Online Photo Sharing - Staying Connected to Family and Friends

Your kids are growing up faster than ever. Seems like they are doing something new every day. Your toddler just learned to "toddle". Or perhaps you've just attended your seniors graduation. Being the good digital camera owner that you are you've diligently recorded all these events. Now it's time to use an online photo sharing service and get your pictures out to your family and friends. Keep them up to date on what's going on in your life.

If you do a search for online photo sharing you'll see there's way too many of them. Flickr, Smugmug, Ofoto, dotPhoto, Ritzpix, Shutterfly, Pbase, Google Web Albums. The list goes on and on. Deciding which one to use comes down to one simple question. Do you need (want) to make prints from these images? If so, you'll want to select the right service.

All of the online photo sharing sites share a fairly common feature set.

• You can set up a free account. You may be limited to the number of photos uploaded or how long they are stored.
• Photos can be sorted into different albums
• You can share the albums with others
• You can add captions or descriptions to photos and/or albums
• You can view an online slideshow of all images in an album

A number of sites give you the capability to print the photos. Ofoto and Shutterfly will mail the prints to you, but Ritzpix, Wal-Mart and other national chains let you order online and pick up your prints at a local store. So, you can upload your pictures and email Grandma a link to them. She goes online and selects a number of them to print. The online photo service sends the order to her local store and she picks them up. How cool is that!

Digital cameras and online photo sharing sites have certainly changed how we stay connected with family and friends. Instead of waiting days or weeks for photos to arrive in the mail you only have to wait a few minutes for an email. After placing an online order for local pickup most companies will have them done in an hour or two.

Try out some of the photo sharing websites mentioned in this article. Get a free account, send 5-10 photos and play around with the various features. Find one you like and enjoy this wonderful technology.

NOTE: For printing, you'll want to send good quality images. You don't need full 6-10 MP files; half of that is fine. For online viewing, 640x480 or 800x600 is preferred. Smaller files will transmit faster and take less space in your free account.

Copyright © 2007 Karl Peschel