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FREQUENTLY ASKED QUESTIONS
Portfolios and Uploading Works to Your Portfolios
Back to top Who is artCloud for? — artCloud is focused on making connections easy between artists, curators, galleries, private dealers, collectors, writers, conservators, museums, exhibitions spaces, art schools and other organizations in the art world. Anyone can join. Click here to join. Back to top Is artCloud free to join? — Yes, artCloud is free to join. Our Services area offers classifieds listings for a fee if you want to post an advertisement about your service, product, or to advertise a job. Of course, it’s free to view these listings and to click on them. Back to top What are the rules for using artCloud? — Please read our Terms of Use to find out what is considered appropriate and legal conduct on artCloud. Back to top Why does artCloud say Beta next to its name? — Beta indicates that this is the first version of artCloud. We’re making constant improvements to be sure that the site works well. We’re eager to have your suggestions to make artCloud even better. Back to top What can I do in artCloud without joining? — You can look at portfolios and profiles. If you want to use the calendars to see hundreds of art events and add ones that interest you to your own artCloud calendar or create portfolios or use lightboxes or use other great tools on artCloud, you have to join up. And that’s easy. Click here to join. Back to top Can anyone in the world join artCloud? — Yes, anyone with an email address anywhere in the world can join artCloud and become connected to our global art-world community. Back to top How do I join and start using artCloud? — You simply have to fill out our registration form. It’s fast and easy. When you register, you’ll create a username and password. (A valid email address is required.) Then you can instantly start using artCloud. Back to top Tell me about username and password. — When you fill out the form to join artCloud, we’ll automatically give you a username based on your email address. But you can create a different name if you prefer. You create your own password. Always remember to keep your password somewhere where you can find it (for security purposes, don’t share it with anyone else). If you forget your password, you can have us remind you by clicking on the “Forgot your password?” link at the bottom of the login screen. Back to top Tell me about “type of user”. — artCloud has created profiles to match the needs of different of people with different roles in the art world. Currently, these include: artist, gallery, private dealer, curator, collector, conservator, writer, museum, exhibition space, other organizations (which could include art schools, private foundations, and national art organizations, among others), advertiser and commercial sponsor. Be sure to select the type that matches you. If you don’t see one that fits you, please let us know on our Contact Us page and we will soon add your type. Back to top How do I navigate around artCloud? — artCloud’s different areas of activity are found by putting your pointing device’s arrow over each one—My artCloud, Friends, Groups, Invite, Services—and then clicking underneath these main headings on the different offerings that appear for each area. For example, when your arrow is on top of Friends, you’ll see two offerings right underneath: My friends and Find a friend. When you click on these offerings, they take you to that activity. Back to top Where do I find my personal information—like my profile, my portfolios, my friends, my groups, my messages, and my privacy settings? — Put your pointing device’s arrow on My artCloud to go to these areas, where you can edit your profile, create new portfolios and new works to your portfolios, see the list of your friends and search artCloud for new friends, find and create groups, view and write messages to other artCloud members, and use My account to choose who you want to be able to send you messages, who can see your profile, and who can see your contact information. Back to top What are Friends and Groups? — Friends are other artCloud members whom you’d like to be able to communicate with conveniently they’re your contacts list inside of artCloud. You can quickly view their profiles by clicking on their image, send them messages, see who their other artCloud friends are, view their portfolios, and remove them from your Friends’ list. If you want to see the people who are already your friends, choose My friends under My artCloud. You can send them message, view their portfolios, view who their other friends are or remove individual friends from your list. If you want to find members on artCloud whom you’d like to invite to be your friend, go to Find a friend under My artCloud. Here you can search for people by their actual name (first⁄last name or organization name), their artCloud username, their email address or by where they live. Groups are artCloud members who have gotten together because they share a common interest (say, Berlin galleries or color photography). Under the main heading Groups, you have many choices to see the different groups on artCloud, the groups you belong to, and the possibility to create new groups. Once you’ve joined a group, you can