Photobucket; another case of fixing something that ain't broke?

[Flying Spaghetti Monster]

I figured I might get some sympathy from this board, since many of us have dabbled in avatar contests. photobucket, which had a very basic photo editor for quick and photo changes for those of us who don't know Photoshop's tools and want something intuitive, has changed. Now I'm going to leave the site.

Anyone else with me. The new editor is so cumbersome.

 

[Amaris]

I figured I might get some sympathy from this board, since many of us have dabbled in avatar contests. photobucket, which had a very basic photo editor for quick and photo changes for those of us who don't know Photoshop's tools and want something intuitive, has changed. Now I'm going to leave the site.

Anyone else with me. The new editor is so cumbersome.

It has huge amounts of bandwidth and storage space, a free (and quite decent) editor, few ads, a simple upload interface, and a Firefox extension that lets me upload any online image right into my account, giving me the link codes automatically.

Also, it's all free. So nah. I like it right where I am.

The editor? Seriously? It took 5 seconds to get used to the changes.

 

[Locutus of Bored]

Nope. I mainly use it for the convenience of it, since I just upload images to it directly from right click in Firefox with the Photobucket Uploader add-on (I also have Imageshack Uploader on right click as a backup).

I never use Photobucket's editor anyway, so I'm not sure what is supposed to be so difficult about it. I see a basic photo editor with some easy tools, silly filters, and an option to switch to a more advanced editor at the bottom, and even the advanced one is no different from what you would find in basic freeware or online photo editors. In fact, it looks like the advanced editor is identical to Pixlr.

Maybe if you could provide some more detail on what exactly is giving you trouble we could find an alternative for you or help you in some other way.

 

[Admiral Buzzkill]

I dumped Photobucket for Flickr years ago - too many security firewalls block Photobucket so it's a nuisance.

 

[RoJoHen]

The only editing I ever do on Photobucket is re-sizing and cropping images, and the only time I ever use Photobucket at all is when I want to post pictures here that I don't already have on facebook. So I'm gonna stick with it.

 

[auntiehill]

Yes, some of the new features are a bit unwieldy, but it's still one of the easiest photo editors around. It's fairly fast and simple, so I'm sticking with it. I found that, once I played around with some of the new features, it wasn't all that difficult to adjust.

If you're looking for old-school Photobucket, you can find that editing program on FotoFlexer. It has exactly the same the editing tools.

 

[Amaris]

I rather like the new editor. Took 5 seconds to get used to the new layout, and the options are decent. It gives me a few options I don't have on Paintshop Pro, which is nice, and I only really need it when I upload an online image directly to my account, and that's just for resizing or cropping.

Oh, and Locutus, you're right, it is the Pixlr editor. I noticed the name pop up on the side of the loading frame when I went into the PB editor just a few minutes ago.

 

[trekkiedane]

Nope. I mainly use it for the convenience of it, since I just upload images to it directly from right click in Firefox with the Photobucket Uploader add-on (I also have Imageshack Uploader on right click as a backup).

^This and this:

The only editing I ever do on Photobucket is re-sizing and cropping images, /.../

I do however think they added a few more clicks to the whole re-size and/or crop process -which isn't too much of an inconvenience...

 

[Miss Chicken]

The only editing I ever do on Photobucket is re-sizing and cropping images, and the only time I ever use Photobucket at all is when I want to post pictures here that I don't already have on facebook. So I'm gonna stick with it.

Pretty much the same for me.

 

[doubleohfive]

How ironic. I have been struggling with Photobucket myself lately, but not because of some photo editor. Instead, the issue I've been having has been simply that the main Photobucket pages load too ridiculously slowly for me. Perhaps its the badnwidth here at work, but I can't remember the last time I didn't sit at my computer waiting for the damn page to load.

That, and I'm honestly debating just moving everything to Flickr anyway.

