Say Cheese: An Introduction to Sharing Photos Online

You've just returned from vacation with a digital camera stuffed full of photos. And, wow! Some of these look pretty good! But your family is spread all over the country. To show Aunt Molly what the new Busch Stadium looks like, you'll have to send the pictures electronically.

But wait -- don't reach for your e-mail program. Even if you have a high-speed connection that makes downloading big files easy, you can't assume that all of your friends and relatives have equally fast access. Besides, e-mail is a good way to send files, but it isn't a very good way to share them. For example, an e-mail message doesn't have any way for you to arrange the photos; they're displayed haphazardly. And it's hard to include a caption, such as, "Can you believe this baby is so bald?"

Many better options are available, which are just as easy to use -- and they're free!
Several online services let you copy your digital photos to the Internet, and then display the photos to the world … or to only a few of your chosen friends. Instead of dumping megabytes of images into someone's inbox, you send your sister an e-mail message with a link to your "Trip to the Metropolitan Museum" photo album, and she can look at the photos at her leisure. Most of the sites help you send out that e-mail message, too, to make it even simpler.

NOTE: Above, I described these as services -- not as software. A software application is something that is copied to the hard disk on your local computer. When you run a program on your computer, it stays just on that system unless you explicitly send it elsewhere (such as e-mail). If you use another computer system, that application isn't available. With services that run on a Web site, you can access the information from anywhere. It isn't necessary to go into the details comparing services-versus-software here; just trust me that for photo sharing, the Web site is the right way to go.

The Point And Shoot Approach
Dozens of sites let you share your photos online, and most competitors have basic features in common. You organize the photos in albums, just like the books you have stacked in your family room. Then you tell your friends how to get to the album; all of these sites have a "share this album" option that makes the process easy.

The invited visitor can view the pictures one-by-one, or see a slideshow. You usually can add photo captions (the text that you'd scribble on the back: "Dad at the family reunion, 2006"). Some sites enable people to leave comments, so your friends can sign your guest book: "What a pretty quilt you made!"

Nearly every site gives you the ability to order high-quality photographs from the pictures you posted. That’s an easy way to get an 8x10 glossy of your favorite vacation snapshot for your living room wall, and your visitors can order copies, too. (Ah, so that's how they make their money! But really, the prices aren’t bad.) Plus, most sites let you order other specialty items, such as coffee mugs with the kitten's picture, holiday cards, or a calendar that commemorates the office Halloween party. You can even get photographic postage stamps, enabling you to send wedding invitations with the couple's engagement photo on the envelope.

This may be all you want: an easy way to distribute the pictures from the baby's first birthday party to a private list of friends and family. If Grandma loves a particular photo, she can order a tote bag with Baby's face splashed across the front. Among the sites that are particularly good for these needs include Kodak's EasyShare, Snapfish, and My Photo Album. They keep the process very simple. However, some are better suited for PCs running Windows; Macintosh users may need to do investigating here. There are sites run by Apple as well: .Mac lets users share photos, and exchange files, but there is a cost to join. Macintosh users are also able to buy prints right through a connection to the Apple Store available via the iPhoto program.

Sharing Beyond Grandma
Depending on your photographic skills and personal interests, you might want to make your photos visible to people beyond friends and family. If you're proud of the photo you took of the Grand Canyon, why show it only to people you already know? Share pictures of the model trains you scratch-built, or the quilts you designed. People who share your interests, worldwide, will want to look at them, too. Really, you'd be surprised.

Some photo sites offer extra features for people who want to share photos publicly, or who want to look at pictures that others posted. One of these features is relatively new, called "tags." You don't have to use these -- they're easy to ignore -- but tags can be pretty neat. For example, if you use a few descriptive words about each photo ("persian cat" or "London Eye"), they become easier for other people to find. For example, with a site that you make public to the world, a fellow enthusiast can type in "n-scale locomotive" and find the picture of your recent accomplishment.

The sites with bells-and-whistles also give you additional ways to arrange and display photos. Instead of a simple slideshow, you can add a holiday theme, create a visual collage, display small images as tiny "thumbnails," or annotate the photo with your recorded voice. In other words, you can start simple, and then get more creative as you get more comfortable with what's available.

If you've been exploring "social networking" sites, such as MySpace or de.lico.us, you'll definitely want to explore some of these features, including the ability to specify your "friends" and upload photos and identify particular keywords that others can search for. A growing number of photo sites have created some way to connect the images you upload to their service to work with others. So even if you're reluctant to torture the relatives with your vacation travelogue, you can use these sites as an always-available repository for your own Web design or Weblog.

You have plenty of options to choose from when you look for a public photo site. Among the sites to explore are Flickr, Webshots, and Photobucket -- though there are many more to choose from. Choosing the best online photo service can be tricky, but it's not impossible.

For now, though, you should have enough to get started with the simple choices -- showing off a few pictures to friends -- and to have a sense of what you can accomplish once you become adept with photo-sharing sites.

By Esther Schindler, Writer for Digital Landing