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Free Photo Sharing Sites Abound

January 15, 2011 By

This is an increasingly interconnected world. This new fact of life, combined with the digitization of pretty much everything, means that people are sharing across miles and oceans their favorite songs and precious memories in the form of photographs. Both amateur and professional photographers as well as average folks looking to share their vacation pictures with family living far away can benefit from the variety of free photo sharing sites that are found on the Internet. Many of these sites not only make it easy to share your pictures, they also offer editing tools and the ability to easily print your favorite pictures.

  • Flickr is still considered the gold standard for free online photo sharing sites. It makes it incredibly easy to share your pictures across a wide variety of social media platforms and allows for easy editing. Despite its prominence, it is hardly the only option out there.
  • Kodak’s Easy Share Gallery is one of the best sites for quality printing. It also offers unlimited storage for the first 12 months.
  • Foki makes collecting your photos from across the web simple. It also allows for cell phone uploads. Even the free version of this site offers a variety of features that can only be found on pay sites. It is incredibly easy to navigate and most people will be impressed with its functionality.
  • Tinypic makes resizing photos simple and easy. People who need pictures of various sizes will really appreciate this site.
  • Photobucket is another big one on the scale of Flikr. It allows for seamless integration of social networks and email contact lists. Its mobile options are among the best and its storage space is impressive for a site that doesn’t charge a fee. You can also include videos in your collection. Many people take advantage of the tagging options and include their friends in the fun.
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The Advantages of Digital Photography

January 14, 2011 By
Digital Camera - published!
Image by CowGummy via Flickr

Not too long ago, cameras were big and bulky things that required batteries and rolls of films before they would be able to take pictures of special occasions. However, we’re currently in the middle of the technological era, which means that our cameras have greatly improved since those days. Now, we have the advantages of using digital cameras, but there are still some people out there who are a little old-fashioned and don’t think that digital cameras are that beneficial. These people are wrong. Below you will find out why so many people are trading in their old cameras for digital cameras on a steady basis.

The most obvious benefit that digital cameras have over their predecessors is that they eliminate all the extra rolls of film. Instead of having to buy a roll of film every time you plan to use your camera, all you have to do is make sure you’ve got enough room on your camera’s memory card and you’re good to go. This not only saves you money, but it also is better for the environment as it prevents wastefulness.

The next big advantage of owning a digital camera is that they are much smaller than the traditional film-using cameras. In fact, they even make some digital cameras that are small enough to fit in your jean pocket. Digital cameras also make your pictures available instantly. There is no waiting around to see if your pictures turned out good – you will know within seconds after taking the picture. You can also upload pictures to your computer and email them out instead of printing them. However, if you want to print your pictures, there are many ways to do this from using professional printing services to using your home printer. Digital cameras are incredible devices and can do a variety of things that their predecessors just aren’t capable of doing. They will save you time, money and a lot of headaches!

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Photo Sharing Websites

January 10, 2011 By

With the majority of photography now in digital form it is important to have a good place to view and share your pictures. There are many photo sharing websites available with many different features and gimmicks. There are some that are free to sign up, but with limited access to storage and features. You can usually pay a fee to upgrade for more features.

Here are a few of the better websites you can use to download and share your pictures.

Flickr

Flickr is one of the most popular photo sharing websites. You can set up a free account that gives you a limited amount of storage capacity. If you want to pay a fee you can get access to unlimited storage. At only about $30 for a years subscription, it is not a bad price to pay if you have a ton of pictures to upload and manage.

My Photo Album

This site is very easy to use. The sign up process can be done in just a few minutes and then you can start uploading your pictures. You can easily create albums and tag them. You can personalize all your albums with different layouts and comments for each picture. You can also create the album cover of your choice. This service will let you send ecards to your friends, and slide shows can easily be emailed. You can join for free with limited access and upgrade for only $20 if you want to.

Fotki

Fotki is a community driven photo sharing site. You can upload your photos easily and tag them as well. There is also a place for comments. The fun thing about this site is that other users can comment on your pictures as well. They have  very good customer support which is very important as well. There is a membership fee that will cost about $50 a year.

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Photos The Way You Want Them

January 5, 2011 By

Photography has evolved a great distance from box and flash bulb operations. Digital photography has made it possible for anyone with a keen eye to get that perfect shot. Photo editing software places the ability to tweak pictures into the reach of shutterbugs worldwide.  Let’s take a fast snapshot into the buzz in photo editing software.

