Carl's Sims 3 Gallery to be Phased Out

[RaiaDraconis]

I have found a couple more:

Mediafire - Up to 50 GB storage (10 GB I think is where they start) and unmetered bandwidth. Individual files must be under 200 MB, which won't be an issue for screenshots. This service also has a mobile app, which may be very useful.

Minus - 10 GB storage, unmetered bandwidth, and individual files must be under 50 MB. This service also has mobile apps available, both for Apple and Android-based phones.

(Note: While I don't have personal experience with either of these, both come highly recommended from CNET--which I have found to be a reliable source.)

[Trip]

I'm a pretty big fan of Imgur myself. While it is geared towards hosting memes and the like, it works as a general image hosting solution. Bandwidth is unlimited, and I'm pretty sure that storage is too.

[Joria]

I think many of us, (me), have saved a lot of screenies to the gallery for stories we have in mind to write but have not yet written.  I just removed an entire file of such screenies since the file for that story got corrupted so it would all have to be redone.  Apologies for that.

In going into the gallery to help clean up files that were not used, I probably deleted some that WERE used.  More apologies for that one if it did indeed happen. 

Are old challenges archived so we should leave screenies from old challenges on the gallery?
 
How do we transfer screenies we want to use in the future or elsewhere to a different host?  I have both Picassa, (not that great), and Mediafire, which I pay for for larger capacity.  Using a copy/paste situation would be very tediously time consuming and could lead to errors.  From what I can see so far, there is no option to simply copy an entire file/album from Coppermine and move it elsewhere but perhaps I'm not understanding how to do this.

[Pam]

I think many of us, (me), have saved a lot of screenies to the gallery for stories we have in mind to write but have not yet written.  I just removed an entire file of such screenies since the file for that story got corrupted so it would all have to be redone.  Apologies for that.

In going into the gallery to help clean up files that were not used, I probably deleted some that WERE used.  More apologies for that one if it did indeed happen. 

Are old challenges archived so we should leave screenies from old challenges on the gallery?
 
How do we transfer screenies we want to use in the future or elsewhere to a different host?  I have both Picassa, (not that great), and Mediafire, which I pay for for larger capacity.  Using a copy/paste situation would be very tediously time consuming and could lead to errors.  From what I can see so far, there is no option to simply copy an entire file/album from Coppermine and move it elsewhere but perhaps I'm not understanding how to do this.

Please leave all images on the Gallery that have been used anywhere on the Forum. Even things in archive.

[Esther1981]

That's sad. I know I'm not writing stories anymore so I should be ok, but it's still sad that this is being phased out. Most of the pics on my gallery account are from my failed Halliwell's Dynasties, which are now in the graveyard, so whatever needs to happen to the pics, can be done. I'm so sorry Carl, I was hoping to be able to upload any new stories I feel like doing in the sims 4.

PS: Will the pics on my completed story, Agnes's Story be ok?

[Pam]

PS: Will the pics on my completed story, Agnes's Story be ok?

They'll be fine as long as you don't delete them.  We want all of the images posted on the Forum to stay where they are in the Gallery.  We're just not taking any new Gallery registrations and asking everyone to start looking for a different place to host images.  All of the images in stories and such will stay where they are. 

[Carl]

How do we transfer screenies we want to use in the future or elsewhere to a different host?  I have both Picassa, (not that great), and Mediafire, which I pay for for larger capacity.  Using a copy/paste situation would be very tediously time consuming and could lead to errors.  From what I can see so far, there is no option to simply copy an entire file/album from Coppermine and move it elsewhere but perhaps I'm not understanding how to do this.

I can use your userid to find the folder that houses your files, zip it, and let you download a copy from the server. If anyone needs this, do PM me and I'll set up a zip for you. There are members with thousands of pictures and I'd hate to have to make you go through them one by one to figure out what to keep, along with the tedious process of saving each individually. . That would be particularly tedious, but less annoying from your home PC. Please do limit this to those who have masses of pictures they require from the server. There is no rush on this since we're not shutting down the system for some time.


As to a method the average user could use to get all files from the Gallery, select the album you'd like to back up and click show/hide file information, top left of the image, so that it is visible. There you can click Add to Favorites. Go through picture and choose add to favorites for each picture - this will start building a list for you. When you're done, you can go to Album list at the top > My Favorites. In the top right corner of that section, you should see download as zip. This will make the system create a zip of all your favorites and let you download them to your PC. This will be much easier than saving files individually, as you only need to tag it as a favorite and move on.

Updating the first post with this information. Please do as Pam says and leave pics on the Forum alone, or you will be trashing your pictures in stories. We only want to delete those from the server if people stop viewing stories for The Sims 3, which will be sometime after TS4 is released and many have moved on to the new game.

[pugster101]

For those of you  who want  a free, account free service, I'd recommend tinypic.com

[Pam]

It's time to move to the next stage of our phasing out process.  I'll get a firm date from Carl, but we're going to stop allowing pictures to be uploaded to the Gallery.  We have asked everyone to find a different host for uploading your images and I think it's been enough time for that to happen.  I know some people are still uploading to the Gallery, though, and that's going to have to stop.  When I get the date from Carl, I'll let everyone know.  Then when that date comes, Carl will make some changes to the Gallery itself so that it will not accept any more uploads.  That's the plan at the moment and, of course, I'll post here if it changes.

[Lisa46]

What if you want to start posting photos for the first time? I know I can't have a new gallery account.

[Schipperke]

What if you want to start posting photos for the first time? I know I can't have a new gallery account.

You can still post screenshots, but you'll need to use one of the other hosting services.  There are a number of recommendations in this thread.

[Shewolf13]

I, personally, prefer Photobucket seeing as I've had an account for various things for a while.  But as Schipperke pointed out there are quite a few options out there.  Raia did a couple lists.

[Pam]

I've just added the following to the main announcement on page one of this thread.

Effective April 1, 2014, we will move to the next step in phasing out the Gallery.  On that date, Carl will change the settings on the Gallery so that nobody will be able to upload any more images.  If you haven't done so already, please find a new way to host your Sims 3 images for the Forum and begin using it right away.

[Janna]

Thanks Pam for the heads up.  I have finished my project story and don't have to worry about getting in any the gallery. 

I am going to start focusing on finding a place.  Have photobucket, but will check out the others, didn't do more than sign up and not sure if I will like it. 

[LivvieLove]

Carl and Pam - Thank you both for even offering the gallery. For the time it was up it was a useful tool and while it will be missed I believe everyone here understands that keeping it would cause problems. I can imagine this wasn't an easy decision to make, or an easy announcement to pass on. Hopefully the forum will continue to grow (as the gallery did!) and stay the great community it's become.

On another note, I'm having a hard time finding an easy-to-use (for story telling) picture hosting site. I've settled on MediaFire because it has a lot of storage for later growth, but I feel like I have to dig to find the direct link to the pictures I want which may lead to problems. Does anyone have any recommendations for an easy-to-use (in the sense that I won't have to open the picture then open another tab and then scroll around and dig some more to find the correct link) photo-hosting site with a decent amount of space? I've tried photobucket before and while editing images is always a plus, I feel that I would fill up the space allotted very quickly.