Sharing photos online is easy and free!
You can create an online photo album in 5 minutes
Stop feeling guilty about not sending photos to everyone on your list.
Online photo albums are one of the easiest ways to share photos.
You can upload pictures in a matter of minutes and when family and friends want prints, they can place the order themselves.
Posting photos in an online album is even better than email because large photos can clog the inbox of family and friends, but a link to your photo album makes it easy for them to see any collection of images you want to share.
Steps to posting your photos online:
1. Choose one of the online photo album Web site services, such as Shutterfly.com (fast and easy), .Mac (for Macintosh users), and Flickr.com (if you have tons of pictures).
2. All online photo sites require a short registration form to set up a free account.
3. Once your account is created, you can create an album by uploading images from your hard drive. Just click on the Upload button and choose the pictures you want to share.
4. As soon as your pictures are uploaded, you can give access to family and friends with an email message (And you can require passwords to ensure privacy.)
5. After a few minutes of filling out the forms and uploading your pictures, you can email messages to friends and family with your user name and password, telling them where to find your photo album online.
Tip: Not only are online photo albums faster than email, you'll never overload anyone's inbox with attachments when all send them the address for your online photo album.)
6. Once your photos are online, you and anyone with access to your site, can order prints, personalized coffee cups, ornaments, and more (prices for these services vary).
Optional step: You can edit your pictures in a program such as Photoshop Elements before you upload them,. (Learn more aboutPhoto Editing.)
You can upload any digitized images, whether you take them with a digital camera, scan them into your computer, or receive them in email.
When you use the upload button on an online photo site, you first find and select the images you want from your hard drive. When you submit photos they are automatically added to your personal online photo album where you can preview them yourself before you share them with friends and family.
Share a Family Photo Site
We found having one online photo album the whole family can share is a perfect way to see the best of everyone's photo collections.
The beauty of the family photo site is that we can all upload photos from our various computers, and all view each other's images online -- we can even order prints and other goodies from any of our many collections.
When we get together with dueling digital cameras now, we're all set up to share them with each other right away, just by uploading them to our family photo site.
If you're looking for an easy way to share digital photos, try one of these free online photo album services:
Shutterfly.com (www.shutterfly.com): Similar to KodakGallery, Shutterfly makes it easy to post and share photos for free, offers simple photo editing tools, and sells printing services you can use to create a variety of gift items and prints. Shutterfly has an intuitive interface, and their specialized printing options enable you to turn your pictures into greeting cards, bound photo albums, personalized calendars, coffee mugs, t-shirts, or tote bags.
Flickr (www.flickr.com): Flickr is one the most sophisticated online photo sites, offering a wide range of services, including the ability to manage lots and lots of pictures in multiple personal albums. You also get more advanced options for adding captions and other text to your online album.
If you blog, you may appreciate Flickr's features that make it easy to add photos to a blog or online journal. You can even search through photos from other Flickr users and add their photos to your albums. (Sharing is optional; you can keep your own albums private or make any or all of your images viewable by anyone who uses the site.)
.Mac (www.apple.com/dotmac/): If you use an Apple Macintosh computer, you won't find an easier way to share photos than iPhoto and .Mac. Using iPhoto6 enables Mac users to create photocasts to share any photo album with friends and family. When you use this free service, your photos are automatically uploaded to .Mac and your friends and family receive an email with a special link. When they click the link, they automatically receive your photocast. Best of all, when you update your photos, your friends and family receive updates automatically.
Want to learn more about photo editing?
You'll find tips, tricks, and tutorials for saving, editing, and protecting your precious family photos in our Protect and preserve family photos section.
Build a Family Web Site or Blog
Even if you plan to create a more complex Web site or blog later, you may want to set up an online photo album site because it's one of the fastest and easiest ways to put photos online, and you can always link your online photo album to your family site later. If you want to know more about more advanced Web design options, read our Web Design section.