The name that easily rolls off the lips of many camera enthusiast is Adobe Photoshop. This digital photo editing software has become close to the standard of choice.  Photoshop CS5 seeks to deliver a more refined product to consumers. Its Mixer Brush offers users the feel of realistic paint finishing, along with Bristle Tips providing the authentic look of the stoke of an artist’s brush.  Other new options include Content Aware Fill and Puppet Warp. Content Aware Fill will fill in empty spaces on an image when a subject is removed.  With Puppet Warp text, graphics, and other image elements can be altered and stretched to achieve the desired effect.

Corel Paint Shop Photo Pro X3 also allows the user to alter digital pictures and has been well received by consumers. This user-friendly image editing software can touch up photos with amazing detail. Add and remove elements while working on a group of images simultaneously. This Corel product comes with file sharing capabilities. Users can edit shots and upload them directly to Flickr, YouTube or Facebook when they are done.

A free photo organizer and editing software is available for download via Google. Google Picasa 3.8 allows users to efficently oragnize photos and make slight editing modifications. Switch up the lighting on a photo or eliminate red eye. Picassa also allows for file sharing. However, if a users photo editing needs are greater than fixing red eye and uploading photos to their favorite social networking site, a much more specific program will be better suitable for their needs.

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Sharing Your Family Photos

December 29, 2010 By

Your family photos are a wonderful asset to preserve memories and to share them with others. In the past, you had to mail photos to friends and family, which took more time than you may have wished. With the advent of digital cameras and the internet, you can share your family photos instantly with your family and friends, no matter how far away they are. It is as simple as the click of a button.

When you take your photos into to be processed at a retailer, you can request a CD of them and they will often allow you to use their website to post your photos on. You can give friends and loved ones a password that they can access the site with and view your photos. There are also numerous websites online that you can join and set up your own family page. You can regularly update your photos and add captions to them. Some of these do charge a nominal subscription fee to use the service.

One popular and easy to access resource is Facebook. You can have a profile for yourself, and then add your family pictures in your photo album. You can create a separate one for each event, such as vacations, weddings and related special events. Family members can join as “friends” and then can view the pictures when they choose. The user friendly format allows you to easily upload several photos at once, and you can add captions as well. One simple way that you can share photos is through email. You simply upload the pictures as attachments, and then send them off. The receiver can print them out if he or she chooses.

There are so many ways to share family pictures through the internet that you can pick the one that best matches your needs.

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Buying New Photo Editing Software in 2011?

December 21, 2010 By

If you are buying new photo editing software you will have to navigate a huge variety of programs, from those that cost you to those that can be downloaded for free from the Internet. If you are going to go for a free download, Picasa 3, a free download from Google, gives you all the basic tools of sharing and organizing photos and seems to work well enough. Missing are the enhanced systems of organization such as good face recognition and such. If you do find the limitations of free editing software don’t give you enough power to edit your photos to the extent that you would prefer, here are a few of the top brands and a some ideas about them.

The Adobe PhotoShop Elements 9: From the makers of the Adobe family of software comes this software specifically for editing photos. Unlike some of the more advanced Adobe programs you may find this to be easier to use. Like any of the programs listed here the program has good capabilities of importing and editing your photo collection. With Photoshop Elements you can repair photos automatically, copy the style of one photo and add it to another, and share your images directly to social media sites. Organizing the thousands of digital images can also be accomplished with this software.

Other recognized programs for PC users are Corel Paintshop Photo Pro, as well as Xara Photo and Graphic Designers. This software will give you many similar capabilities as the Adobe Photoshop Elements

Aperture 3 from Apple for Mac: If you are a Mac user this is the top line photo editing software. Costing you around $200, you can purchase the software from the Apple Store or from Mac’s App Store where you can download it immediately. Adobe Photoshop Elements is also available for Mac users, so check around before immediately buying the Apple software.

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Sharing Photos

December 18, 2010 By
LAS VEGAS - JANUARY 08: A Polaroid Pogo Insta...
Image by Getty Images via @daylife

In my family, we are quite advanced in the field of sharing photos. There are few occasions, small or large, that don’t involve lots of picture taking with our digital camera, followed by downloading to our laptop and distribution to our family and friends via email and Facebook, primarily.

