Choosing an online photo service

By Esther Schindler

In the last article, I explained what online photo sites can do for you, and why you might want to use them. It's time now to get down to business: choosing the one that's right for you. What specific features should you look for? And which are most appropriate for your personal level of technical sophistication?

By and large, every one of the online photo sites accomplishes the same goal. Each lets you upload a collection of digital photos, and they make it easy (or at least it's supposed to be easy) to share them with other people. They also let you (that is, encourage you) to order prints of your photographs, and perhaps other customized items.

But, naturally, few sites stop there. Each site has its own unique features to make you choose that company instead of one of the other dozens -- perhaps hundreds -- available. Sometimes, the "extras" are the special attention they invest in making the process easy for computing novices, or maybe they're fancy tools to add bubbles or comic-book style captions to the photos. Other times, the site has unique capabilities to link your photos to other sites and to help you participate in a public community.

It can get confusing in a hurry. To make it easier for you to choose a site that works for you, I separate the sites into two categories: the basic sites, and what I call "sparklers" -- sites that offer something more. You might not need more, but it's fun to know what's available.

First, we’ll look at the basic process that's common to each site. Then, I'll explain what those "sparkler" features are, and I'll give you my personal recommendations.

The Basic Process
Each site requires you to create an account before you can upload photos. Creating an account is usually very simple. It generally means that you provide the site with your e-mail address and a password.

Step One: Upload Photos
Clean up the pictures before you copy them to the Internet using the software that came with your camera or with whichever desktop application you're most comfortable. A few sites, such as kodakgallery.com and clark.com, have enhancement tools to eliminate red-eye or to brighten the image. A good, basic and free program that can help edit your photos is Irfanview. Also, you can use your desktop software to save the files in a smaller size; they won't be as sharp as the photo stored on your camera, but they'll display faster.

 
 Kodak's EasyShare site lets you choose several files before you start sending them.

The most time-consuming part of the process is getting the photos from your computer to the Internet photo site. To do so, you identify the images you want to transfer, and then tell the site to upload them. ("Upload" sounds technical, but it just means "send it up the line.") Then you wait, because, even with a high-speed connection, uploading a set of 30 pictures can take several minutes.

On most sites, you also identify whether these photos are to be private (only people to whom you send invitations can see them) or public (shared with everyone on the Internet).

Step Two: Share Photos

Your albums show a "thumbnail" image of each photo. You can view them one-by-one or watch a slideshow.

Take a few moments to admire your album, once you have it stored on the site. Experiment with the things you can do, such as watching a slideshow. It sure beats setting up the old slide projector and hanging a sheet over the window.

You may be prompted to add captions or tags, depending on the site you use. These aren't always necessary, and it can get rather tedious to label everything. However, it's always nice to give the photo some sort of caption, for the same reason you'd scribble "Dave in Bar Harbor" on the back of a regular print. It can be especially important online, because your friends won't have you hovering over their shoulders to explain what they're looking at.

 
Each site lets you e-mail a link to your friends telling them about your album.

You can share the photos as soon as you have the photos stored in your album. Each site has some sort of "share this album with others" link, though you sometimes have to hunt around to find it. You can either type in an e-mail address or create a list of people with whom you regularly share photos.

Step Three: Order Prints
Most of these sites make their money by selling you photographic prints, mouse pads, or anything else that can conceivably sport a picture, from postage stamps to DVD slideshows. Sometimes, they can sometimes come on a little strong, but many of the items are dangerously compelling. The sites all make it very easy to order products -- gosh, I wonder why? -- so you're not very likely to get confused during this step. Though, as with any other service, you'll find quite a bit of variation in quality.

That's the absolute basics. If you're an uncertain beginner, I recommend that you start with a site that offers these functions, and don’t look for a lot more to begin with. Even so, you should read through the "extra" features that are available, just so you know what your path towards expertise will look like.

Sparkler Features
Earlier, I glossed over the process of uploading photos. That was necessary, because each site works slightly differently.

Uploading Sparklers
At Kodak's EasyShare, you add photos to a list, one by one, then click "upload" to copy them to the Internet in a big batch. That's fine if you have only a few pictures to share, but irritating if you returned from Europe with 200 shots from the Louvre. And it also means that you have to remember that IMG_0486.jpg was the photo you had in mind -- or was that the one in which Sam's eyes were closed?

Some sites have add-on programs you can install on your local computer (either Windows or Macintosh) to make the process a little easier. As one example, Photobucket.com uses a program called Flock that lets you drag-and-drop pictures and rearrange their order before you upload them. It's cool, and I think it makes Photobucket much easier to use, but it does add another layer of complexity to the process; you do have to learn yet another application. My Photo Album gets points here for streamlining the upload process without adding extra software; it even lets you upload an entire folder at a time.

