13.2. Sharing Photos OnlineIf you have a digital camera, you no longer have to order multiple copies of photos and mail them to share with friends . Of course, you can still order prints for your friends who don't have Internet access. Most drugstores and photo-processing places can give you a CD of your images even if you took the pictures with a film-based camera, so there are still many ways to share digital photos. But one of the most common ways is through a photo-sharing site, like the previously discussed Flickr. Photo-sharing sites let you display pictures in an online album for friends and family to see. This means you don't have to attach 15 pictures to an email message addressed to 30 people and clog up their inboxes; your buddies come to the photos instead. If the images are deeply personal, like pictures of a newborn baby that you want to share only with a close circle of family and friends, you can even password-protect your photo pages to keep strangers from wandering through. Most photo- sharing sites let you turn your pictures into prints or novelty items like calendars, greeting cards, stickers, and mugs. Many of the bigger companies have a photo-book service where you can arrange to have a select group of images printed and bound in a paperback or hardcover album delivered by mail. 13.2.1. Uploading Your ImagesHow you get your pictures up online varies slightly depending on which photo-sharing service you decide to use, but the rough outline goes like this:
13.2.2. Choosing a Photo-Sharing SiteThe big photo-sharing sites all give you a place to publicly post your pictures and offer optional services like photo prints. Some may only give you a certain amount of space to store pictures online, especially if you have a free basic account with the site. If you're a prolific photographer (or have a brand new photogenic kitten/baby/antique car), you may quickly max out the amount of space you're allotted, but you can get more room to show off your handiwork with an upgraded account or additional fee. 13.2.2.1. FlickrAs mentioned earlier in the chapter, Flickr (www.flickr.com ) is a great place to find photos, but you can also use it to share your own. With a Flickr account, you can upload photos from your computer, send photos straight onto your page by emailing them, or send them directly from your camera-equipped cellphone; Flickr supplies you with the email address needed to post the images. You can order prints from a Flickr partner and, if you have your own blog (Section 19.1), you can also send copies of your pix right to your Web journal as well. A free Flickr account lets you upload 20 megabytes' worth of pictures a month. Flickr doesn't measure that 20 megabytes by the amount of space your pictures take up on a hard drive, though, but by how much bandwidth you take up to get them online. Bandwidth is the amount of data you can transfer over a network from one computer to another. Tip: High- resolution photos can weigh in at about one or two megabytes apiece, which quickly eats up your Flickr limit. Lots of pixels are great for quality prints, but a photo needs far fewer dots to look good on a computer screen. Reducing copies of your pictures to Web-friendly sizes, therefore, lets you upload more of them to Flickr; programs like iPhoto or Photoshop Elements can shrink a 2 MB picture down to a mere 300 kilobytes and still have it look fine online. So why should you care about the bandwidth limit? Because the site's keeping tabs on your bandwidth usageand not the amount of hard drive space you're occupyingdeleting photos you've already uploaded doesn't give you the ability to add more pictures if you've already hit your monthly bandwidth allowance. You either have to wait until the bandwidth meter is reset the first day of each month or give Flickr some money for an upgraded account. If you choose a paid Flickr account for $25 a year, you get two gigabytes of uploads, unlimited photo sets ( Flickr's version of the "album" feature in most photo organizer programs), ad-free pages, and permanent storage for archiving your high-resolution shots. (Free accounts get only three photo sets and can display only the 200 most recent photos.) Once you're signed in to Flickr, you're ready to upload photos. Click the Upload link at the top of the page. The site gives you two ways to upload your pictures. You can use the Web form on the Upload page to manually select and tag six pictures at a time, as shown in Figure 13-3, or you can download the free Flickr Uploadr program that lets you put up a pile of pictures all at once. There's a link for the Flickr Uploadr on the main Upload page, and the software works with most versions of Windows and Mac OS X 10.3 or later. Figure 13-3. Flickr gives you a Web form to upload six pictures at a time from your computer to the site. To add a photo, click the Browse button and navigate to the place it lives on your hard drive. Once you select the image and tell Flickr to upload it, a copy of the picture is added to your photostream (Section 13.1.1).Tip: Industrious