Inviting the neighbors over for a slideshow of your latest trip and thick tomes of baby pictures sitting beneath the coffee table are two things we won’t miss about old-school film photography. Chances are, you’re already putting your pictures online somehow, but are you using the best photo host out there? Here, BK compares the big four.
Flickr
www.flickr.com
What’s so good about it: Flickr is best known for its community element. There are groups you can join and share your pictures with, allowing people to comment and put notes on your photos and with that you get advice, tips and tricks. A great tool for bloggers and photographers looking for some feedback. If you want to get imaginative, Flickr also works with many printing services that can turn your pictures into notebooks, name cards and posters for more creative ways of distributing your work (except you’ll be ordering it from the US).
How much: For a free account, you get 100MB monthly upload limit, three sets (folders) and only your last 200 pictures will appear. Upgrade to Pro for US$24.95 (B870) a year and the fun is unlimited.
Zooomr
www.zooomr.com
What’s so good about it: It’s the ultimate social photo album. Besides their comprehensive “feeds” on the front page that display recently uploaded pictures by hour, day, month and year, Zooomr also has a Facebook-like feature to tag people by name. You can create a fancy slideshow with audio commentary if you have something to say and it also accepts OpenID so you don’t have to sign up for yet another online account.
How much: The best feature of Zooomr has to be its price. You get unlimited uploads, downloads and even storage, all for free. The Pro account, which is US$19.95 (B678), ster the advertisements and lets you see a more precise update of who is uploading what. With the upcoming Zooomr Marketplace, you can even make money out of your pics.
Picasa
http://picasaweb.google.com
What’s so good about it: If you’re a Google devotee and looking for a humdrum photo-sharing site, well here’s Picasa. Picasa remains a great free photo browsing and editing software but the photo hosting never quite lived up to the desktop software except that it works beautifully with Picasa. You can also upload videos or order hard copies.
How much: You can sign up for free and immediately get 1GB of storage, which can house about 4,000 photos. For bigger storage, there are packages available from 10GB (US$20 a year, B697) to 400GB (US$500 a year, B17,420). Have these guys even looked at the competition?
Smugmug
www.smugmug.com
What’s so good about it: A lot, but it’s not a choice for cheapskates. Smugmug is a paid online photo storage service with very advanced features
so it isn’t for those who just want a place to upload their party shots. Among the features that the pros will love is a fully customizable gallery so your online portfolio doesn’t look identical with the rest of the Smugmug pages. You can also protect your album password so people can’t even steal a thumbnail of your work and if you’re planning to make a living out of photography, you can also sell your photos online, a la istockphoto.com or photo.com.
How much: Brace yourself. Standard accounts start at US$39.95 (B1,392) a year and come with unlimited storage and your own URL. Power Users (S$59.95 a year, B2,089) get fully customizable pages, right-click protection and video uploading. For people who want to sell their photos, the Professional package (US$149.95 a year, B5,225) is for you.
Learn the Lingo
Tag
A tag is a clickable keyword that will take you to all the pictures “tagged” with the same keyword. Unfortunately, you have to add the tags yourself. The more tags your pictures have, the easier it will be for you and others to find them.
GeoTag
They’re just like tags, only with location-specific codes. Some services integrate geotagging with online maps, so once you click on a geotag, it takes you to a specific point on the map where the picture was taken.
OpenID
OpenID is like a one-for-all online account. Some services have neglected their own sign-up system and opted for OpenID so people don’t have to sign up for another account they’ll probably forget.
