Another Photo Sharing Site Question...

[median]

I have been looking for a photo sharing site that has the following features:

- Ability to upload RAW files
- Ability to download RAW files (in bulk)
- Individual links to different folders so friends can view/download only their pics in bulk or 1 by 1

I'm not concerned with editing my photos online. But I would like a service that allows me to store my photo shoots in different folders so that friends can view download entire albums with a click. Is there a site like this?


Thanks,
median

 

[TCampbell]

RAW isn't so much a "standard" per se... it's more of a concept. Every camera has it's own RAW format and it's not necessarily even consistent within a single manufacturer (because the RAW format is usually specific to the camera sensor.) That means that in order to view a RAW, your computer needs to have software that understands how to open and display the image.

As such, it's not really practical to have a photo sharing site use RAW as a format. You can use RAW as a backup/archival format or even a format to transfer non-lossy images around in case more than one person needs to edit the image. But as a display-only format, JPEG is better (this is one of the few things for which JPEG is actually better suited.) In theory, you'd do all the post processing on your images before uploading them, so there would be no advantage to keeping them in RAW format.

There are cloud-based file hosting and sharing services. For example.... you could upload a directory full of data to DropBox and then share those files with your friends. But at that point you're really treating the RAW files as just generic data files and not as images and they wont be able to open the RAW files unless they have appropriate software for it on their computer.

 

[Animonster]

RAW isn't so much a "standard" per se... it's more of a concept. Every camera has it's own RAW format and it's not necessarily even consistent within a single manufacturer (because the RAW format is usually specific to the camera sensor.) That means that in order to view a RAW, your computer needs to have software that understands how to open and display the image.

As such, it's not really practical to have a photo sharing site use RAW as a format. You can use RAW as a backup/archival format or even a format to transfer non-lossy images around in case more than one person needs to edit the image. But as a display-only format, JPEG is better (this is one of the few things for which JPEG is actually better suited.) In theory, you'd do all the post processing on your images before uploading them, so there would be no advantage to keeping them in RAW format.

There are cloud-based file hosting and sharing services. For example.... you could upload a directory full of data to DropBox and then share those files with your friends. But at that point you're really treating the RAW files as just generic data files and not as images and they wont be able to open the RAW files unless they have appropriate software for it on their computer.

This.

Pretty much it would be a pretty rash decision to make a raw file sharing site. At the very least they take up a huge amount of space and be pretty heavy on the server. I would have to agree with TCampbell and go ahead and say that your best bet is to use something like mediafire and just tell your friends to download there. There are pretty few raw files circulating, especially when compared to every other file format.

Good luck!