in Twitter.

Here's the one I made for myself. Not very cool or grungy, but I like it because the pictures mean something to me. To see it in place on my Twitter go here: http://twitter.com/bigchiefalice.

Scrapblog has also used Scrapblog for their own Twitter background -- it's much better than mine. http://twitter.com/scrapblog.

Here's what it looks like in Twitter:

About the Yahoo! Mail integration with Photobucket

The Photobucket application on Yahoo! Mail that launches today, June 5th 2009, allows existing Photobucket users to log into their Photobucket account directly from Yahoo! Mail, and choose any number of photos to share with their friends and family by Yahoo! Mail.

How to get access to Photobucket's Yahoo! Mail app?

Go here: http://overview.mail.yahoo.com/applications. Enter your Yahoo! email address. Apparently that's the only way to get access. We understand you also have to upgrade to the new Yahoo! email to be app-compatible.

The best thing about the application is that when photos are included in the email, they are not sent as attachments. (Sending photos as attachments slows down email transmission and forces the recipient to figure out how to open and view the attachments.) 

Share with Thumbnails and Links

With the Photobucket application for Yahoo! Mail, recipients receive a thumbnail version of the photo, and a link to the full size photo.  Clicking the link takes the recipient directly to the photo on Photobucket’s site, where they can view, share and, if they want, comment on the photo. A very simple and friendly experience that anyone, even the lowest tech email user, can enjoy!

Search Photobucket and Add to Yahoo! Mail

In addition to adding photos from personal Photobucket albums, Yahoo! Mail users can search Photobucket’s huge repository of varied photo content to find a photo that perfectly suits a mood or subject.  And not just photos! Photobucket has more than 7.5 billion photos and images of all types - funny images, quotes and sayings, animated GIFs, drawings, artwork, celebrity photos, and more. 

With the Photobucket application for Yahoo! Mail, a Yahoo! Mail user doesn’t have to be a Photobucket user to search and share photos and images by Yahoo! Mail. They can just install the application, and browse and share for free.

What’s next? At Photobucket we are committed to improving and enhancing our entire product set based on our user feedback and experience. We’re looking forward to seeing how Photobucket’s application for Yahoo! Mail is used, how users respond, and we’ll look for ways to transparently expose our rich and interesting feature set such as photo editing, scrapbooking and group albums, to Yahoo! Mail users.

Photobucket launches a new application for Yahoo! Mail

Photobucket Media Alert

WHO:  Photobucket (http://photobucket.com), the Web’s premier standalone photo and video-sharing site, and Yahoo! Mail

WHAT:  Photobucket’s new application, developed by Photobucket using the Yahoo! Mail application platform, allows users of new Yahoo! Mail in the U.S. to access and share photos via Photobucket.