Mac/ Flickr fans have also created their own Mac-friendly upload programs (available right on Flickr.com), including a plug-in that lets you send photos right from iPhoto to Flickran incredibly convenient feature. Using Flickr's privacy settings, you can restrict pictures to just people you designate as Family, just Friends (in case you don't want your Family to see those shots of you with the lampshade on your head), or both. Once you've got your photos uploaded, you can use the Flickr Organizr to arrange them in sets or pools (Section 13.1.1). There's a lot more fun on Flickr, so the best way to see it all is to sign up and dive in. 13.2.2.2. ShutterflyIf you want to make things with your photos (including prints) as well as share them online, Shutterfly (www.shutterfly.com) has plenty of projects for you. Like Flickr, you can either upload photos through Shutterfly's Web page or with free utility software provided by the site after you've signed up and created a Shutterfly account. You can do basic photo editing with the site's free tools, like crop images, apply color effects and borders, reduce red eye, and add captions to your images. When you upload your pictures, the site guides you through sending out email invitations for people to come see the photos at your own Web page address, with optional password protection. People on your list have the opportunity to order prints of your work from Shutterfly, so Grandma can take matters into her own hands if she feels she's not getting enough action shots of the grandkids to suit her. You can make all sorts of things out of your uploaded photos and order the finished products: photo books, calendars, coffee mugs, T-shirts, tote bags, playing cards, mouse pads, coasters, jigsaw puzzles, and more. All kinds of photo albums and brag books are available, too; you can even reproduce a photo on canvas with fade-resistant inks. For about $150, that shot of the two of you at the Left Bank caf on your honeymoon can become a 24 x 36-inch framed portrait hanging over the couch . 13.2.2.3. SnapfishSnapfish (www.snapfish.com) doesn't care if you don't have a digital camera. It politely offers to process your 35mm and APS film rolls, send you prints and negatives , and put all the pictures onlineall for $3 and mailing costs. If you do have a digital camera, you can upload your images right from your computer, email them from a computer or cameraphone, and order prints. A Snapfish account is free and lets you store as many pictures as you'd like. You can let your friends and family see your online albums in the usual way: sending them an email invitation with a Web link and a password. Like Shutterfly, you have basic image-editing tools at your disposal to crop, rotate, and adjust colors in your pictures. Along with film processing, Snapfish makes its cash by selling you all sorts of objects adorned with your imagesmini-soccer balls, shirt- wearing teddy bears, golf towels, candy tins, boxer shorts, baby bibs, pillowcases, and moreto show off your photographic efforts on a variety of surfaces.
13.2.2.4. Kodak EasyShare GalleryKodak's online gallery (the sharing site formerly known as Ofoto) adds a sense of history to the notion of Web-based picture pages. Kodak, after all, has been in the consumer photography business since 1888, which is plenty of time to figure out how people like to take and share pictures. It even offers famous archival images from Life magazine for sale in its gallery pages, including the photograph of Margaret Bourke-White snapping pictures atop the Chrysler Building, an astronaut walking on the moon, and a cow wearing a cowboy hat (Figure 13-4). Figure 13-4. In addition to giving your photos an online home, Kodak offers to sell you vintage Life magazine reproductions in a variety of sizes. Of course, you can also order prints of your own pictures, too.To get started on the personal part of the Kodak Gallery, sign up for a free account at www.kodakgallery.com. (If you have a Kodak digital camera, the EasyShare software that came with it makes it easy to upload your pictures to your EasyShare Gallery page.) With your free account all set up, you can upload images one at a time at the Web site, or in batches with special Mac or Windows software. Like Snapfish, Kodak also accepts and processes film rolls by mail for a few bucks; it will automatically park digital copies of the resulting prints on your EasyShare page for you. You can send out invitations to select viewers , enhance your images with basic editing tools, and create online slideshows from your pictures. If you like one of your pictures so much you want to carry it around with you like a wallet photo, you can transfer your photos to your cellphone with the Kodak Mobile Service for $3 a month. This being Kodak, you can order all sizes and kinds of prints right from the site, plus photo- decorated tchotchkes like mugs, tote bags, and calendars. Paid "Premier" Gallery accounts, starting at $25 a year, give you more flexibility in what your home page looks like and discounts on prints. |