the Basics

Uploading can be fun - and, if not, it can be at least an easy-to-manage and truly fast process. You have a choice of four uploaders : BlueUpload Anywhere, Advanced Uploader ( Java plugin ), Advanced Uploader ( Flash plugin ) - which offer automated batch upload of many files at once; and Simple and Bulletproof, which enables you to select at most five files at a time. BlueUpload Anywhere is an desktop application that requires downloading and installation.

Our uploaders recognize whether your photo has already been uploaded in the past or not (except Simple and Bulletproof), thus making possible the resumption of a crashed upload.
All of the uploaders except Simple and Bulletproof show you previews of the photos that you choose for upload.

The restrictions concerning any upload are connected with the supported file formats and the maximum file size allowed. The only other restrictions stem from the type of your internet connection thus determining the speed of the upload.

the Supported file formats

Photographs can be uploaded in the following file formats: JPEG, PNG and GIF.

JPEG is by far the most popular file format for archiving and distributing images and is the recommended file format for photographs. If you use RAW, TIFF or BMP format when you take photos, you need to convert your files first into one of those three supported formats.

GIF format supports a limited number of colors and can be most useful for drawings and graphs.

Some say that the PNG file format is better to be avoided as it produces bigger files without much of a benefit over high quality JPEG files. But some say that the PNG format has much higher quality than JPEG.

the Maximum file size

This refers to the maximum size of any one file that can be uploaded to your account. The current maximum file size is 12 MB for Free users and 24 MB for Pro users. Other differences between our accounts are shown in the Features and Pricing list.

the Uploaders

There are four uploaders to choose from and each of them has its own advantages and disadvantages. While the number of photos that the uploaders can be used to upload at once is five for the HTML-based Simple and Bulletproof, there is practically no limit to the number of photos that can be uploaded using the remaining three: the Flash-based Advanced Uploader ( Flash plugin ), and the two Java-based Advanced Uploader ( Java plugin ) and BlueUpload Anywhere.

They can be divided into three groups :
a) simple but wroking with any browser: Simple and Bulletproof
b) for a more professional upload together with basic description and management capabilities: Advanced Uploader ( Flash plugin ), Advanced Uploader ( Java plugin )
c) a desktop application allowing full management of the Album-Category hierarchy: BlueUpload Anywhere

the Importer

If you happen to have used facebook, flickr, smugmug or picasa, this is a feature you will like to use to import your photos from the above-mentioned services to your BlueMelon account. Our Importer works with Flash versioned 10 and above.

If you don´t have the Flash support installed on your computer, the Importer should automatically provide you with the possibility of installing it.

If you do have Flash 10, you are asked to choose the service and then click the “Next” button at the bottom of the page (not visible on the screenshot).

The main advantage of using the Importer is the fact that not only are the photos transferred in the full size available on the other service's servers, the privacy settings, the titles, the descriptions and the tags are transferred as well - if present. Our Importer imports also the geotagging information from the services that support it themselves, so you need not fear that you would have to go through the process of geotagging your photos again.

Example 10 (importing your photos from facebook) When importing from facebook, you are asked to login to the service via the Importer. All you have to do once the albums were recognized (press the “Load Albums” button to achieve this) is to click the "Import" button. The speed is determined mainly by the upload capabilities of facebook as our site is truly fast

Photo replacing

To avoid re-entering the description or other information such as location or title, for a photo you want to replace with a better one, you may make an advantage of the “Replace” menu entry in the “Tools” menu. However, it is possible to replace only one photo at a time. After you have chosen this option, you may upload a photo that the current photo will be replaced with - all of the information assigned to the original photo (including the comments, et cetera) will be used for the new picture as well.

Choosing a web uploader

To start uploading, you may:
a) choose the “Upload” tab directly.

b) use the “Upload Photos” link located in the album frame on your homepage.

c) use the “Tools” menu from the album you want to upload your photos into Our site remembers your last used uploader if you have cookies enabled in your browser settings.

Assigning the titles, the desriptions or the keywords during an upload

Example 11 (describing photos using uploaders)

You may describe your photos during the upload process if you are using one of the advanced uploaders or BlueUpload Anywhere. You just have to click the photo you want to assign a description to and move to the bottom of the uploader.

