LocalArchiver.com - Print Friendly Version
Guides to Photo and Document Preservation and Sharing for Families and Community Historical Societies

Free and Easy Online Albums and Share Sites

By R. Anderson - 2/2009

Sharing digital photos and other images online is now free and easy.  A great way to get your toes wet with online sharing.

Large online printers offer free image upload, storage, and sharing to increase the potential that you, your family, friends, and others may purchase some prints of the images at a later date. 

Although there is no obligation to buy prints, it is in fact an added benefit as you, friends, and family can purchase prints of only selected images, prices are competitive, quality is high and consistent, and treasured images get shared and distributed more broadly. In addition to prints in many sizes, image gift items are also available from these online printers.

Tip:  Most major online printers offer you some free prints (usually 20 to 25 - 4" x 6s") just for signing up to let you test their quality.  In order to get your free prints, you need to specify which images you want within a time limit, often 30 days.  Therefore, it is a good idea to be ready to upload at least this number of images when you register.

Free Online Family Album and Share Site Providers

As sophistication at these online printers has increased, so has the impressiveness of the online albums.  Some of these albums have expanded in their content and are now referred to as "share sites".  These free share sites are taking on the look and feel of websites, and are very customizable by you, without any prior skills in website design.

  My favorite among these Share Sites can be found at Shutterfly.com. Shutterfly is presently ahead of the competition in the sophistication, flexibility, and ease of use of its share site service.  The share site service can be explored for free, and with just a few minutes of experimenting, you can begin customizing the site for a family or organization such as a youth sports team, club, or local historical society.  The features are rich and growing.  In addition to sharing photos in a choice of methods (filmstrip, slideshow, etc.), you can place announcements, show events on a calendar, map a location via Google, and use several other interesting options. Shutterfly has made this feature so intuitive that no prior web design experience is needed to build an impressive site.

No credit card information is required until you place an order for prints or other merchandise.  If interested, see a more detailed project page and a link to a LocalArchiver sample family share site by going to the article on Building a Shutterfly Family Share Site.

Two other major free online album / share site providers to check out are Snapfish.com by HP and  Kodak Gallery. Both are popular sites.  However, I find that they have a narrower image product line, and they do not have the breadth of share site capabilities as found at Shutterfly.com.

Note that many online storage and album companies are affiliated with other businesses.  For example, if you purchase an HP computer or printer, you will be encouraged to use Snapfish by HP.  Likewise, if you use Google's Picassa or Yahoo's Flikr album services, you will be encouraged to use their recommended printers based business relationships they have developed.

It can be worth your time to explore Shutterfly, Snapfish, and Kodak to decide which best meets your particular needs. Just because HP equipment will naturally make it very convenient for you to use their captive printer Snapfish, you are not restricted to using just that printer.  Shutterfly.com  is the largest independent public online printer, is consistently rated highly, and appears to me to be the most innovative in developing its overall products and services.

 

Pay Sites for Storing and Sharing Family Photos

SmugMug is a pay share site that is worth mentioning.  Services are tiered in three levels with annual charges of roughly $40 to $150.  The look and feel of SmugMug share sites are a bit more customizable, and images can be printed on a broader range of sizes and paper types than many other online printers.  A 14 day free trial is offered.  If you think you might want to pay for some additional frills, then Take the SmugMug quick tour! .