Hacker News Board Hacker News, browsed like a classic message board
Live data from Hacker News

Google Issues Quality Warning for Millions of Google Photos Users

forbes.com

Post reply on HN
Print view View original

41–50 of 167 posts

Re: Google Issues Quality Warning for Millions of Google Photos Users

#41

Post by angrais »

federona wrote: post #33
jrockway wrote: post #13

I got burned by this. I take 4x5 film photos and stored my library in Google Photos as 80 megapixel TIFF scans. One day, they told me I was out of storage, and that all the files were converted to phone-quality jpegs. They look awful. I got into this situation because I had a few terabytes of free storage that I accumulated while working at Google; there was some deal like "fill out this survey and we'll give your pe…

If you use terabytes of storage on consumer oriented free or nearly free services you are going to get burned sooner or later. Switch to b2 or s3. Your data will be there for a much longer time. b2 costs $5/terabyte. If you don't access this stuff, it's probably at most $10 - $20/mo.

Sorry if this is a stupid question, but if you don't access data often, why not just buy an external HDD of say 10TB or such? Yeah, it's possible that data may fail, but is quite unlikely particular if you're not using it often.

Re: Google Issues Quality Warning for Millions of Google Photos Users

#42

Post by mrfusion »

jrockway wrote: post #13

I got burned by this. I take 4x5 film photos and stored my library in Google Photos as 80 megapixel TIFF scans. One day, they told me I was out of storage, and that all the files were converted to phone-quality jpegs. They look awful. I got into this situation because I had a few terabytes of free storage that I accumulated while working at Google; there was some deal like "fill out this survey and we'll give your pe…

How to do it on iCloud? Like a backup?

Re: Google Issues Quality Warning for Millions of Google Photos Users

#43

Post by nitrogen »

noAnswer wrote: post #27
jrockway wrote: post #13

I got burned by this. I take 4x5 film photos and stored my library in Google Photos as 80 megapixel TIFF scans. One day, they told me I was out of storage, and that all the files were converted to phone-quality jpegs. They look awful. I got into this situation because I had a few terabytes of free storage that I accumulated while working at Google; there was some deal like "fill out this survey and we'll give your pe…

> I use iCloud now. As long as you don't use it to store music... Basically same story, different file type: https://discussions.apple.com/thread/250315803

I guess that's one solution to piracy and competition...

Re: Google Issues Quality Warning for Millions of Google Photos Users

#44

Post by jrockway »

federona wrote: post #33
jrockway wrote: post #13

I got burned by this. I take 4x5 film photos and stored my library in Google Photos as 80 megapixel TIFF scans. One day, they told me I was out of storage, and that all the files were converted to phone-quality jpegs. They look awful. I got into this situation because I had a few terabytes of free storage that I accumulated while working at Google; there was some deal like "fill out this survey and we'll give your pe…

If you use terabytes of storage on consumer oriented free or nearly free services you are going to get burned sooner or later. Switch to b2 or s3. Your data will be there for a much longer time. b2 costs $5/terabyte. If you don't access this stuff, it's probably at most $10 - $20/mo.

I'm not really looking for archival storage or disaster recovery. After all, the 80MP scans are just low-resolution copies of the originals. I have hard drives for local storage. Yes, if my house burns down I lose the scans and the negatives, but I don't care enough to spend money on it.

The reason I used Google Photos was for one-click sharing. I could make a link, and viewers could pan and zoom and see all the details through a pleasant web interface. S3 doesn't do per-photo per-user access controls, and doesn't have a user interface for sharing or viewing. It's object storage, not photo sharing. As object storage, it's a lot more expensive than negatives in a binder, but about as useful.

Re: Google Issues Quality Warning for Millions of Google Photos Users

#45

Post by tinus_hn »

philips wrote: post #22

I have started to use Microsoft OneDrive along side Google Photos for two reasons. 1. OneDrive also backs up my photos on my Android device in original quality. 2. I have Google Takeout backup to OneDrive quarterly.

Just like a Google account, your Microsoft account can be blocked for any reason and you will have no way to retrieve your files.

Keep local backups.

Re: Google Issues Quality Warning for Millions of Google Photos Users

#46

Post by federona »

angrais wrote: post #41
federona wrote: post #33

Earlier quoted context omitted.

If you use terabytes of storage on consumer oriented free or nearly free services you are going to get burned sooner or later. Switch to b2 or s3. Your data will be there for a much longer time. b2 costs $5/terabyte. If you don't access this stuff, it's probably at most $10 - $20/mo.

Sorry if this is a stupid question, but if you don't access data often, why not just buy an external HDD of say 10TB or such? Yeah, it's possible that data may fail, but is quite unlikely particular if you're not using it often.

Remote storage, redundancy, and portability. At $5/mo/tb. you can still access any of it anytime you want, you just pay for what you actually download.

Re: Google Issues Quality Warning for Millions of Google Photos Users

#47

Post by mrfusion »

oflannabhra wrote: post #19
lambda_obrien wrote: post #6

Google photos is the best photos product out there for simple sharing with family (and partner share), so of course they're going to destroy it with mismanagement. Time to start looking for alternatives.

iCloud shared albums has served our family well for over five years, all for free.

Explain

Re: Google Issues Quality Warning for Millions of Google Photos Users

#48

Post by mountainb »

prox wrote: post #17
jrockway wrote: post #13

I got burned by this. I take 4x5 film photos and stored my library in Google Photos as 80 megapixel TIFF scans. One day, they told me I was out of storage, and that all the files were converted to phone-quality jpegs. They look awful. I got into this situation because I had a few terabytes of free storage that I accumulated while working at Google; there was some deal like "fill out this survey and we'll give your pe…

That’s bad. Using any Google product will be the same experience, simply because you are not the client, advertisers are. I am sure there are fine people working on the ship called Google, but I don’t like where it is heading.

They don't treat advertisers well either, so you know.

Re: Google Issues Quality Warning for Millions of Google Photos Users

#49

Post by federona »

jrockway wrote: post #44
federona wrote: post #33

Earlier quoted context omitted.

If you use terabytes of storage on consumer oriented free or nearly free services you are going to get burned sooner or later. Switch to b2 or s3. Your data will be there for a much longer time. b2 costs $5/terabyte. If you don't access this stuff, it's probably at most $10 - $20/mo.

I'm not really looking for archival storage or disaster recovery. After all, the 80MP scans are just low-resolution copies of the originals. I have hard drives for local storage. Yes, if my house burns down I lose the scans and the negatives, but I don't care enough to spend money on it. The reason I used Google Photos was for one-click sharing. I could make a link, and viewers could pan and zoom and see all the deta…

It would not be hard maybe a week or two of hacking to make such an interface on top of an object store if you were motivated. A simple php or python app with a time limited key stored in a db of some sort. There though are already open source free apps that do provide user management, etc. If you are looking for an ideal solution, but you have to pay for it with money or time.

Re: Google Issues Quality Warning for Millions of Google Photos Users

#50

Post by wccrawford »

bennettfeely wrote: post #12

I'm stunned by the image showing the difference between original and what Google apparently considers "high quality"

I think that image is faked. The caption says the difference will exist, but "not by this much". It's a fake.
Post reply on HN