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Sharing Digital Photos and Pictures online..You've got that digital camera, you take photos everyday now, and instead of ending up with albums and shoeboxes filled with printed photos, you end up with a computer filled with digital pictures. How do you get the most out of those images? How do you let others enjoy them and access them? The answer is online photo sharing services. These services allow you to upload your digital photos and store them on their servers. You can set up your own albums, crop photos, adjust colors, etc. Then you give your family and friends the URL to visit to see the albums, anytime, anywhere. Grandparents in Mexico? No problem, now they can see all your latest photos just minutes after you shoot and upload them. So how does it all work? Let's take a look at some of the leading services.
SmugmugSmugmug is generally considered to be the best online photo album / sharing site, and it comes at a price - starting at $29 per year to be exact. But for that price, you get no obtrusive ads to bother you and your visitors, a simple, clean interface, and the best color prints. They store all your photos on 2 backup servers, so your digital images are safe - you can even order a backup DVD or CD with permanent copies of all your photos. Most people keep copies of their photos on their computer so this is not usually an issue. They offer unlimited storage, and allow you to upload images up to 8MB in file size - that's a big photo! You can organize your photos into as many albums as you like, and your visitors can browse at their leisure or watch a slideshow.
Yahoo PhotosYahoo Photos doesn't measure up to Smugmug in terms of user interface (LOTS of ads) or ease of use, but it is free, which is just the right price for a lot of people. They let you share your photos via email, online albums, and even using Yahoo Messenger, which is a popular chat software many people use. They have an easy drag and drop upload feature that lets you quickly send over a whole folder full of your digital images. For $3 bucks a month, you can also connect your cell phone to Yahoo Pictures and save all the images you snap online and share them with your friends.Snapfish Digital PicturesThe Snapfish (now owned by HP) service is free, and offers the standard mix of albums, slideshows, etc. However, it also comes with a lot of ads clogging up the user experience. A number of reviewers complain that their photo prints are not the best possible quality - we personally like Ofoto (see below). If you're just looking to print out low-cost prints, check it out. But not the top choice for online photo albums and sharing.Ofoto Online Photo Printing and SharingOfoto (owned by Kodak) offers unlimited storage and is free, with a minimum of ads - an all around good choice. Visitors do not need to register to view your photos, which is another big plus. They also offer drag and drop uploads, making it easy to send over 100 photos quickly (although you will probably need hi-speed internet access fo uploading to all of these services, as digital photos can be quite large). You can add comments to your photos as you organize them into albums, and your visitors can enjoy a slideshow without much effort. They also have a cool email system for quickly sharing a hot photo with your friends with just a mouse click.Faces Digital Photo SharingFaces is a newer entry to the pack, allowing free sharing of photos, scrapbooking, etc. They also let you upload your cellphone pictures easily. Worth checking out.
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