Picture this! Flip through online albums
Share your pictures instantly with family and friends
By Peter K. Burian
On a Saturday afternoon, Peter Little of Toronto attended a friend’s wedding and shot 200 digital photos. Less than 36 hours later, the wedding party received his e-mail invitation to view the 140 best images at an online photo-sharing album. They could even order prints of their favourite snaps.
“The online album concept is fantastic,” Little says. “It’s a great way to share images right away while people are still excited about a recent event.”
How do online albums work?
Instead of attaching an image or two to an e-mail message or devoting a lot of time to creating a family web page, you can join an online photo-sharing service to post entire albums on the Internet. The majority of these services offer free albums hoping to entice you to order prints. A few, such as SmugMug, are strictly album sites and offer some extra features that allow you to create photo projects, such as personal playing cards and cute mugs.
The entire process is simple and quick. Visit a photo-sharing web site, sign up for a free membership and read the instructions for posting photos. The uploading process on most sites walks you through each step.
If you plan to order prints online, check the guidelines on the site as to the recommended resolution, which depends on the intended print size. For 4” × 6” glossies, consider uploading JPEGs at 1024 × 1536 pixels (or higher) for best results. Sites will often automatically advise you if there is not enough resolution within your pictures for the larger sizes.
Most services also allow you to crop images and adjust factors such as brightness; a few let you correct red-eye, add special effects and borders and more. These features are useful if you don’t want to enhance images in advance with your own software. If you do choose to use your own software, Windows Live Photo Gallery offers a simple solution for basic photo editing, allowing you to easily correct red-eye, crop images and adjust colour and contrast.
Another easy way to share your photos is through a blog, such as Windows Live Spaces. Your Space is more than an online album — it’s your very own place to keep friends and family up to date on what you’re doing. And what better way to stay in touch than with photos?
Posting photos to your Windows Live Space is simple. After visiting the Windows Live Spaces homepage, choose to Create your space. Now the fun begins. Customize the colour and layout, share your thoughts in a blog and, of course, post countless favourite photos.
What are the limitations and the cost?
Some photo-sharing sites offer free storage space for albums, often without a specified limit on time or number of images. Flickr allows 100 MB of photos to be uploaded per month, while some services do charge a small fee for numerous images or for extended periods. Kodak EasyShare Gallery and Black’s Photo Centre both offer free storage as long as you make a purchase from the web site at least once every 12 months.
You can easily order prints online by opening Windows Photo Gallery and clicking on the picture you want to print. On the toolbar, click the arrow under the Print button and then click Order Prints. On the Select a Printing Company page, choose a company and click Send Pictures.
If you’d like to do more with your photos, some sites offer personalized greeting cards, posters, photo calendars, mugs, mouse pads and T-shirts. Prices vary substantially, so plan on comparison shopping. All charge a fee for shipping and handling.
For prints, sizes range from 4” × 6” to at least 12” × 18”. As a frequent user of Future Shop’s Future Photo and other online photo-sharing and ordering sites, Peter Little is sold on the concept. “In the past, when I was shooting film, I had to order two to three copies of each picture for friends,” he says. “Now they can view them in my album and order prints themselves; usually they’re amazed with the print quality.”
Remember that the quality of any print ordered online will vary depending on the image file size and its technical aspects. For the best results, upload only your best images as large JPEGs and correct any serious brightness or colour problems. Also, make sure when inputting your credit card number that you are on a secure page.
Note: Many of the popular photo-sharing sites are based in the United States, including Shutterfly and Picturetrail. Prices are in American dollars and delivery can take up to 10 days instead of five for Canadian-based outfits.
Who can view the album?
Anyone concerned about privacy should avoid online albums. Although security policies vary among the services, they are intended as photo-sharing web sites. Anyone invited to view your images can usually order prints. They can also forward the invitation to others who will likely be able to view the images and order prints, as well. For specifics, review the Terms and Conditions or Privacy sections on photo-sharing services’ web sites. If you’re concerned about privacy, the Internet in general is not an ideal location for your images.
The bottom line
So, which is the best photo-sharing site? Frankly, they’re similar in many respects, so favour those with adequate limits on storage time and capacity. If you intend to order prints, stick with Canadian sites that provide the fastest delivery.
Finally, settle on a service that offers image-enhancing and uploading tools that you find to be the most convenient to operate. Upload a few images of a family event or vacation and invite friends to view them; you’ll wonder how you ever got by without an online photo album.
