One of the most revolutionary aspects to digital photography is not the way in which we shoot or edit pictures, it’s the way we share them.
Though you can still print out everything you shoot just like we used to in the days of film, generally speaking those days of making 4×6 prints of every shot you take and gluing them into a photo album are gone. Get with the times. This is the digital era, man.
What most of us do is store our images on our computer, and print only those that we really like. The remainder of our pictures we email or post to websites which offer photo sharing features.
Here’s a list of some of my favorite photo sharing sites. Some are strictly pay, some have a free option, and they all offer a variety of features.
- Webshots
Share your pictures through photo messages, online photo albums, custom prints and gifts. - Snappages
Fully flash built interface with 3D slideshows and an image editor. - Fotki
Free unlimited photo hosting for blogs, 9 cent prints, and photo contests.
- Shutterfly
Free unlimited storage, 12 cent prints, as well as calendars and photo books.
- PBase
One of the oldest and most trusted of these sites, PBase is not free, but has a really nice gallery and excellent community. - Flickr
Arguably the most popular and widely used photo sharing site these days, a free and unlimited Pro option with geotagging and 15 cent prints.
- Smugmug
Unlimited photos, unlimited storage, but no free account if you want to share with others.
- Exposure Manager
Nice site with a focus on branding and sales. Unlimited storage and uploads, with an FTP option. - PrintRoom
Geared toward serious shooters and pros, PrintRoom lets you create a web storefront for your photos. - PhotoBucket
This one has been catching on, and offers 1GB storage on their free account, and 5GB on their pro with unmetered bandwidth.


January 23rd, 2008 at 3:21 am
Thank you! Great article for me.
May 26th, 2008 at 10:05 am
If you want something different along with nice slideshows, and good photo sharing….do not hesitate go on http://www.comboost.com/. You can add your slideshows to your blog or website, or simply share them with your love ones. Check out..
May 28th, 2008 at 12:25 am
SM has a great photo and video hosting and sharing site. You can easily upload your photos and videos, organize them into albums, edit them, and create gifts or order prints. You should check it out!!
July 1st, 2008 at 3:05 pm
With Arkiva.com you can store, access, and share any type of digital files in one place. Including Photos, Videos, Music, PC Files, Scanned Images, and more. Users also get advanced email, Home Inventory Software, and Medical Record Software.
Arkiva will also convert any old media such as Videotapes, Film, Photo Prints, Slides, Negatives, Record Albums, Cassettes, or Documents to digital. Arkiva customers get a premium DVD and a copy stored in digital format on their personal arkiva account.
Feel free to email me at srgjr@arkiva.com
July 15th, 2008 at 3:06 am
mail me some great photos of some animals and birds
August 30th, 2008 at 8:33 am
Sometimes the worst aspect of the web is too much choice. Sites like this really help!
Thanks you, thank you, thank you!
jg
September 11th, 2008 at 10:49 am
Shutterfly & Flikr are good. Love SmugMug.com. The small yearly fee is worth it. Easy to organize, much more professional looking than any others I have seen. SmugMug has all the great features a photographer needs to start and sell with an online portfolio.
September 12th, 2008 at 11:44 am
Is there a FREE photo-sharing website that won’t require people to create an account using their e-mail in order to see the photos I want to share? I have a picky relative that won’t use their e-mail, but wants to see wedding photos I took! All the ones I checked out from your list seem to require visitors to set up an account.
October 7th, 2008 at 8:27 am
I use http://www.smugmug.com. It works great. It also has some added features and also password protected security features so that our images are secured and no images are deleted over here..not so far :-)
Regards
Mellina
forexfreedownload.com
October 22nd, 2008 at 10:48 am
We recently launched http://www.LifeSnapz.com, a site that provides unique “event based” photo sharing, along with videos, text timelines and maps. The site enables a permanent life record to be created collaboratively by family, friends and other trusted groups. Photos from flickr, picassa and videos from YouTube and Vimeo can be contributed as well.
Bob Armour
http://www.lifesnapz.com
November 27th, 2008 at 11:11 am
Hello,
You forgot Pikeo in your comparision. Have a look at: http://www.pikeo.com
Its one of the best site because they offer:
*1GB of free stockage
*You don’t need to install any kind of software
*Your friends don’t need to sign in for watsching your photos
See you on pikeo !
December 1st, 2008 at 2:51 pm
Don’t forget these three additional sites:
-www.smilebox.com (fun! Create digital scrapbooks to share online or print, as well as slideshows, photo cards, etc. free)
-www.picasaweb.com (share thousands of photos online with friends, no charge)
-www.winkflash.com (unbeatable prices–prints, photo books, cards and more; excellent customer service)
January 26th, 2009 at 8:52 am
Picasa Web Album is another good one. If you have Picasa 3 software installed on your computer, you can make changes to the pics on your hard drive and sync it to your albums in Picasa Web Album.