Facebook has become our network of choice for sharing data. Since the vast majority of our family and friends use this service, and since Faceboook employs a fairly sophisticated methodology for uploading and sharing photos, it makes sense to use it as our default tool for sharing data.

This sharing of data is made easier still by a device that was introduced to me by my wife, a universal memory card reader. You take the memory card from your digital camera, insert it into this device, which connects to any computer via a simple USB connection. No downloading of digital camera software is required, all the photos are uploaded, saved, and store in its own folder. One can edit the photos as desired. I found it to be much easier than using the software that accompanies a digital camera. I had never seen such a gadget before. It was then that my education in the world of photo and data sharing took a giant leap forward. Until then, I had been mired in the late 20th century mindset regarding technology in general. Thanks to my wife and her passion for photography, I was introduced to the 21st century advances in photo sharing.

Between Facebook and universal memory card reading technology, the process for sharing photos has been simplified enormously, so much so that even people over the age of 50, who tend to be technologically challenged, can master the process. Technology is continually evolving, so we can expect new and even more exciting advances in photo sharing in the near future.

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Photo Sharing 5 Best Sites on the Internet

December 18, 2010 By

Because there are hundreds of photo sharing sites out there, and new ones cropping up every day, it was difficult to pare the following list down. Folks from all over the globe have their varying photo sharing favorites, and often, there isn’t a duplicate favorite to be found. When there is a duplicate, pay attention!

Here’s a list based on the most popular photo sharing sites in the world:

  1. Photobucket. Share your photography, enter a photo contest, and create a slide show or video. Hosting your photos is free and can be shared on places like Facebook, Twitter, and MySpace. Edit photos through an easy-to-use professional grade photo editor.
  2. Flickr specializes in photo and video sharing along with organizing. They want you to “share and stay in touch” with loved ones, “make stuff” like posters, cards, and calendars, and “explore” what other photographers have to offer.
  3. SmugMug. At SmugMug, be prepared to not only share your work, but buy work from others and sell your own. SmugMug believes in personal albums free of company advertising, full resolution on photos, and full-screen slide shows.
  4. KodakEasyShareGallery. You may already know about the quality of Kodak, but what you may not know is what they can do on their photo sharing website. Allow them to help you with your favorite photo, whether you want it on a mug, frame, mouse pad, puzzle, tote bag, or jewelry item. Tools are easy to use.
  5. Picassa Web Albums. Get involved in photo sharing with Google’s free photo editing software. Recently released Picassa3.8 helps you to organize, edit, and print your photos. Get started here: http://picasa.google.com/features.html.

Save some money and have some fun sharing your photos via your favorite photo sharing site. No matter the site you choose, know that sharing your photos will last a lifetime and warm many hearts.

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3 Online Photo Hosting Sites

December 13, 2010 By

There are many benefits to using photo hosting sites, which make it easy, quick and fun to show off and to share your digital pictures online. They can also be beneficial in that they serve as a backup for your images rather than simply allowing them to sit vulnerably on your hard drive. Here are three of the most popular photo hosting sites that you can utilize online.

Flickr

This is one of the most popular websites for photo storage and photo sharing, and the biggest reason is probably because Flickr is completely free to use. This is an easy to maneuver site that features a variety of different methods for sorting your photos, categorizing them and tagging them as necessary. The Flickr interface is easy to browse and visually appealing. Users can rate and comment on photographs, and you can set different privacy levels on your photos as well.

SmugMug

SmugMug is a pay site, and membership begins at approximately $40 per year, but it is still a really popular website for photo hosting. SmugMug has been regarded as one of the more popular photo hosting websites on the Internet despite not being accessible for free. There are no ads on the site and storage is unlimited. It is easy to post your SmugMug photographs in your blogs and on websites, and SmugMug is an attractive site to visit when viewing photographs online.

Shutterfly

PC Magazine voted Shutterfly as the best online photo service. Shutterfly offers unlimited photo storage, and states that the images are never deleted unless the users do it on their own. The one downside is that Shutterfly is attempting to sell prints and photograph items, and as such, there are a lot of promotions and ads on the website. If you are interested in buying print items, however, Shutterfly can be a beneficial place to place your photos.

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