send messages to other members of the group to talk about your interest and to invite them to events. Back to top How do I invite someone to join artCloud? — As one of the main areas of artCloud, you’ll find Invite. Click on Invite to send up to five people at a time an email message to join artCloud. (Don’t forget to put a comma between each email address.) Back to top How do I search for people and for the kinds of art that interest me on artCloud? — There are several ways to find people and the art that interests you. On the left side of the screen, you’ll see a Search box. You can type a word into the Search box and click on Go to find results related to the word you typed in—whether this is someone’s name or a kind of art (photography or painting, etc.) or a subject (dogs, Amsterdam, contemporary, etc.). You can also use all of the different entries under Explore to find the newest individual works published on artCloud, the works that have been looked at the most (Most popular), a directory of all artists on artCloud, a directory of all portfolios of works, directories of galleries and museums on our site, directories of artCloud members in different categories (such as collector, curator, conservator, writer...), and a view of all the tags that people have used, which quickly tells you what the most popular subjects of interest are to artCloud members. You can also see the most recent tags on our home page under the heading "Explore artCloud By Tags." Back to top Where do I find products, services, and jobs that related to the art world and my needs? — If you go to the last of our main areas at the top of the artCloud screen and put your pointing device’s arrow on Services, you’ll see two areas right underneath: Products & Services and Jobs. Click on either of these to see listings of people who have advertised their products, services and job offerings. You can also put up your own advertisements here, which are reviewed for their relevance and appropriateness for artCloud members. Back to top What are the Calendars? — artCloud has two calendars: The World calendar and My calendar. The World calendar lists art-world events, such as exhibitions. These are provided by The Art Newspaper, and there are hundreds of listings each week. On Sunday night these listings are replaced by the next week’s listings. If you wish to save a listing on your own artCloud calendar (My calendar), it is important to add it to your calendar before it disappears at the end of the week. My calendar is the place on artCloud where you save events that interest you. In the left column on artCloud, there are images of the calendars. You have to be signed in to see My calendar next to World calendar. Once you’ve signed in you can click on the tabs at the top of the calendar to switch between World calendar and My calendar. Back to top How do I view art events in the World calendar? — You can view world art event listings in two ways. You can click on an event in the World Art Events section of the home page or you can click on a date in the World calendar in the left column of artCloud. When you click on an event, you go to the page that includes all listings for that day. You can see the title of the event, its city, dates, map, and address. Click on the title and a new window will open with the website of the museum or institution where the exhibition is showing. (Click to close this window as you would normally close any window of your Internet browser. artCloud will still be there.) Click on “Map” to open a new window with a Google map that shows the location of the event. Note that this only works where Google has a map for the address. You can click on The Art Newspaper image and text to go to their website. You can also tag an event. A tag is a word that describes the event (for example: photography, color, fish, afternoon, river, France), which will be added to artCloud’s list of tags that makes searching artCloud for what interests you really easy. Type in as many relevant tags as you want (with a comma between each one). You can also sort events on each day’s listings page by title or by city. Back to top How do I use My calendar? — To use My calendar you must first log in to artCloud. If you are not logged in, you will not see My calendar next to the World calendar. After you have logged in, My calendar is visible, along with a link underneath to “Create Event.” You can add events from the World calendar to your own calendar (My calendar). You can click on a highlighted date to see what you’ve added to your calendar for that date. You can click on the event’s title and get a new window popup of the event sponsor’s website or you can click to get a Google map of the event’s location. You can email the event to anyone you’d like (up to five email addresses at a time with commas between each one). And you can “tag” an event, which means that you can type in a word that describes the event (for example: photography, color, fish, afternoon, river, France), which will be added to artCloud’s list of tags that makes searching artCloud for what interests you really easy. Type in as many relevant tags as you want (with a comma between each one). You can also sort events on each day’s listings page by title or by date. Back to top What if I want to create