Photo-Sharing Software

Types of photo-sharing sites

The best online photo-sharing applications use instant-messaging-type software to trade photos with friends and family. Other options include photo-sharing Web sites (discussed further below). Also, most online photo-printing services let you share photos with others, hosting your pictures on their servers. Most force guests to register before checking out your online albums, which must be uploaded. Kodak EasyShare Gallery is one service that doesn't require registration (though you have to be sure to uncheck a particular box when posting your photos online). See our separate report on digital photo printing for Web sites like Kodak EasyShare Gallery and Shutterfly that focus mainly on printing your photos, but also have some photo-sharing features.

Finally, software developers realized they could apply the peer-to-peer formula used in instant messengers like AIM and Yahoo! Messenger and file-sharing programs like Kazaa to photo sharing. A number of such peer-to-peer photo-sharing applications have hit the market in the past couple of years, and reviewers say they are the best option for sharing photos online quickly and easily.

Reviews sometimes prefer the slicker interfaces and extras found on fee-based photo-sharing software, but free photo hosting can perform just as well. None of the programs mentioned here blow the rest out of the water, yet each application in ConsumerSearch Fast Answers performs a particular function especially well.

Phanfare (*est. $55 per year or $7 per month) receives accolades from PC Magazine in a recent review. Although author Cade Metz says some will frown at its lack of tools to manage photos, such as those found in programs like Picasa, Phanfare receives a 4 out of 5 rating. Metz says it's "wonderfully quick and far easier to use than the average service, such as smugmug or PhotoSite."

After downloading the Phanfare online photo-hosting software, users are given a Web page with the capacity to accept up to a gigabyte of photos and videos each month. Unlike Hello, Phanfare visitors can simply view photos and videos by going to the Phanfare Web site versus downloading the software. Although similar to PhotoShow in this sense, Phanfare's inability to scan your hard drive and file away photos makes it less of an all-around photo-management program. One advantage Phanfare has is that it comes in a Mac version (although the version is in a beta-test phase). However, free services like AOL Pictures do much the same thing.

If you want something beyond storage, editing and online sharing of photos, Smilebox (the ad-supported version is free; premium version *est. $1.99/design) is a fun option. The Wall Street Journal calls the program "simply enjoyable." It focuses on what the company calls, "creative messaging." Users can choose multimedia tools to design a personalized slide show. Photos can be enhanced with music and text to create slideshows, photo books, postcards and scrapbooks. Users can then send a link to the online images via e-mail. Recipients do not need an account to view your online photo-sharing projects. They simply click on a link to be taken to your photo show. The basic version Smilebox is free, but there will be ads on the screen, and you're not allowed to view photo project full screen. The Premium version of Smilebox is ad-free, plus you can view full screen images and print the photos; user pay by the design (*est. $2 each).

Peer-to-peer online photo-sharing sites

Owned by search-engine giant Google, Hello (free, http://www.hello.com) gets applause in reviews. It's free, quick and suited for even novice computer users. Best of all, this photo-hosting application works seamlessly with Google's free image organizer and editor, Picasa, which gets nothing but the best reviews. Hello is now included with the free Picasa download (http://picasa.google.com/), but you can also download Hello on its own. Hello also supports Google's Blogger service, but not other blogging tools.

On the downside, you can only swap online photos with other Hello users, and both sender and receiver need to be online at the same time. Still, Hello doesn't limit file sharing the way other photo-sharing programs do, and you can't beat its companion program, Picasa, for image organizing and editing. Picasa will scan your hard drive, storing all photos in albums arranged by date. The newest version, Picasa 2, gives the ability to drag and drop photos between albums, and includes editing features such as sharpening and color adjustment. PC World says the only quibble to the new program is the inability to send photos back-and-forth from a camera phone as other programs do. Hello and Picasa only work with Windows computers.

