I know it is Wednesday, but I spent Techy Tuesday at the Zoo with my oldest. I am sure you understand. Lately, the issue of how to share digital pictures has come up over and over again. I wish I were better at sharing pics….but, like with everything else life often gets in the way. I do, however, have a few ideas of some easy ways to get those pictures out to friends and family.
I am unapologetically a Mac person, but most of these ideas can be used with a PC too.
First, if you do not know what Flickr is…..click the link now….did you click on it?…seriously…it will change your life. It is a great way to store, organize and share photographs with all levels of security. Plus, with Flickr you can utilize the fun Flickr Toys for a little creative touch.
I also use iPhoto and Mobile Me all the time. (I have read that PC users can download Photo Gallery for Windows Live for free….some even say it is better than iPhoto….but, I don’t believe it. I am sure it is *fine.) In iPhoto I organize my photos, in theory, primarily by event. It is organized by date automatically. Then I set up Album’s for everything I am working on. My favorite thing about iPhoto is the ability to download a simple plugin that allows you to send pictures, by batch, to Flickr, Mobile Me, Facebook, EMail, etc. LOVE IT!!!! So, for example, if you send some pictures to Facebook via iPhoto….you can easily find the album and edit, etc. at any time.
The way that I prefer to share pictures is via Mobile Me. Here is how….straight from the Mobile Me website….
Your MobileMe gallery has a great way for your family and friends to view and share holiday photos in one place, whether they are celebrating under the same roof or in a different country. You simply set up a new album in your gallery and enable all of MobileMe’s sharing features. Then everyone can participate right on the web.
Simply log in to me.com/gallery. Click the “+” button at the bottom to create an album and check all the options under Allow to enable others to download and upload photos to your album. After creating the album, copy the link at the top right and send it to everyone in your holiday circle.
Again, you have a several security options to keep personal photos private or password protected.
I am pretty sure you can do this via Windows Live in much the same way, but I have never tried that.
I have used services like Kodak Gallery, Snapfish, Shutterfly, etc to share pictures. I like these services for some things like the huge amount of photos you can save basically creating an additional backup. (Now, many of these services require you to purchase a certain number of prints to use their storage, but usually this is minimal.) I also like these services to share prints. The downside is that it is very difficult and sometimes not even possible to download a photograph in its original size and quality. The one really cool thing about Shutterfly is that you can set it up to add pictures to other people’s galleries. This is a great way to share pictures from a trip or a single event.
Now, if I could just get all of my photos organized, I could share with everyone!!! But, that is for another day.
So, how do you share you pictures digitally?
