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Comment by Smudge | Hacker News Reader

Why would you need gallery pages for an API?

Wouldn't it make more sense to just use something like S3 to store raw files?

It would make the most sense to store nothing. As far as I can tell, it doesn't return a link to the filtered image or anything, just the binary. RAM would be the limiting factor here I think. The images would need to be decompressed to filter them (unless they're doing something very fancy).

Edit: welp, I totally didn't read the OP of this thread. Still, I think the storage costs outweigh the cost of just applying the filter each time. Also, people like to filter their own images. Nobody I know of shoves existing pictures into Instagram.

Maybe that was worded poorly:

What I meant was to have two galleries on IMGUR, ORIGINGAL and FILTERED.

The API should be used for applying the filters, but why build all the image hosting and gallery capabilities when IMGUR has solved that problem. Use IMGURs API to push the originals and filtered versions to the right spot.

Pay the $30 for the annual sub and you can have unlimited photos in your account.

I see. I still don't quite get how that addresses zupreme's idea, which had nothing to do with displaying galleries. He was suggesting that instafilter implement a potential performance optimization by caching images as they come in, so the same operations (to the same images) could be more quickly returned from any subsequent calls to the API.

In terms of leveraging IMGUR for hosting and gallery capabilities, yes that would work if all you need is a place to dump original and filtered photos. But my impression was that this API would be used by apps that integrate images into their existing service (whatever it might be). Imagine taking a picture in Instagram, choosing a filter, and being redirected to an IMGUR gallery with the result...

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