005

 

[Unicron]

There have been a few occasions in the past where I've had annoying problems while logging into Photobucket, and I believe that was due to the script coming from certain ads that were running then. Generally it's been very reliable for me.

 

[scotpens]

I stopped using Photobucket because of their stupid censorship. Anything that even remotely resembles bare boobs or butts (at least according to their image-recognition software) gets deleted. No dirty words either. Screw ’em.

For image hosting, I use either Google’s Picasa Web Albums or the no-frills hosting site Host Pic.Org. And I’m a professional graphic artist so I do all my photo editing offline anyway.

 

[propita]

Not a photobucket comment per SE, but a photo editing one, or rather a question:

I use iPhoto. Nice editor for what it does. I want to make a pic B&W, but have a portion in color. What app/software does that?

 

[scotpens]

Not a photobucket comment per SE, but a photo editing one, or rather a question:

I use iPhoto. Nice editor for what it does. I want to make a pic B&W, but have a portion in color. What app/software does that?

You should be able to do that with any image-editing software that has precise selection tools. I’m familiar with Photoshop and Illustrator, but I’m sure there are more basic ones available.

 

[trekkiedane]

^A web-search might help... Now I iDon't know iPhoto, but these two procedures is what I came up with:

http://www.ehow.com/how_5112435_use-make-picture-black-white.html

http://hints.macworld.com/article.php?story=20070324132011708

 

[propita]

Yeah, I got the B&W part--easy-peasy. It’s the “keep a part in color while the rest is B&W” that I’m asking about. I’m assuming the answer is Photoshop or Illustrator.

I have this very nice pic at the 9/11 Memorial, where at one side is someone’s hands, crossed not quite in prayer. No face, just the hands/cuff. Very nice and a total surprise. I think it would be effective with only the hands/cuff in color. It’s amazing the “accidental” pictures--like another of a sculpture at the Met Museum of Art. I was taking a picture of a sculpture, a female en point with an arm delicately out. I hadn’t noticed the woman mimicking the pose until I saw the photo.

 

[Locutus of Bored]

Yeah, I got the B&W part--easy-peasy. It’s the “keep a part in color while the rest is B&W” that I’m asking about. I’m assuming the answer is Photoshop or Illustrator.

I have this very nice pic at the 9/11 Memorial, where at one side is someone’s hands, crossed not quite in prayer. No face, just the hands/cuff. Very nice and a total surprise. I think it would be effective with only the hands/cuff in color. It’s amazing the “accidental” pictures--like another of a sculpture at the Met Museum of Art. I was taking a picture of a sculpture, a female en point with an arm delicately out. I hadn’t noticed the woman mimicking the pose until I saw the photo.

Upload the photo to Photobucket.

Click on "Edit Photos."

Select the photo you want to edit.

Click on the blue "Switch to advanced editor" button on the bottom left hand corner of the editing screen.

Click on the "Marquee Tool" from the left hand toolbox (it looks like a little dashed blue square).

Drag the crosshairs across the portion of the photo you'd like to adjust to black and white until it is surrounded by a dashed box with a moving border.

Go to "Adjustment" in the top menu.

Click on "Desaturate."

The portion of the photo within the box should now be black and white.

Click on "File" and then "Save" and the adjusted photo will now be saved in your picture album.


Alternatively, if you'd like to post the picture here, I or someone else can make the adjustments to the photo for you.

The same thing can be done in most freeware or online photo editors by using the selection tool and the black and white adjustment setting (which Photobucket calls the "Marquee Tool" and "Desaturate"). No need for anything like Photoshop or Illustrator. Paint.net is a good freeware beginning editor with a lot of features.

 

[smiki]

Edit: Ninja'd

Well, there is no "easy" way, i.e. a single button that will do it for you, you have to do it manually (select the area in question with a tool by "drawing" around it and then copying it to a new higher layer, while making the first layer B&W, for example). You can do this with a free image editor, such as Gimp, if you don't have Photoshop, but if you wish, you can send me the pictures and I'll do it for you, no problem.