These sites all work with Macintosh computers, but Windows gets most of the "extras." For example, Webshots.com offers features that make the uploading process faster if you happen to use Microsoft's Internet Explorer browser on Windows. Kodak's site also offers a program for Mac users (as well as Windows users) to bulk upload photos.

Among the exceptions are Picasa, which offers a free downloadable tool, which works within iPhoto (and also on PCs). Mac users also should be aware of Apple's own online service, .Mac, which lets users share photos (as well as other cool things); yet, .Mac isn't free. Macintosh users can also buy prints and printed albums through a connection to the Apple Store that is built into iPhoto and the quality is quite good.

Tags And Label Sparklers
As I mentioned, you might want to add some descriptive text before you share your photos, as well as the tags we mentioned in the previous article. Flickr.com, recently acquired by Yahoo!, really encourages you to attach descriptions and tags to your photos. That's a good idea, since you'll forget what IMG803.JPG was about long before the next vacation.

Most sites show you the images in a "photo album" that at least vaguely resembles the physical books where you stuff snapshots (and intend, surely you do, to organize the contents). Some sites take a different approach -- at least as an option -- by giving you the text suitable for cutting and pasting into other Web sites. (Formally, these are called URLs.) If you're a beginner, you may be more comfortable with the "album" approach.)

Some sites, such as Webshots, give you the Web link where your photos will appear suitable for cutting and pasting. That's handy if it's what you had in mind, but may be disconcerting to beginners.

Some sites present images outside the "album" format, which can be confusing. Most such sites, such as Webshots, expect their (more tech-savvy) users will want to immediately grab the Web address of a specific image, and use it in a Weblog (blog) entry or in a "social networking" site. If these features confuse you -- and hey, they can sometimes confuse me -- then stick with a simpler site, for now.

Some sites let you annotate images in innovative ways.

Bubbleshare adds a lot of bells and whistles -- literally. Want to record audio notes to accompany a photo? Insert a comic-strip bubble? It's just a few clicks.

Some Day My Prints Will Come
Every site lets you order print copies of your images. I've ordered from only a few of them myself. Even with my limited experience, I discovered that print quality could be quite good, particularly if you want something a little more timeless than snapshots from the local drugstore counter.

However, if you want more than the basics, you may need to do some site shopping. We took a stunning photo of the Mosel River in Germany, which after cropping and image manipulation was very wide but not very tall. We ordered a large print (suitable for the dining room wall) from Snapfish; it arrived promptly, but they cropped the image to fit the standard sizes of photo paper. If it wasn't 8x10, 11x14, etc., Snapfish couldn't handle it. (At least we learned their customer service was cheerful.) Yet, Kodak EasyShare managed the same task without a fuss.

As a result, if you do plan to generate a lot of non-standard photos, upload one or two images to each of several sites and get a "test print" from each service.

Making a Choice
Some sites work hard to keep everything simple. They don't load you down with "fancy" stuff that you won't need. If all you want is a simple site that lets you upload a couple of photos, print a favorite picture from your vacation, or share an album with Grandma, then stick with Kodak EasyShare (my first choice), My Photo Album (which gets the "dead easy" nomination) or Snapfish (with some reluctance after that cropping experience). These three "basic" sites won't distract you with features you won't use anyway.

If the basics have already become ho-hum, and you're still mainly interested in sharing photos, then I encourage you to check out Bubbleshare. In some ways it's silly to add all those sound effects, but I had a lot of fun using them. If I wanted to send out a really special Halloween party invitation, I'd head straight here.

What if all you want is to create snazzy photo albums and other "printed" material? The "basic" sites I mention above are a good place to start, but you have a lot more options. Several sites focus less on sharing the photos online than in creating physical albums, such as the aforementioned iPhoto feature. You might also want to check out Blurb (www.blurb.com/create/book), which lets you create actual books such as cookbooks (and then sell them through the site). But that's a tangent from our "sharing online" focus.

If you're already poking around with blogging, or starting your own site on a "social networking" site such as MySpace, then you might want to adopt a site that makes it simple to copy images back-and-forth. I've grown most accustomed to Flickr, because so many of my friends use it, but it's hard to give a very specific recommendation; you'll probably enjoy the experience of uploading a few photos to the sites I mentioned here and exploring the capabilities of each.

As you explore these sites, you'll discover many more things you can do besides show off Leah's wedding pictures. From creating communities of people who share dog pictures, to searching for tagged images, to creating filmstrip collages, you'll have plenty to keep you busy, even if that’s simply sharing with your friends.