The New York Times reviews OurPictures, which PC Magazine has named an "Editor's Choice." OurPictures is now a part of PhotoShow software (free, http://www.simplestar.com), after combining with Simple Star, Inc. The merge allows consumers to "do anything they want with their photos, from simple organization and printing to creating and sharing movie-like PhotoShows," according to a Simple Star press release. The new PhotoShow has a couple of features that PiXPO (below) lacks. For one thing, it has the ability to upload pictures directly from a digital camera and includes editing tools. In addition, photos shared with fellow PhotoShow Print and Share users automatically pop up in their Received Pictures folders – a feature unavailable with PiXPO. The Windows-only program also has a fallback solution for photo recipients who haven't installed PhotoShow Print and Share yet. They'll receive an e-mail notification with a link to a Web page where they can view or download the online photos for thirty days. Even so, Family Tree Magazine contributing editor Nancy Hendrickson notes, "swapping photos between OurPictures users works best; people without OurPictures didn't always receive e-mail notifications." This may have changed with the merge into PhotoShow, but we've seen no reviews to confirm this. We'll keep looking for expert opinions as this revamped photo-hosting program spends more time on the market.

PhotoShow reserves its best features for its paid edition. PhotoShow Deluxe 4 (*est. $40) gives users a Web site, the ability to burn created videos to DVD and advanced editing tools.

Another PC Magazine favorite, PiXPO (free, http://www.pixpo.com), gets kudos for the same feature that set PhotoShow apart: It sends non-PiXPO users a link to a private Web page where they can view low-resolution copies of pictures or download the PiXPO client. PiXPO also excels at organizing; it'll "quickly gather photos from your hard drive and organize them in various albums, which you can either store offline or instantly share with others," reports PC Magazine reviewer Cade Metz. This online photo-sharing site will automatically import your Microsoft Outlook (or Outlook Express) address book at installation.

The latest version of PiXPO now lets users share music and videos as well as photos. Users create their own channel for online photo and video sharing; your computer hosts the files, and recipients receive a link at which to view your projects. That means your computer needs to be on for others to view your photos. Another perk: While this program used to incur a $30 annual fee, it is now completely free.

PiXPO and OurPictures (PhotoShow) both receive good reviews, but PiXPO now includes video sharing and PhotoShow.. PiXPO is Windows only.

AOL Pictures (http://www.aol.com/pictures) used to only be available to AOL members, but now anyone can try it. This free online photo-sharing service can be used like most others; you upload your photos to a Web site with unlimited storage. You can then send a link to the site to friends and family, who can view the images without signing up for AOL Pictures. If you use other AOL services, AOL Pictures integrates with AIM (to send photos in instant messages) and AOL Blog. Along with online photo hosting, you can order prints and photo gifts.

If you want to share photos with others who also have AOL Pictures, your pictures will show up in their account, right alongside their own pictures. PC Magazine's Cade Metz calls AOL Pictures "wonderfully slick and easy to use" because of easy features such as the ability to drag and drop pictures into your browser. With ActiveX installation, photos can be edited, titles added and photo-shows played.

PC World gives the online photo-sharing site Flickr (http://www.flickr.com) high scores. Flickr lets you share your pictures and connect with people who have similar interests. When you sign up for an account, it asks for getting-to-know-you information such as your hobbies, favorite movie and favorite author. Based on that information, you can chat and share photos with people like you. And newfound friends can make comments on your photo page. Flickr's more fun than practical, though. A free account limits you to 20MB of monthly downloads and three albums, containing only smaller, resized versions of your snapshots. A Pro account gives you 2GB of monthly uploads, as well as unlimited storage, bandwidth and photosets for $25 a year. You can upload photos to Flickr from Windows and Mac computers.

Smugmug (http://www.smugmug.com) is another photo-hosting site that also gets good reviews from publications like PC Magazine and Macworld. For about $40 per year, you can store full-resolution images, which others can download with your permission. PC Magazine's Richard V. Dragan says smugmug offers a "nice selection of built-in styles for displaying your photos and some slick photo-editing abilities." Like a lot of other photo services, smugmug also lets you order prints.

