These days, there are a lot of sites where people put photo albums on the web for free, or for some kind of subscription fee. These sites allow consumers to upload pictures, invite friends to view them, send photo greeting cards, and buy ancillary merchandise and services. We have compiled a list of many of these sites, organized by different criteria.
Select the features that are important to you in the form below and click on "Show Me the Sites." The list will be arranged according to your preferences.
Ease of sharing and viewing albums
Cost
Availability of prints
Amount of storage
Bulk uploading
Film scanning (mail in exposed film)
How many sites do you want to see?
eBay hosting/Direct linking to images
Access to the original images I uploaded
Sites for professional photographers or their customers
Poster-size prints
Print scanning or other nonstandard input
Photo books, slides, or other nonstandard merchandise
No advertising
Photography Learning and self-criticism tools
Site keyword
s- If you have slides, either in the film can or languishing in boxes, your options are limited. I know of only one shop, A&I, that accepts E-6 film for developing and scanning. A&I's prepaid mailers are my preferred mode of processing slide film. Converting existing slides to digital is not cheap or easy.
- These sites vary in the amount of storage they provide and their promises of retention. But hey as long as they're free, sign up for as many accounts as you like. There is a definite trend for free sites to run out of money and either get acquired, disappear, or convert to some sort of subscription model, not necessarily in a manner convenient to their current customers. If you expect any of these sites, paid or free, to preserve your precious photos forever, you are very foolish indeed. My prediction is that there will continute to be instability until the price structure has more of a relationship to reality. The retail price of storage is around $1/Gb how can anyone expect to collect $50 per year for a few megabytes of storage? These sites do have expenses, but they're not primarily for storage.
- These sites vary greatly in what rights they claim you are granting them by uploading your images, and what kind of protection from unauthorized use they provide. If you care, get your magnifying glass and your lawyer and read a lot of fine print. However, the only safe assumption is that any image you post on the internet can be seen and used by anyone in the world.
If you have comments or suggestions (especially if you know of more sites I should mention, or have information about a site I already list), please e-mail me at: ddyer@real-me.net