Top 5 Free Photo Sharing Sites - Clear Day Consulting

Spring is an incredible time to capture the beauty unfolding around us. Smartphones make it simple to snap a quick photo and share it with friends and family by email or text message, but what if you want to send several pictures or a whole album of photos?

There are many options available. Below are five of our favorite free photo sharing sites along with information on the storage capacity and links to the website and mobile apps. We’ve included a couple honorable mentions, as well as tips on photo size, storage and tagging.

Top 5 Sites

Flickr is one of the largest names in photo sharing. Once you upload photos to your Flickr account you can crop them, tag individuals within each picture, and organize the images into sets and collections. Flickr is affiliated with Yahoo, so any photo you send from your Yahoo email account is saved to your Flickr account. Flickr also lets you set privacy levels and copyright permissions on your photos.

Website: flickr.com
Storage: ~~300 MB/monthly~~ 1 TB (as of 5/20/2013)
Apps: Flickr (Android, iPhone, Windows Phone)

Picasa scans your computer for photos, then lets you choose the ones you would like to share online. Picasa lets you create 10,000 albums, each with 1,000 photos. You can organize your photos into folders, choose privacy settings, and set tags and captions for each photo. Picasa also has a variety of photo editing tools. The account also enables you to purchase prints or gifts from your photos. Note that Picasa is now affiliated with Google+ (a social networking site) which could impact privacy settings. NOTE: Since writing this blog post, Picasa has become Google Photos.

Website: picasaweb.com
Storage: 1 GB
Apps: Tool for Picasa (Android), Web Albums (iPad, iPhone)

Shutterfly, which recently acquired KodakGallery.com, lets you upload and store unlimited photos in their original size online or through a desktop application. From there, you can create up to 100 personal “Share” websites that allow you to share photos with family and friends who are then able to comment on and print photos from your albums. You must receive an invitation in order to view other people’s photos. You can order prints online and even arrange pickup at Target, Walgreens and CVS stores.

Website: shutterfly.com
Storage: Unlimited
Apps: Shutterfly (iPad, iPhone)

Snapfish, owned by Hewlett-Packard, offers unlimited photo uploads for sharing albums and individual photos. Your family and friends will need a Snapfish membership to view photos online. Snapfish also provide the the option to purchase prints and gifts. Prints can be shipped directly from the site or picked up at variety of stores.

Website: snapfish.com
Storage: Unlimited
Apps: Snapfish (Android, iPhone)

Dropbox is a site for storing all kinds of documents, not just photos, but it does offer the option for you to upload photos into galleries and share them with friends and family. The site will create a link to your photo or collection of photos that you can send in an e-mail or text message and send out for viewing. However, it does not provide the option to order prints or other photo merchandise.

Website: dropbox.com
Storage: 2 gigabytes
Apps: Dropbox (Android, iPad, iPhone, Blackberry, Kindle Fire)

Honorable Mentions – Photo Sharing

Instagram is a photo sharing site that displays individual images reminiscent of old Polaroid photos. While it does not lend itself to creating albums directly in the site, it does include a number of digital filters and boarders to enhance the photos and makes it easy to share with social networking sites like it’s parent company, Facebook.

Website: Instagram.com
Storage: Unlimited
Apps: Instagram (Android, iPhone)

The social networking site Facebook isn’t exclusively for sharing photos, but if you already have an account, it is an easy way to share pictures with your friends. You can post individual photos and upload albums with up to 200 photos (with no limit on the number of albums you share). Facebook also lets you set captions, locations, and tag the people in your photos. Just remember that tagging can impact the privacy of your photos.

Website: facebook.com 
Storage: Unlimited
Apps: Facebook (Android, iPad/iPhone)

Tips

How much storage do you need?

Unfortunately there is not a simple answer to this questions. It all depends on the number of photos you intend to share and the resolution (size) of each photo. Photos that are less than 100KB, with resolutions between 500×500 and 1000×1000 are acceptable for web and email. Though many new cameras are able to take individual photos up to 3MB and greater.

Photo size can make a big difference if your storage space is limited. Consider a 1GB account. If your photos are 100K each you could store approximately 10,000 photos. If your photos are 2MB each, you could only store about 500 photos.
Just keep in mind that while large photos take up more of your storage space, but they also produce better prints. Basic accounts on all these sites are free, but some give you the option to upgrade (for a fee) to access extra storage and features.

What is tagging?

Many photo sharing sites now provide a tagging feature. Tagging allows you to identify individuals within your photos and create a link directly from the photo to their account (if they have one on the site). Some sites also let you tag by keywords or location.

Which service is right for you?

The best site for sharing photos depends on how you plan to use your account. It’s also worth seeing what your friends and family are using. Then determine your priorities. If you have thousands of photos you will likely choose a different option than someone who wants to share an occasional album.