One that I can control
One that won't force their agenda
And change the colors on my photos
I want a new blog
One with my own homepage
One with more formats and style options
And links that go various ways
One that won't make me angry
Wondering what to do
One where I can post my photos the way that I want to
With the colors I want to
----
In 2010 I bought my first DSLR camera and began using it voraciously. I started a simple blog to share my photos, selecting Blogger because it was free and easy. Since I already used Google and GMail the menus and formats were familiar.
Shortly after, I hesitantly fell into using Picasa Web Albums. I use "hesitant" because at times in the past I tried using Picasa software to "Organize, edit, and share your photos" from my computer. I HATED it. The software grabs every image on your hard drive and, in my opinion, takes complete control over them. Naturally, I doubted the Web Albums.
Much to my surprise, Picasa Web Albums was very easy to use. It provided me with a single place with practically unlimited storage to organize and share my photos the way I wanted. Posting photos was an easy, stream-lined process.
Then came Google+.
The Google+ entity began rounding up and enveloping all the satellite Google operations one by one. The first changes were tolerable, I adjusted. But when Picasa Web Albums was swallowed up by the behemoth+, becoming a subheading under the giant, everything changed.
All my personal Web Album options reverted to the new default settings in my Google+ profile, which is really Google+'s code for "You will do it my way." I meticulously combed through every setting, changing and adjusting everything I could. Most importantly, UN-checking the "auto-enhance" option. I knew it seemed too simple.
UN-checking "auto-enhance" only affects photos you upload from that time on. It does not affect all the previously uploaded photos that were "enhanced" with the "upgrade" that reverted all my settings to default. FOUR YEARS of photos "auto-enhanced" by Google+. HUNDREDS of hours of post-processing time spent carefully adjusting color saturation, hue, and luminance using color-calibrated monitors all instantly wiped away. (Note: This only affected the copies uploaded into Web Albums, not any photos on my hard-drive.)
[simmer down simmer down]
I coped with these changes and continued using Web Albums and Blogger, believing that I could keep up with +'s "improvements".
But then, this happened:
On the right is the image taken from Web Albums (un-auto-enhanced) when I was preparing my blog post. On the left is the preview of what the blog post would look like. WHAT?! That is no small difference. That is full-on auto-enhanced.
(Since I am posting this exact blog through Blogger, I am expecting the photos to be "auto-enhanced" again, so the photo on the left will be hyper-enhanced.)
For comparison's sake, here is a screen shot of my photo post-processed in Lightroom (keeping in mind the photo you see on your screen now is likely "auto-enhanced" through Blogger):
So, after noticing Blogger's gross defiling of my photo, I, again, combed through all my settings, all my options, through every link, and down each menu. I searched and searched on the internet looking for answers or advice or hacks and only found the option of un-checking "auto-enhance" from the Google+ settings. There is NO option to not auto-enhance photos posted in Blogger.
So that's it. I'm done with Blogger. I need to start over.
I want a new blog.
