Best Bets for Photo Sharing Sites - stopscoperfell

How do you share your photos? When I was a kid, "photo sharing" frequently meant sitting in a photo Booth and then bountiful away the picture strip that it produced. (See how to make a modern, digital version by reading "Bi Your Digital Pictures into a Exposure Strip.") Of course, these days, the easiest elbow room to share photos is by posting them online at a pic sharing web site.

And there is no shortage of such sites, either; I've wasted track of how many photo joint sites countenance you Wiley Post your snapshots online. So this week, I've rounded skyward my five favorites. Any one of these sites can host your pic collection and help you share them with friends and family. They're non all equal, though; some are free, some aren't, and a couple provide premium features that make it worth paying a little cash.

Flickr

Fifty-fifty if you only know photo sharing sites in passing, you certainly know Flickr. It's classify of suchlike the YouTube of photos–a massively popular clearinghouse for everyone's photo collections.

The most common right smart to use Flickr is with a loos account, though the free version of Flickr is almost painfully restrictive, especially if you are an enthusiastic photographer who posts much of photos. You can upload 300MB worth of photos each calendar month–depending upon the size of your photos, that's perhaps 100 photos–though only your most recent 200 photos are visible at some given moment. Moreover, entirely low-resolution versions of those images can be downloaded from the Web site. Flickr ne'er discards anything, though; if you bear the $25 annual fee for a Pro account, your page instantly "lights up" with all the photos you've antecedently uploaded, and the pear-shaped sizes are available as advisable.

Flickr allows you to upload video clips, but the website treats video the like that cousin you never really likable. You can upload just two videos per month for free, and for each one one must be under 90 seconds and 150MB or less. A pro account lets you post HD video, but the 90-second time restrain remains.

Completely that said, Flickr is extremely fashionable and has an active drug user community. If you post photos that are eventide remotely interesting, you're sure to get unrequested feedback from an hot biotic community telling you how awesome your photography is. And sharing photos with friends and family is a snap, which is what makes this site everyone's go-to photo sharing service.

500px

I've recently become a magnanimous fan of 500px. While it has around for a while, it recently got a major facelift and is getting attention A if it were brand new. The site is simply gorgeous, both in the presentation of your photos and in the quality of work that you'll find here. This ISN't the sort of place where you'll want to upload all the photos from your camera in bulk (as many people seem to do on Flickr). Rather, 500px is like that hallway aside your front door where you advert your favorite photos.

There are two kinds of accounts at 500px: a free version that allows you to upload high to 20 photos per week, and a subscription version for $50/year that has none photo or bandwidth limits. The subscription interlingual rendition also has a slew of other goodies that are great for exposure enthusiasts and pros, like custom domains and customizable page designs.

Effusive feedback from the 500px community is far less common than on Flickr; to cost honest, 500px users have somewhat higher aesthetic standards, and the boilersuit quality of photos on 500px is so much higher that there's more competition for kudos from your peers. But if you're so inclined, you can build portfolios hither of your finest photos and share them with the people WHO thing to you.

SmugMug

I have few affirmative photographer friends who absolutely swear past SmugMug. Let's face information technology: Compared to Flickr, almost whatsoever website looks attractive. SmugMug has long been a site that knows how significant aesthetics are to creative folks like photographers.

Don't look to SmugMug if you want free photo sharing; none of its tiers of service are gratuitous. A Basic account costs $35/year and includes straight-out photo uploads. The Business leader design adds a attribute orbit, the ability to protect photos from being downloaded, and unlimited HD videos for $55. At that place's also a $145/year Pro program that includes a store to sell your photos and former goodies.

That said, SmugMug is the place to pass if you wishing fine-tuned control o'er the photos you share online. You can by selection publish SmugMug photos to Facebook or share via electronic mail, for example, as well as embed them in Web sites and blogs. You can protect your photos from downloads and establish portfolios to sell them online. SmugMug backs awake your files so you can e'er recover them in case of catastrophe.

Zenfolio

Looking for a photo sharing site that offers professional-level features like SmugMug, but costs just a bit less? Zenfolio might be the right tasty for you. Equivalent SmugMug, Zenfolio has no completely free option (by from the 14-day loose trial), but you can get the Basic design (2GB of storage addition an additional gigabyte every year you're with the service) for vindicatory $25/yr. The Unlimited plan is better for enthusiasts: $50/year buys you unlimited storage, HD video support, and a custom domain name. Pros can pay a premium for additional plans with high-ending features.

Umpteen of Zenfolio's key out features are built about serious photographers. The site has tools for stage setting improving online stores for your photos, for example. Enthusiasts will love the customizable themes that give your portfolios a distinctive look up to and the plug-in this makes it simplified to upload pictures directly from Adobe brick Lightroom.

Snapfish

Eventually, Snapfish has been around for a long time–I initiatory wrote virtually this photograph share-out locate back or so 2001. IT is completely unrestrained, with absolutely untrammelled photo storage. That said, the web site's photo sharing service exists mainly just to support an online printing concern, thus Snapfish maintains your photo collection only on the condition that you now and again purchase something. Assume't take in any prints, photograph books, or photo gifts at the least once a year, and your photos might be disappeared.

A lot of folk computer memory their photos on Snapfish, but it seems to me that this really lonesome makes sense if you use Snapfish's impression services frequently. (Suchlike Shutterfly, Zazzle, and similar sites, Snapfish offers a broad collection of services and products, from prints to clothing to photo gifts.) The photo drift presentation is a bit functional and doesn't put your photos in the best easy. That aforesaid, Snapfish has some cool off sharing tools you won't discovery elsewhere, like private "rooms" where you can buoy schmoose and share photos with select friends and menag.

Hot Pic of the Hebdomad

Get published, get famous! Each workweek, we select our favorite reader-submitted photo supported creativity, originality, and technique.

Here's how to enter: Send us your photograph in JPEG data format, at a resolution nary higher than 800 by 600 pixels. Entries at high resolutions will be immediately disqualified. If obligatory, use an image editing political program to keep down the file size of your image before e-mailing it to us. Include the title of your photograph along with a short description and how you photographed it. Don't forget to send your name, e-mail address, and postal handle. Ahead entering, please learn the full description of the contest rules and regulations.

This week's Hot Pic: "In the Everglades" aside Lester F. Shalloway, Salt Lake City, Utah

Lester shot this photo while traveling the Everglades, along the Anhinga Trail. Atomic number 2 used a Canon Eos Rise T1i with his lens system set to well-nig 150mm.

This week's blue runner-up: "Night Theater" by Chris Opfell, Los Angeles, Calif.

Chris writes: "This is a photo of the now boarded-up Los Angeles Theater. I shot it in large daylight and then enhanced it to look like nighttime in Photoshop."

To see last month's winners, visit our November Hot Pics slide show. Natter the Hot Pics Flickr gallery to browse past winners.

Have a digital photo query? Netmail me your comments, questions, and suggestions just about the newssheet itself. And be sure to signalise up to stimulate Digital Center e-mailed to you each week.