Photos of test tiles

[Tess van Dijk]

I am looking for a photo site to download my cone 6 test tiles to. I have quite a few tiles and I would like to be able to post descriptions of each tile and the processes. It would be nice for it to be cheap too. If anyone has had any experience with doing this I would love to hear from them. Thanks guys

[Tess van Dijk]

Thank you Sandy. I will look into Picasa for sure. I make at least 20 new test tiles everytime I fire. Lately I havent been firing much but come spring I am hopeful to get back to doing so. When I find a base that shows potential I cant wait to add colorant and cross it with my other glazes. So this site will be great. Thanks again.

[sandy miller]

I found this on another blog a few months ago and thought it was excellent information.

1. Price.
Both Flickr and Picasa offer a free service, but with limitations on the service at Flickr – more on that below… And a word of warning here, Flickr’s FAQ states “if your free account is inactive for 90 consecutive days, it will be deleted”. Boo to that. Picasa wins.
2. Storage.
Bigger is better! Picasa gives you 1GB of storage with the option to buy more (6GB for US$20 per year – shared storage with your Gmail account). Flickr doesn’t state a storage limit, instead they have an upload limit of 100MB per month and limit your “photostream” to the 200 most recent images. The “pro” option at Flickr costs US$24.95 which will give you unlimited uploads, storage, bandwidth and more. I don’t like the fact that Flickr hides photos over the 200 limit for a free account, so again Picasa wins.
3. Organisation.
How can I display and organise my photos? Picasa lets you create as many “albums” as you like to sort your photos into. Flickr lets you have just 3 “sets” to group your photos in, otherwise they all get added to a single “photostream”. For unlimited sets at Flickr you’ll have to go pro. Sadly, neither of the services appear to allow sub-albums/sets (as I make use of in my personal gallery), instead all albums or sets have to sit at the top level. This is a shame as I like being able to have a “travel” album that contains individual trip sub-albums for example. For the free option, Picasa is clearly better and again wins.
Extra Features
For describing the photo, both services let you edit tags and a caption for the image, with Flickr also letting you give each photo a title. Both have a mapping feature letting you set a location for the photo on an interactive map. For the technical data relating to the photo, both services will read and display the EXIF data from a digital camera such as shutter speed, date/time etc. And for viewing a bunch of images, both have a slideshow feature built in. Finally, both services let you specify a name to make a more user friendly URL to give to your friends or family.
Desktop Integration
Another most excellent feature of Picasa Web Albums is that you can upload to the site via the free Picasa desktop application which is a most excellent utility to organise and manage all the images stored on your computer.

Uploading to the web album is a breeze – just select some photos, click the “web album” button, choose an album or specify a new one and you’re done! And if you’re after simple photo editing, the desktop app does that too with basic fixes including cropping, rotating, removing redeye, colour and contrast adjustments, basic effects and more! Even if you don’t use the web albums I highly recommend the desktop app for managing your photo collection.

[George Lewter]

The one hundred picture limit only applies to your "My Pictures" collection that produces your personal slideshow and contributes to the network slideshow. 

Your profile page only has space for one link -- that could be to your flickr gallery.

If you use your blog space, or create discussion topics to categorize your glazes, then you can post test tile pictures inline along with explanations and details.  As far as I know there is no limit to how many images you can include this way.  I do know these images do not count as part of your 100. Blog or discussion can also contain many links to individual or groups of pictures on flickr.

[Tess van Dijk]

Thank you George. I can sort out the better ones and come up with 100. I have over a thousand. I think what I want to do is do both. Put the better ones on here and post the rest on flickr. That way we all win. Can I link the flickr to my site here easily for the rest of the tests. I know that I will be doing much more, in the future. I am a test addict. haha. Anyway I will get the ones I like the most that have the best uses and contact you to find out how to put them on line. It will take me a week or so to get all the info together.

[George Lewter]

Why not post them right here, Tess? The only problem is that you would be limited to 100 photos if you put them in your "My photos collection".  You could put them in your blog space in related series, or under new  topics in one of the glaze discussion areas. You will have a built-in audience. 

If it has to be a photo site check out Alisa Clausen. She has a massive collection on flicker.  I don't think they charge anything, but I am not dialed in with that site.

Zoophagous uses a blog to talk about his glaze research. (Not our blog space)

My goal is to make cone6pots the go-to place for mid-fire potters.  The more people who use this site to post info - the better we will serve that audience and the more people we will draw in who will be willing to post their own information.

Please contact me individually if you need help coming up with a method for posting your pictures.