Free Photo Sharing Sites

Available Free Photo Sharing Sites

Dedicated Photo Sharing Sites

Sites such as Flickr and Photobucket were created solely to facilitate online photo sharing. These sites are completely free, although they may offer paid services for those needing more file space or special options, such as Flickr's pro account. Sharing photos is as easy as creating an account, selecting photos from your computer, and uploading.

Photo Printing Services

Online photo printing services such as Shutterfly and Snapfish also offer photo sharing. This is a convenient option if you like to print copies of your photos. You can upload everything to your account to share online, and then easily print your favorites. Read the fine print to make sure there aren't any additional fees or purchase minimums to use the photo sharing service.

Social Networking Sites

Social networking sites such as MySpace and Facebook allow users to add photos to their profiles. The advantage to adding images to these sites is that it makes it easy to share photos with your online friends. It's also a convenient choice because these are sites you're already visiting regularly. The disadvantage to only posting your images here is that visitors must be registered members of the site to view your photos.

Blogging Platforms

If you have a blog, you may also have the ability to upload photos to use in your blog posts. Blogger clients using the Blogspot hosting service can upload images for free. LiveJournal also offers photo storage space, but you must be a paid account holder. This method doesn't create an easily-accessible photo album, but you can cut out the middle man if you were only uploading photos to free photo sharing sites in order to post them on your blog in the first place.

Tips for Using Photo Sharing Sites

Keep these tips in mind to make the most of your photo sharing experience:

• Use a photo-editing program to resize your pictures before uploading them to a photo site. This has two advantages. First, because some free sites have a limit on how much you can upload in a month, reducing the size of your pictures reduces the size of the file, leaving you with more space. Also, large files can be difficult for people to view on slower connections, so you will be making your pictures more accessible to your friends and family.
• Organize your photos into folders. If you have 10 new pictures from a camping trip, put them in a folder labeled "Camping Trip" instead of uploading them with 80 unrelated images. This will allow you to keep track of your favorite images, while making browsing easier for visitors.
• Keep a backup. You never know when a site will have technical problems or go out of business. While most free photo sharing sites are established and secure, it's better to be safe than sorry. If there are any pictures you couldn't bear to lose, such as shots from an unforgettable vacation or images of your children growing up, create a backup copy. If you don't have the hard drive space to maintain copies on your computer, burn them to a CD for storage.
• Remember that online postings are public. If you don't want coworkers or neighbors viewing your personal photos, be cautious when giving out the URL of an image. Even if you send someone a direct link to an individual picture, they can easily gain access to the rest of your photo album. Images may also show up in Google image searches or be found by people browsing by topic at photo sites. If you're concerned about who may be viewing your pictures, post your photos on sites offering the ability to restrict access.