a new event and once I create it where do I find it? — Once you’ve logged in and can see My calendar next to the World calendar, you will also see a “Create Event” link under the calendars. Click on this link and you will go to a screen where you can fill in all the relevant information for your event. Any entry area with an asterisk (*) next to it means that it’s required to fill this in. Note that you will only find this event in your own Calendar. It will not appear in the public Word calendar. You can choose to make the event private (only you can see it) or you can share it by emailing the listing to up to five people at a time anywhere in the world (be sure to separate each email address from the next with a comma). Back to top What is a portfolio and how many can I make? — Think of portfolios as collections of works (pictures, videos, sound files) that you put together in one place for easy viewing. artCloud portfolios allow you to take the works on your computer and place copies of them on artCloud for viewing and storage. When you copy these works, you are not deleting them from your computer. You can make as many portfolios as you’d like and include as many works as you’d like. Back to top What kinds of files can I upload and how big can files be? — For pictures, you can upload jpegs, pngs and gifs. These files must be 5 megabytes or less. For videos, you an upload .mov, .mp2, .mp3, .mp4, .wmv, and .avi files (Hi-Def formats are not supported at this time). These files must be 10 megabytes or less. For sound files, you can upload .wav, .mp3, and .wma files. These files must be 5 megabytes or less. You can also upload PDF files (.pdf) up to 5 megabytes each. Back to top How do I create portfolios and upload files to my portfolios? — After you log in to artCloud, you use your pointing device to go to My artCloud in the navigation bar at the top of the artCloud screen, then to My portfolios under My artCloud. Click on this link to the portfolios area. Click on the portfolios icon, then you’ll get a box in which you type the name of the portfolio you want to create, add a statement about it if you want (it’s not required), and click on “Browse” to find the location on your computer of the image you’d like to be associated with the portfolio. When you’ve done this, click on the “Save” button. This will create the portfolio. Then you click on “Add work,” which you’ll see below the portfolio image, to add the works you’d like to the portfolio. You can add as many works as you want. You can delete, print, and view the image at a larger size. You can also rename your portfolio, if you want to change the name you originally gave it. You can also change the image that you used for the portfolio's cover. If the work is a video, you can play the video by clicking on “View Larger” from the Options menu below the image of the video in your portfolio. The video will appear with player controls underneath it. You can create as many portfolios as you like. Back to top What about copyright protection of my works on artCloud? — Every time you upload a work to artCloud, you are given a choice of different Creative Commons licenses to protect your ownership of the work. We believe that Creative Commons offers the most flexible and enlightened approach to copyright. Once you’ve selected a specific license, a symbol indicating that license appears on the artCloud page that shows the larger view of the image and gives details about the work. Please go to the Creative Commons website to gain a full understanding of their licenses. Back to top Does artCloud charge members to create portfolios? — No, artCloud does not charge members to create portfolios. Back to top How do I find portfolios on artCloud? — You can find a directory of all public portfolios on the site by clicking on Portfolios on the left side of the artCloud screen under Explore. You can also go to member’s profiles and click on “View portfolios” on the upper right side of the profile. Once you’ve added friends to My friends (in the My artCloud area of artCloud), you’ll see a link to “View portfolios” there, too. Back to top How do I view images in portfolios? — To view the images in your own portfolios, go to My artCloud in artCloud’s navigation bar at the top of the artCloud screen, then underneath My artCloud, go to My portfolios. You can see your portfolios here and create new ones. To see other people’s portfolios, click on their profile either by clicking on the images in Featured Works or Newest Members on the home page or by clicking on one of the categories under Explore in the left column of artCloud, such as Newest, Most Popular or Artists A-Z. You will find a link to their portfolios there. You can also find a link to view portfolios in the Friends area, next to each friend you have listed under My friends. Back to top Can I print images in portfolios? — Yes, you can print images in portfolios by clicking on Options under each work in a portfolio and clicking on Print. Back to top Can I collect images from portfolios in my lightboxes? — Yes, you can. Open one of your lightboxes and simply drag and drop an image in a portfolio to your lightbox. (See Lightboxes in this document for information on how our lightboxes work.) Note: You cannot add works to other people’s