The information you submit is automatically uploaded together with the photos.

the Advanced Uploader ( Java plugin )

It allows you to:
- choose many photos at once for your upload
- use the Drag&Drop feature to choose the photos for upload
- describe each of your photos using a title, a description and tags (keywords)
- rotate each of your photos
- recognize whether your photo has already been uploaded in the past or not
- transfer the EXIF data along with your photos

To upload your photos, you may use one of the ways described above (see "Choosing a web uploader"). When using our Advanced Uploader ( Java plugin ), the uploading consists of three steps:
1. choosing or not choosing an album.
2. adding your photos, describing or rotating them
3. clicking the “Start” button

the Advanced Uploader ( Flash plugin )

Advanced Uploader ( Flash plugin ) allows you to:
- choose many photos at once for your upload
- describe each of your photos using a title, a description and tags (keywords)
- recognize whether your photo has already been uploaded in the past or not
- transfer the EXIF data along with your Photos
- create new albums and set their access modes
- work in the full-screen mode
It requires Flash 10 to run.

To upload your photos, you may use one of the ways described in the (see "Choosing a web uploader") section above. To use the Advanced Uploader ( Flash plugin ), just choose it from the sub-tabs and follow the three steps. To get rid of all the disturbing elements, you may click the button that will maximize the uploader to the full-screen.

The first step is choosing an album or - a new time-saving feature - creating one and setting its access mode using the uploader. The second step is the addition of your photos using the “Add” button and the third step is starting the upload process by clicking the “Upload” button.

the Simple and Bulletproof ( HTML based )

Our Simple and Bulletproof uploader is designed for uploading files five at a time and is best used from computers without Java or Flash plug-in.
You may:
- upload up to five files at a time
- upload from whatever browser or computer having a satisfactory internet connection
- upload photos containing the EXIF data without their being lost

To start your upload, you may use one of the ways described in the (see "Choosing a web uploader") section above and then select the Simple and Bulletproof uploader.

Without selecting an album (only needed when you navigated directly to the “Upload” tab), your photos are uploaded as unsorted ones and are as such invisible to others.

The actual upload is a simple process : just click the “Browse…” button and navigate to the photo you would like to upload. After selecting the photo, click "Open" and you should be able to see the path to that photograph.

When you have finished selecting files, click “Upload Files” for the uploading to start. Remember to keep the page open until the upload finishes.

Speeding up your uploads

The time it takes for your photos to upload depends primarily on the upload speed of your Internet connection and the size of the files.

While most DSL and cable broadband service providers advertise fast internet-computer speeds (download), the speeds the other way (uploads) are often limited to 128-768kbps, which will result in long upload times.

You can use publicly available web sites to measure the upload speed of your Internet connection, for example DSL Reports.

Example 12 (speeding up your uploads by resizing your photos)

The fastest way to resize your to-be-uploaded photos to a certain resolution (800x600, 1200x900, 1600x1200, 2000x1500) is using BlueUpload Anywhere. Our application allows you to choose one of the above-mentioned sizes in the preferences window.

You may choose the default access mode of an album as well.

BlueUpload Anywhere

As the recommended application, BlueUpload Anywhere is the most capable of all our uploaders.
It allows you to:
- choose many photos for your upload
- describe each of your photos using a title, a description and a set of tags
- rotate each of your photos
- recognize whether your photo has already been uploaded in the past or not
- transfer the EXIF data along with your photos
- create new albums and new categories
- manage the access modes of your albums
- describe your albums and assign keywords to them
- set the automatic resizing options for your photos
It requires Java Runtime Environment 1.5 or higher to work and being installed on your computer.

Example 13 (uploading)

This is the main upload screen and the first thing you see after you login. If you have tried the advanced uploaders, you will recognize the similarity. The important thing is to either choose your album or create a new one; all photos uploaded without choosing an album become unsorted photos and no one can see them until they are assigned to an album

Choosing an album is easy, in the upper part of your upload screen, there is “Select”, “Unselect” and “Manage”. On the picture below there is shown the “Album – Category” screen. You either double-click a certain album name or click on an album and then the “OK” button at the bottom to choose one of them. The categories behave as in a tree view in a common graphical operating system : they roll down to show you the “inside” albums.

After choosing an album you should choose the photos. This is the same as for the advanced uploaders: you have to add photos to your album by clicking “Add…”

It takes only a few moments (in some cases up to several minutes but it is dependent upon the number of photos you want to upload and your Internet connection) to see the photos. The circle under each photo states whether you have (red or grey) or have not (green) uploaded that photo yet.