Photo sharing Web sites...

Hopefully this is okay to post... I'm looking for a new photo sharing Web site and hoping for some recommendations for favorites. (I basically will use it for hiking pictures, so that helps make my post relevant to the hiking world...) :

I have been posting pictures on phanfare for a while now, but the company has radically changed its business model, making it completely useless for me... My account expires in a couple of weeks so I have to make a quick decision.

I don't mind paying a yearly fee provided the site has decent features -- what I'd like is the ability to have public access to photos preferably through a slideshow. I don't want viewers to have to register to view the pictures. The ability to add videos would also be a plus but is not absolutely required.

Any recommendations for other Web sites? Please help me out by listing what you like most about the service.

Thanks for any help!

- Ivy

I hear Flickr is good: http://www.flickr.com/

For my photos I used to use Shutterfly, I don't why, it's terrible for sharing.... now I have my own website with a photo gallery.

I have used www.Kodakgallery.com for several years. It's easy to upload photos, create and manipulate albums as is the case with most other sharing sites. It's free with no memory restrictions assuming you purchase something from them at least once a year.
Joanne

I use WebShots

Kevin

I've used Webshots for many years. The free version lets you upload several thousand photos (I don't recall how many) and there is a paid version which provides some additional features. A viewer can look at photos within albums either individually or select slide-show. They also provide a utility for batch uploading.

Some have reported problems with the utility program, but I never had. At one time, many years ago, it would alter your PC's background settings automatically, but they stopped that nonsense a long time ago.

I use Picasa (free) which is affiliated with Google... One reason is that Webshots is blocked for me at work so it is pointless to send my photos to co-workers if they can't view it at work...

http://picasa.google.com/

It has an OK client to upload photos and stuff but what is nice is the way to add/edit captions/comments is nice, quick and easy.

Jay

Picasa Web Albums

Picasa Web Albums (with or without Picasa Photo Organizer) FTW!

My Pic's

PBASE has a very different format that I like. VFTT-er pudgygroundhog (Kathy) uses this format and I think there's a link in her profile to it.

http://www.pbase.com/

- Greg

SmugMug

I have used SmugMug for over a year now and like it alot and they have a good service forum..

smugmug.com

What's up with Phanfare? I was considering it should webshots disappoint me.

I enjoy photos posted there a lot. Shutterfly is the other one I enjoy -- both offer nice slide shows, a choice of viewer resolution (big negative for webshots).

Webshots biggest plus is it is completely free, albeit ad-supported. You get 2400 photos and 240 videos (at the moment).

Picasa / Google - I don't know much about but I will say I am leery of Google as they seem to want to index the world and I don't want to make it that easy for them to index my stuff not that they aren't already. I am fundamentally against installing anything on my computer--has to be completely web-based. Webshots has flash and non-flash upload mechanisms, with flash being easier.

This question has come up before, so search around, although it's been a while and the info there is probably quite dated give how fast internet time moves along.

Tim

I also use webshots

Phanfare costs $55 a year... and it was worth every penny as it was. But like I said they are changing their business model in the very near future. It is becoming a "gated community" so you must be a member to look at pictures. When that occurs, they will not allow you to link a slideshow of pictures to a trip report here or elsewhere, which is basically what I use it for. To have someone view your pictures, you'll have to send an e-mail to them and they will have to sign up for an account (which is free but a huge hassle.) They say they are switching from a photo hosting to a photo networking site.

I had Webshots previously and left when they started appending ads for some HBO show to the end of my photo albums. I should have noted NO ADS in my list of requirements.

Thanks everyone for the recommendations... I'm going to through and testing some of these sites out. I only have two weeks to pick something and start migrating pictures.

- Ivy

Yeah, I got that email too.

Sounds like they're changing the way the sharing works. Making anyone who wants to look have to register is a really bad idea IMO. I've asked them about keeping public access and am waiting to hear what they say. Maybe if enough of us users complain and/or threaten to cancel they'll listen. There are quite a lot of us on these hiking sites that use their service and it seemed to be spreading for the reasons that Chip mentioned. Then again maybe we are a tiny minority, in which case we should be a very vocal one.