lightboxes, only to your own. Back to top What are lightboxes? — Lightboxes are a simple way to gather works that you want to see together that come from your own artCloud portfolios or from other people’s portfolios. You can include pictures, videos or sound files in a lightbox. Lightboxes are ideal for seeing the way works look together and creating narratives of images—perfect for planning shows and installations of works. Back to top How do I open and close lightboxes? — When you first enter artCloud, you’ll see the expanded view of the lightbox, showing your most recently created lightbox. On the lefthand side is a + symbol in a circle. Click on this to minimize your lightbox. The + symbol will become a - symbol. This minimized lightbox will always be on the bottom of the artCloud screen. Whenever you want to open it, click on the - symbol in the circle and the lightbox will expand. Back to top What can I put in my lightboxes? — Any picture, video or sound file can be added to a lightbox. Back to top How do I create a lightbox? — On the lefthand side of the lightbox, you’ll see the words “Create new lightbox.” Click on this phrase and a box will instantly appear. Type in what you want to title the lightbox and if you want it to be seen by everybody (public) or make it private so that only you can see it or the people you invite to see it can. This new lightbox will now appear in the lightbox area at the bottom of the screen. Whenever you are viewing your own portfolios or viewing other people’s portfolios, you can drag an image of a work to your lightbox by clicking on it, holding down your mouse button and dragging it to your lightbox. You can delete works from your lightboxes by clicking on “Remove” under the image. Back to top How do I look through all the images in my lightbox and what happens when I click on an image of a work in a lightbox? — You can click on the arrows on either side of the lightbox to scroll through all the works in the lightbox. When you click on an image of a work in the lightbox, you will go to that work in its portfolio on artCloud. From here you can view it or print it if it’s a picture. If it’s a video or sound file, you can play it. Back to top Will everyone see my lightboxes or can I make them private? — When you first create your lightboxes, you have the choice to make them private or public. If you choose public, everyone on artCloud will see them. If you make them private, only you or the people you invite to see them will be able to view them. Back to top Can I share a lightbox with someone else? — Under the title of your lightbox, you can click on “Share.” This will bring up a box in which you can invite others to view a lightbox that you have created. Only the people you have invited will be able to see the lightbox, add works to it, and rearrange the works in it. (See How do I create a lightbox? in this section about how to add works to a lightbox and how to rearrange them.) Back to top How do I see other people’s lightboxes? — Click on “View all lightboxes.” You will get a new screen with all the public lightboxes on artCloud. You can click on the screen number at the bottom right of the screen to see each succeeding screen of lightboxes. Back to top What are ratings? — In artCloud you can rate the works that people display in their portfolios, as well as the lightboxes they’ve created. This is an easy way to quickly get a sense of what the artCloud community considers to be the most popular works and lightboxes. It’s also a great tool if you are collaborating privately with someone else (another curator or a collector, for example) and want to rank the works that most interest you in a lightbox. Let’s say that you’re working on an exhibition or competition. With the ratings tool, you can let the people you’re working with instantly know which works you feel are the strongest and which seem less significant to you. Back to top How do ratings work? — We have created a five star rating system. You simply put your mouse over the stars (from left to right for one star or more) and move your pointer over the number of stars you want to rate the work. Remember that you cannot rate your own works in your portfolios. Only others can rate them. You also need to be logged in as a user to rate works. Ratings for an entire portfolio or lightbox are based on the ratings for each work in the portfolio or lightbox. Back to top What are Terms of Use? — When you go down to the bottom of artCloud’s screens, you’ll see a link to Terms of Use. Terms of Use describe what is appropriate and legal activity and behavior on artCloud. We want artCloud to be a friendly, congenial, professional community and the Terms of Use will tell you what we think makes for great citizenship on artCloud and what isn’t. Back to top How does artCloud protect my privacy? — We want to make sure that you feel completely comfortable on artCloud and that your privacy is protected. At the bottom of artCloud’s screens, you’ll see a link to Privacy Policy. This is where you’ll find all the details relating to the privacy of your information on artCloud, including registration and profiles, what information we collect, cookies, links, third-party advertising, and security. Back to top |
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