Which is BEST & EASIEST free image hosting website with direct link sharing?

hybernia

The subject header says it all.

I'm shortly to sell on eBay a camera of mine. I know how to put the listing together, and have a second camera which i can use to take some decent pack shots. What I also want to do is put a selection of images taken by the for-sale camera into an album, this to (a) be uploaded to an image hosting website and (b) be capable of being accessed by my prospective eBay buyers via a direct link which I'll include in the text of the eBay listing.

Though I was once upon a time happy with Photobucket, I quit after its level of on-screen advertising became so intrusive as to darn near crippled it. Then of course PB started charging, though without advance notice.I resented its arrogance, and would prefer never to go back. . . even though it still has a limited free-usage option.

What PB was especially good for though was being able to obtain the code for a direct link to a picture; you could drop the code into an Internet forum thread, or send it to others.

It's exactly that kind of quick 'n easy facility I want to have in the eBay listing for my camera; I'd like people to be able to click on a link to be able to immediately see various comparison shots from which they can gauge the camera's ability and quality.

(Once upon a time, I used to compose my eBay listings in HTML, and incorporate far more images -- up to a dozen or more --  than eBay's standard template would otherwise have permitted. My sales were always very good and my buyers numerous thanks to the sheer comprehensiveness  of the listing and its extensive visual content. By now though I've completely forgotten how to assemble a listing in HTML, and don't even know if eBay even allows that any more.

In researching 'best free image hosting websites' I've so far managed to stumble through the American site Tom's Guide to "best photo sharing websites", a guide that, like so many other similarly titled reviews out there, is largely irrelevant in its irritating preoccupation with cropping, editing and processing photos in the Cloud after uploading  -- my own commonsense tells me, best to do post on my desktop PC before I upload, and certainly not attempt to accomplish any serious work using an Android or IoS app.

Imgur gets mentioned in various best-of reviews but when I tried it, the photo-sharing facility was nothing like as easy, simple, quick and effective as I'd been led to believe. Flickr repeatedly gets a favourable rating, too, without any mention of its cumbersome 'Guest Pass' system for photo-sharing on a one-by-one basis. I'm not sure about Google Photosnor Amazon Prime Photos either: if anyone has used one or t'other, I'd be interested to know how it worked out.

To sum up then: all I want is a FREE photo hosting website into which I can briefly store a few images in a single album, this album to be available to anyone -- not merely friends, family, or a nominated pre-identified single individual viewer via the direct link I am hoping to incorporate in my eBay listing. Thanks for any help!

AndyPix

That was long. I didnt read it, but going from your title you want this

https://postimages.org/

Just upload each image seperately and generate a direct link. Post that link where you want .

I think you can do an album if you sign up, but why bother, just do them individually

forgotmyname

Slowly all getting bought out by the big companies who want to steal your photo's for their own uses.

You post your images on ebay not on a 3rd party hosting site, its not the 90's. 

Neil_Jones

hybernia said:

To sum up then: all I want is a FREE photo hosting website into which I can briefly store a few images in a single album, this album to be available to anyone -- not merely friends, family, or a nominated pre-identified single individual viewer via the direct link I am hoping to incorporate in my eBay listing. Thanks for any help!

Why?  You can upload to eBay directly, you don't need Photobucket or Imgur or Pastimages or whatever else.

(from their website) "When you list an item for sale on eBay, you have to include at least one picture. The first picture you add, called the main photo, appears next to your item's title in search results and is the main photo in your listing. You can add up to 12 pictures.  We store copies of your photos on eBay and they'll stay in your completed listings for up to 90 days. You can re-use them if you relist the item or create a new listing for something similar."

AndyPix

I think they want to show an example of what the camera can do - and post those pictures ..

Not a picture of the item its-self

I guess ebay might reduce the resolution of uploaded images - and the OP wants to avoid this

forgotmyname

Are external photo links still allowed?

hybernia

Belated catch-up:

Big thanks to everyone who responded to my request for help, and apologies for the belated nature of this reply. An illness within the family (thankfully, nothing to do with the blasted virus) has necessitated me being away from home and MSE for several weeks, and what with one thing and another I forgot all about my intended eBay sale s well as this MSE post of mine in August (!!) asking for help.

Special thanks to Andypix for instantly providing the exact info I needed; I've now opened a free account on PostImage (it took all of 2 minutes for the website to email me an account password) and have experimented with uploading a couple of piccies and getting the links for them -- so many different types of link, I'm a bit lost. And PostImage doesn't seem too strong on user help, either. No matter: it works!

Sorry about the length of the OP but I was hoping to stave off any confusion; however, judging from Neil Jones's post, I failed: as Andypix correctly deduced, because I'm selling a camera, it is images taken by the camera that I wish prospective bidders/ buyers to be able to view, not solely images of the item for sale itself.

I've been creating eBay listings since 1999, including  listings incorporating up to 20 images using HTML, back in the days when eBay allowed that. So, er, yes, I'm perfectly well acquainted with how to add images to an eBay listing.

However, as Andypix suspected, despite me using file size (not image dimension) downsizing,  either Balesio or Blackbird, I've had problems in the not too distant past with eBay re-sizing those 'optimized' images and in one case, completely screwing up a wide angle aspect ratio.

I'd rather not trust eBay to have control of sample images taken by the for-sale camera in case it makes such a mess of the repro in the listing that I won't be able to attract any buyers at all. Much better to be able to direct potential bidders/buyers to an external website where the images can appear as originally taken, including wide screen panoramics.

That brings me to forgotmyname's post and the query as to whether eBay actually allows external links these days in listings. Good point. I've no idea, but guess will find out when I come to do the listing.

If an increasingly restrictive eBay, which since I started using it back in the days when it was desperate to maintain a  UK foothold and defeat its rival, QXL  -- possibly, few on MSE nowadays remember using both platforms, as I did, 20 years ago --  has now put yet another restriction in place, I doubt I'll bother with eBay again.

forgotmyname

Used to do the same couple of free images in the listing and links to many more on my own website.

They clamped down on a lot of external linking due to sellers using ebay to advertise and not actually
sell the item using ebay. 

Remember Yahoo auctions?  I preferred them over ebay any day.  No sniping back then. 

And i would send a fair bit of cash to an unknown stranger without a worry of not receiving my
item.  One seller did send me 2mb RAM instead of 4mb. Part number was right but wrong item
in the package. He was apologetic and refunded me with extra for the return postage.