In addition to dedicated photo-sharing sites, PC Magazine sings the praises of two peer-to-peer apps that let you swap all kinds of files (no matter what size). Reviewer Cade Metz gives both Grouper (free, http://www.grouper.com) and Qnext (free, http://www.qnext.com) stellar reviews in a roundup. Both are free and offer chatting capabilities (Qnext has a universal instant-messaging client for AIM, ICQ, MSN Messenger and Yahoo! Messenger). Because they're not devoted strictly to photo sharing, these programs don't have photo-editing and organizing capabilities. But if you want to swap more than just photos, reviews say they're great options. In PC Magazine's tests, Grouper came out slightly ahead, so we included it in ConsumerSearch Fast Answers. Both users need to install the Grouper software to have full access to videos. Anyone can view photos and preview video clips you've shared, but only members can take the next step of downloading the full version of those videos to a hard drive.

In the most recent review of Grouper, PC Magazine notes the video-sharing enhancements in Grouper 2.0 (beta). Not only can you share video files, but you can upload them from certain cameras, splice them with other video footage or photographs, and include a musical overlay. This can all be shared for free with the entire Grouper community or privately with friends. One advantage the newest version of Qnext will have over Grouper is that it is Mac-friendly, with a MAC OSX 10.4 version available.

Important Features: Photo sharing software

Reviews say you should look for the following features when choosing photo-sharing software:

• Photo-editing tools. Sure, you want a program whose primary function is to swap photos, but if that software can offer a little more, then all the better. Most dedicated photo-sharing applications offer at least basic editing tools such as red-eye removal, brightness and contrast adjustment and rotation. Hello really stands out in this respect. That application works in tandem with free photo-organizer Picasa, which gets kudos from experts for its laundry list of photo-editing tools. The exceptions are Phanfare, which PC Magazine says some "may ask why it fails to offer better photo-management tools (like those found in Picasa and OurPictures)," and the broader peer-to-peer programs Qnext and Grouper.

• Organizational tools. All photo-sharing programs allow you to organize photos into albums, but some do this better than others. Hello wins in this category, too, since it works seamlessly with the outstanding photo-organizer Picasa. PiXPO also excels at organizing; it automatically scans your computer and generates albums you can store offline or instantly share with others.

• Sharing of high-resolution images. If you're just looking to view snapshots with friends most photo-sharing apps will do. But if you (or the recipients of your photos) plan to print pictures, then you'll be much better off with programs that let you easily transfer high-resolution versions. With Grouper, AOL Pictures Qnext and Hello, you can send (and receive) as many high-resolution images as you'd like. OurPictures and PiXPO require premium subscriptions for unlimited high-resolution file sharing.

• Ability to share with people who don't have the same photo-sharing software. In general, peer-to-peer photo-sharing applications require the sender and recipient to use the same software and be online at the same time. (They work a lot like instant messengers.) But persuading friends and relatives to download an application and log on at the same time can prove difficult. OurPictures, AOL Pictures, PiXPO and Phanfare attempt to solve that problem by sending e-mail notifications to non-users, so they can view copies of pictures on the Web.

• Mac and Linux compatibility. Many photo-sharing applications work with Windows host computers only. Qnext works with Windows, Linux and Mac OS X. Phanfare works with Windows and Mac OS X as well. AOL Pictures, Flickr and Smugmug allow most users to upload pictures.

Our Consensus Report shows how many times products are top-ranked by reviewers included in our
All The Reviews Reviewed chart.

# of Picks	Model (With Retailer Links)	Price
4	OurPictures (now PhotoShow)	Free
3	Hello	Free
3	ShareALot	(discontinued)
2	Phanfare	Free
2	PiXPO	Free
1 each	OurPictures Deluxe 2, Kodak EasyShare, PhotoLeap, Adobe Photoshop Elements 4, Shutterfly Collections, BubbleShare, FilmLoop, SnapJot, ShareDirect, HeyPix, Apple's IPhoto, SmileBox, PhotoLeap, Electric Shoebox, SendPhotos, Grouper, Qnext, AOL Pictures--

As you can see, experts say several photo-sharing applications have merit, and in our research, we found that each has strengths and weaknesses, which may account for the lack of an overall winner.

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