Tips for Sharing Digital Photos Online with Family and Friends

All of us like to share our digital photos with our family and friends. In the past we ordered extra prints or mailed them a DVD to tell them about a newborn or a wedding. We even sent emails with huge photo attachments, sometimes even irritating the recipients! But these days there is a simple way to share digital photos online with family and friends. Just upload the pictures on to the web and send them a link. It is instant and there are no annoying attachments.

Here is what you need to know about online photo sharing:

• Online photo sharing is the best way to share digital photos as it is cheaper than most of the other alternatives. Besides, it is one way to backup your precious memories!

• Many websites offer free services to host your photos while some charge a nominal fee. Particularly with the free sites, the photos you upload will be stored at a low resolution as they usually have storage limits. With paid options, you may be able to buy enough storage to maintain your pictures in high resolution and your friends and family will be able to get good quality prints.

• You do not have to waste time uploading pictures one by one through email. You can upload them in big batches. You can also send a link to view your album to your friends and family through the site itself.

• On most sites, you can tag your individual photos, write descriptions for your albums and even allow your online visitors to leave a comment or write in your guestbook. With such easy tools, people tend to communicate more often. This is a great way to exchange greetings and stay in touch.

• You can have multiple albums of photos uploaded to your account and you can restrict access rights to each album. Unauthorized viewers will simply not see an album if they do not have access rights. So you have some lelvel of security with your personal information and photos.

• Many sites allow your photos to be viewed as a slideshow. You may also be able to add video and audio content to your albums.

• Some hosts may provide the number of visitors you had - a statistic that may interest you.

• Some paid sites allow you and your online visitors to also order digital photo prints.

• Some hosts allow you to network with friends who also have an account with that website. When your friend uploads an album, you get an automatic intimation.

You can even have your own website to host your albums. Make sure you have a feature that controls access rights to your digital photos. If you have teenage kids or children accessing an online photo album ensure that they understand and respect the access privileges. Accidentally opening an album to the public eye can result in loss of privacy and intrusion.