Share family photos on the web instead of email

By Rick Castellini Special to PRIME Digital cameras now outnumber film cameras by a four-to-one ratio. If you factor in camera phones, the number rockets even further. Also, digital camera resolution (clarity and detail) has quadrupled in the past five years. The most common method of sharing digital photos is via email, but with the volume and quality of photos taken going up, emailing photos becomes less useful and practical. One reason emailing photos is losing its luster is that many recipients do not know how to save, organize and/or print the photos. This leads to jam-packed email inboxes with no efficient way of finding the photos cousin Larry sent from last spring's family reunion. Advantages of online photosharing Fortunately, technology offers a solution for this issue; online photo sharing. Online photo sharing doesn't require much more effort than emailing photos, but offers distinctive advantages: Instant organization by topic and event. Photos available from any computer. Recipients can choose to download the photos or order prints and other items from the photo sharing site. Photos are automatically backed up. Account information can be shared so family members can all upload and organize their photos at one location, if desired. Fun and practical photo gifts are always a click away. Most online photo sharing sites have no membership fees and offer generous storage space at no cost. The companies hope you will share your albums with all your friends and family so they can sell more prints and photo gifts. Everyone wins in this scenario. Using a service to print your photos can save you as much as 50 percent compared to printing at home. If you choose to create photo books or other gifts with your photos, you will have a high-quality treasure that can easily become a family heirloom. For strict photo sharing, the most popular spot on the web is Yahoo's Flickr, at flickr.com www.flicker.com . Flickr currently hosts more than 2 billion photos for free. You choose whether the online albums you set up are private and viewable only by family and friends you invite, or open to the public. All the online photo sharing sites offer you the option of private versus public albums. Flickr makes it easy to upload and maintain a photo-sharing site, but ordering prints and other photo products from it isn't quite as easy. I started using Shutterfly.com about five years ago. I've also dabbled in others online album sites, but found I absolutely love the tools and products available at Shutterfly. Their prints and print products are gorgeous and easy to create. After each of our vacations or family events, we upload between 100-200 of our favorite digital photos to share with all our family and friends. Then we create a Shutterfly photo book to commemorate the trip or event and stack those books on our coffee table where they are leafed through much more often than our old photo albums. Shutterfly provides a truly remarkable service and options with regards to storing, sharing, and printing your digital photos. Sites to try However, Shutterfly isn't the only service on the web. www.Snapfish.com, www.Photobucket.com, and www.SmugMug.com are all good services to try as well. As the holidays approach, you will be taking hundreds of digital photos. This year, don't email just a few of those photos to your friends; upload them to a photo sharing site where anyone can visit them at any time. Online photo sharing saves you time and money and also frees up your friend's and family's inboxes. The fact that uploading your photos offers instant organization and backup is just icing on the cake. Rick Castellini is an author, computer consultant, and hosts a nationally syndicated computer radio show from Colorado. Visit his web site at www.HelpMeRick.com for new tips every week and sign up for his free weekly email newsletter.