EmailPhoto-sharing websites have replaced peer-to-peer software and other solutions as the best ways to share photos with others. However, there are significant differences between sites which could make one or the other a better choice for certain users. Reviews say you should consider the following factors when choosing a photo-sharing service:
- Make sure the site or subscription plan offers enough storage capacity and bandwidth. Most top sites offer essentially unlimited storage and bandwidth (numbers of uploads and downloads) with a paid account, but free accounts, when offered, are typically limited. Snapfish is one exception, offering unlimited storage for free.
- How easy is it for others to view your photos? Most reviewers prefer photo-sharing services that do not require users to register just to view photos. Both Snapfish and Flickr require that users register before viewing photos, but other top sites are open to anyone.
- Good navigation and organization tools help ease of use. Most photo-sharing services allow you to organize photos into albums and to tag photos, but some do this better than others. Advanced tagging features that some reviewers consider important include geotagging, in which the photo's location is labeled so it can be found on a map; and face-tagging, in which users can identify the people in a photo so it can be later found when searching for that person on the site.
- Social networking features are becoming more widespread. Social networking is a prevalent part of online life now, and many photo-sharing services are able to integrate with the most popular social networking sites, like Facebook and MySpace, though some do a better job of this than others.
- How easy is it to upload photos? Any photo-sharing service should enable you to upload photos to its interface online, but some make this easier than others. Most offer multiple options. Most also offer batch uploading of more than one photo at a time. Some sites let users organize and tag photos as the user uploads them, eliminating the need to do that later on.
- Privacy is important. While many photo-sharing sites make it easy to post photos publicly, not all users want all of their photos viewable by strangers. Many photo-sharing services have options for controlling what groups or individuals can look at your pictures.
- Look for page layout options. Sharing photos online is nice, but sharing them on a well-designed page is even better. Most sites offer some layout options, though fully customized ones might be restricted to paid or premium accounts.
- Photo-editing tools can be helpful for casual users. While most serious and semi-serious photographers will prefer the more robust tools found in their own image-editing software, many photo-sharing services also provide some basic editing functions, such as red-eye removal, brightness and contrast adjustment and image rotation.