OT: Photo sharing sites

[sjbraun]

After years without a camera, I recently purchased one. I'm curious to know a bit about photo sharing sites. I assume any of them allow me to upload and organize photos. What I'd like to know is if more about the sharing aspect. Can I restrict access to photos? For example, I'd like to share pics from my recent weekend in Moab with some people, but don't want to share them with the entire internet.

Are there other advantages to choosing one site over another?

Thanks

Steve

[Tony T]

Shutterfly (http://www.shutterfly.com), Snapfish (http://www.snapfish.com/snapfish/welcome)
Both restrict access to photos.

[eddief]

until Marisa Mayer redoes it. I find Picasa really easy to use and it will allow you to publish to whom you choose.

[Likes2ridefar]

photobucket is also easy to use. i find it easier than picasa to share with others.

[tuxbailey]

I use zenfolio. I have been using it for 7 years and uploaded 70+ GB so far. At $40 for unlimited bandwidth each month and unlimited storage, it is a good deal.

Not sure what the current price is though since I have had this price since singing up as an early adopter.

For free storage, flickr is very good. I used to like it before switching to zenfolio but they didn't have good access control. They have them now but I already switched...

[bking]

ive been happy, very happy with smugmug. been there for 7 or 8 years. have pretty much all the photo services one could imagine.
one thing i did, i'd recommend. a few years ago i had all my photos, the old ones in albums and in boxes, scanned and uploaded to the site, about 8,000 of them. very nice as now my kids scattered around the country will pull something up and share it and we'll share a laugh, good memory; whereas they used to sit in some dark closet on a shelf.
very nice album set up on smugmug as well, and great customer service with "superheros"...really.

[Ray]

I'm actually fine with Flickr. You can do limited resolution photos for free, unlimited high res for $25 per year. Any photo or set of photos can be shared with anyone, no one, or just family and friends. Pretty easy to organize stuff once you get up to speed with it. And very easy to link from there to other sites.

-Ray

[veloduffer]

I have been on Zenfolio for many years. I started with Flickr and later with Smug Mug. I switched to Zenfolio to get more customization of the website and they had a good intro deal. I think Smug Mug and Zenfolio are now on par.

FWIW, the lab that you can order prints from Zenfolio is Mpix, which does really nice work. Their metallic finish really pops the color range.

[bikerboy337]

We've been happy with flickr for a few years now. We pay the $20 or so for unlimited uploads... we archive a lot of stuff there that is private (all our photos and video), and make some of it public for family and friends to see... for $20, its been worth it for us... i'm sure there are some sites that might be better, but, i find it easy to upload, organize and use, so we've kept with it...

I think we have about 20k photos up there now... 99% of which are private and we just store in the event we have computer issues/fire, etc... priceless for our wedding photos to have them stored on-line with easy access...

[ctcyclistbob]

I use Flickr also and am happy with the service.

However I'm concerned that the site, or any other for that matter might not be around at some point in the future. Do photo sharing services have any sort of guarantee that your photos will be available forever, somewhere?

I know the photos are on a server somewhere, and backed up. But ... it's still best to have them stored offline too.

[Tony T]

Do photo sharing services have any sort of guarantee that your photos will be available forever, somewhere?

No. Kodak just shut down their photo sharing site. They worked a deal with Shutterfly and transferred all photo's, but they could have just shut down.

Keep all photo's on your computer or a USB disk, and keep a backup.

[false_Aest]

user agreement
is good reading. your pictures
could be sold by them.



really, it's happened

[krhea]

I use 3 different sites for photos.

Flickr PRO is used for all my cycling club photos and we have a continuous slide show that runs direct from Flickr to our club website's front page:

Take a look at the 2012 club pics: http://www.flickr.com/photos/krheapvpics/

For family use Picasa is our choice as it's easy for the kids, is free and allows the family to easily "play" with photo editing.

Right now I'm on the cusp of choosing either Zen or Smug for my personal album. I like the options of both and will decide in the next week or so. Really appreciate the comments on both sites, very helpful.

KRhea

[esldude]

photobucket works fine for me. Even free. Lets you have access controlled by the albums you build.

[choke]

+1 on Photobucket. It's very easy to use and to set up albums to be either public or private.

Another alternative is to purchase your own domain and host the photos yourself. That gives you ultimate control. You do need to be a bit computer savvy to do that though. There are a lot of different companies which offer hosting/domain registration, Go Daddy being the best known. It's a lot less expensive than you might think; I did this last year and paid around $140 for the domain name and two years hosting with unlimited storage/bandwidth.

[fourflys]

+1 for Smugmug... Been there for several years and really like it...