Back in December, we wrote about Using Flickr to Share Your Art — the popular photo-sharing site, most used by photographers, also makes an easy, well-trafficked place to post photos of your artwork.

Last month, Flickr launched a complete redesign and reconfigured its services. The result: tons of free space, a much more attractive website, and lots of outdated advice in our original blog post. With that in mind, here’s what you need to know about the new Flickr. (You can still read the original post here for info on Flickr alternatives and some other tips.)

1. Huge, free storage: Every Flickr account now includes one terabyte of free storage — far more than any other free service and, with room for hundreds of thousands of high-resolution photos, a far cry from the 200 images that free accounts used to be limited to. To put it in perspective, The Art League Gallery’s account has used up just 0.022 terabytes with five years of photos from monthly exhibits. You could even use Flickr as a free backup for your photos. (Just set the images to private if you want to keep them hidden, and always keep a backup somewhere else. There are some free programs that can make this easier — search for Flickr sync or backup programs.)
2. Continuous scrolling: The new photostream interface might remind you of Pinterest or Instagram, with photos fit together in neat rows and popping into view as you scroll down. While some users have complained about a cluttered look and longer loading times, there’s no question that it’s much nicer to see larger photos and not to have to click between pages. One downside: with the whole photo now visible from the main page, people might be less likely to click through to the photo page to leave a comment.
3. No more stats: With Pro accounts a thing of the past, so too are the statistics on which photos people are clicking on the most, and where they’re coming from — useful information if you’re using Flickr to promote your art. Older Pro accounts are grandfathered in, but stats will still be less useful if people choose to view the photos from the photostream instead of clicking through.
4. Videos: With all the extra storage space and a time limit doubled to three minutes, it will be easier to upload videos if you want to — maybe a short video of a work in progress or a piece of original video art. Videos are uploaded the same way as photos.
5. New cover photo: Flickr photostreams look more like Facebook walls with the new cover photos, the long photos across the top of your profile pages. If you haven’t updated your page since May, you’ll want to choose a cover photo and update your Buddy Icon (the square avatar), which has changed size to 48 x 48 pixels.

What hasn’t changed: For all the changes to the interface, space allowances, and functionality, Flickr remains a good place to share photos — more of a social network than purely a portfolio site. Features like commenting and photo groups emphasizing discussion and community are still here. Meanwhile, the new site is still working out some of the kinks: visit Flickr Help for troubleshooting or to make suggestions.

Other Artful Resources posts:

• How to Photograph Your Artwork
• How to Create an Artist Website
• Protecting Images of Your Artwork Online
• Starting an Artist Blog