As an aside, Picasa 3 will work with Vista 32 bit, but it is questionable as to whether it works with Vista 64 bit.
January 26th, 2009 at 5:26 pm
I have used kodak.com for years. Yes, they do require that viewers set up an account. Easy to organize. They have recently started requiring that you buy at least one item a year from them – which I could do with no problem this year. They have a variety of stuff you can buy with your photos on them – mugs were good quality and so were the posters I bought. I have liked using Picasa and Flickr to look at other photos.
February 5th, 2009 at 4:17 pm
I just read in the Wall Street Journal that Kodak needs to sell or otherwise get rid of Kodak Gallery for financial reasons. Photo sharing sites continue to close their doors. Give Shozam Web Gallery Generator a try, http://www.shozam.com. It is software that resides on the user’s computer. The program generates HTML gallery files that are uploaded to any webhost. Great galleries with no worries about moving (or losing) photos from a defunct site.
March 8th, 2009 at 7:08 pm
Is there a site I could share my pictures with and have them protected? Meaning not copied or downloaded.
April 4th, 2009 at 6:25 am
Which of these sites use tags to organize the photos, and will use the tag, description and caption information embedded in the images exif data? I have thousands of scanned slides that are already tagged. Would hate to have to redo all that work.
April 25th, 2009 at 12:57 am
You have also omitted the new thing – BlueMelon – there are several privacy levels available : public, private, unlisted, password protected.
To compare :
* 1 GB – free account ; unlimited storage – Pro account
* no need to login to see public photos
May 1st, 2009 at 11:38 am
Does anyone know of photo sharing sites for events? Someone takes your picture at an event, gives you a website and unique code to download your photo. I’m looking for a site that will allow us to do that type of photo sharing.
Thanks!
May 31st, 2009 at 7:25 pm
Does anyone know of an easy photo sharing site where I can upload pics and others can upload pics on my account too so we can all see them? I want to do this for my wedding. Photobucket and Flickr allows it but the process is long for some people and hard for those who don’t understand the internet too well. Thanks.
June 10th, 2009 at 7:10 am
Graet article – now a question.
I need myself and friends to be able to share the same albums.
Some of my friends are not entirely comfortable online so it has to be quite simple to use. I’ve found that they find there’s too much to Flickr and get confused!
Any recommendations from any these above, or others, where I can have others upload images as well as me?
SW
June 30th, 2009 at 9:37 pm
I am so surprised no one has mentioned MobileMe! Friends and family can download hires images and contribute pictures of their own.
October 18th, 2009 at 10:49 pm
I have been using a new photo sharing site called Digitalgrams and think it is pretty cool. I see new features being added each time I come back. You can share photos, send them as photo e-cards, the user interface is good, but what I really like is they have this photo personalization feature where you can add a transparent digital frame to your photo.
October 27th, 2009 at 1:10 pm
Checkout http://www.photorokr.com for those who want to have different. This is still beta version and feel free to drop the email for account request at webmaster [at] photorokr dot com
January 12th, 2010 at 10:08 pm
I use PhotoLinkage.com. I love the features. They have a daily photo and comment feature that all my coworkers and I love to look at and comment on.
February 5th, 2010 at 10:03 am
Its no use asking questions here. Nobody will answer!
February 5th, 2010 at 10:07 am
What’s your question?
February 9th, 2010 at 5:21 am
I just signed up with http://www.mejuba.com. Unlimited storage for both videos and pictures and it’s completly free. No monthly limits or qoutas.
Photos and videos are stored in their original formats and sizes and are kept unmodified for backup.
I also like that you can geo-tag your stuff so it shows up on a map. And you can search for stuff on the map – that’s cool!.
As the only site i know of it uses a Windows Explorer like navigation with folders – super eacy to use – even has drag and drop!.
I can highly recommend it.
May 4th, 2010 at 11:25 am
[...] http://www.fotohacker.com/2008/01/14/favorite-photo-sharing-websites/ [...]
June 18th, 2010 at 11:18 am
soemtimes I’ll use http://www.factini.com – its nice to just email pictures and have it show up instantly.
July 13th, 2010 at 11:55 am
Great list. I’d also add MysticLenz and two more that I like; Jalbum which has a great user interface and Epic Edits which is for any professionals out there.
July 24th, 2010 at 10:50 am
Great article. Thanks. I use Monille.com – free and unlimited photo storage :-)
July 29th, 2010 at 1:31 pm
Great and useful list. I have used some of the sites. Personally Webshots is my favorite. I also should mention that I find http://www.dreamyreflections.com/ most easy to share with my grand mother and my 60 year old uncle since all they could do online is click a link and see the photos. I know this site offers tools to compare shooting conditions for digital photos, but I haven’t used those.