I've probably got 3000 pictures on there and don't really want to move them.

poison ivy said:

Phanfare costs $55 a year... and it was worth every penny as it was. But like I said they are changing their business model in the very near future. It is becoming a "gated community" so you must be a member to look at pictures. When that occurs, they will not allow you to link a slideshow of pictures to a trip report here or elsewhere, which is basically what I use it for. To have someone view your pictures, you'll have to send an e-mail to them and they will have to sign up for an account (which is free but a huge hassle.) They say they are switching from a photo hosting to a photo networking site. - Ivy

Click to expand...

okay, never mind, I completely missed that in your post and have not read that email from them. CR@P ! That renders it pointless for me too. I'll delete my recommendation.

My free month at Phanfare is almost up and I was going to sign up for a years membership. Thanks for the heads up regarding the changes! You saved me some cash.

I've had no luck with these online sites. Before Phanfare, I had an account at ephotospace.com but they have NO customer service. I filled up my free limit of 300 pictures and was ready to sign up for service but I cant contact them. Sent them an email telling them I had $$$ for them - no response. Sent emails for support and questions about the service - no response. I think it's not a real company, just an unfunded server sitting in someone's closet hoping for venture capitol.


bob

SteveHiker said:

I've probably got 3000 pictures on there and don't really want to move them.

Click to expand...

Well that's the business model of a lot of the free sites -- get you hooked, make it hard to leave. Heck, that's a business model of most sites/software!

poison ivy said:

I had Webshots previously and left when they started appending ads for some HBO show to the end of my photo albums. I should have noted NO ADS in my list of requirements.

Click to expand...

I have never had an ad inserted in my album or slide show, nor have I ever seen one and a lot of people on this site use web shots. I have 30+ albums and I am at about 500/2400 photos. Plus for a lot of my 'embedded' usage would render the ads moot -- my inline photos in the Trip Reports section don't have any ads. Plus if you use Firefox and have adblock you get ad-free browsing!

My biggest beef with Webshots is the slide show is fairly low-resolution and requires flash, but it works other than that.

This link, http://reviews.cnet.com/4520-6451_7-6245099-1.html, is dated, but lists a lot of services I never even heard of, so you might be able to at least get a list of services here for consideration.

There is also this: http://personalweb.about.com/od/howtochoosehosting/tp/photohosttop.htm

HTH,
Tim

Thanks so much for all the recommendations.

I've been taking tours of sites all morning... so far smugmug seems to best match everything I'm looking for... I'm going to give it a test run this weekend to see how I like it.

- Ivy

Ivy- One thing I can say about the SmugMug folks is they have very good customer service and if you have any questions along the way I'd contact them if it could help you make a decision.

Whatver you use good luck!

I just looked over Tuco's 48th pictures and I was pleased with the system, from the viewer's perspective. A lot of time we think only about our interaction with the system, but we use it once and the viewers use it hundreds, if not thousands of times...

Tim

PBASE has a very different format that I like. VFTT-er pudgygroundhog (Kathy) uses this format and I think there's a link in her profile to it.

Click to expand...

Yep, we use pbase and have been happy with it. When we were looking for an online site nearly 4.5 years ago, Steve did the research and thought pbase was the best one. If we were looking for a site today, I'm not sure what we would choose (Smugmug, flickr, and Picassa all look like good options, although I haven't looked in detail. At this point, we're too lazy to move everything from pbase to a new site if we found one we liked better).

No offense to anybody here, but personally, I hate webshots. It always seems so slow to me. Whenever somebody posts a link to webshots I usually give up after a few pictures because it's so slow (and no, it's not my computer or connection). But that probably is also related to the fact that a lot of people seem to upload ALL their pics from a trip to webshots without any kind of editing, titling, or captioning.