The Best Free Photo Sharing Sites

June 7th, 2010

With the increasing popularity of digital cameras, everyone has lots of great pictures to share. But most people have pretty much abandoned sending them by email because of attachment size limitations. The quality of online photo sharing sites has improved; now they offer lots of storage, and their customizable albums can be available instantaneously to family and friends. But the best part about these sites is that they are free! And many of them offer free prints when you join and other discount offers for savings on photo gifts.

Here are 10 choices with a range of options from full-featured to “no frills.” Most of them allow you to upload .jpg, .gif, and .png files, offer a variety of personalized gift items, and provide free image storage as long as you make at least one purchase per year.

Shutterfly is among the best of the group, offering unlimited storage of photos at full resolution, and promising never to delete them. New users receive 50 free prints to join and later get frequent discounts on personalized products. Free Shutterfly Share sites with simple URL addresses are also provided. These personalized websites combine photos, blogs, and social networking to allow users to connect and collaborate with friends and family. Shipping options include home delivery for all products or pickup of glossy prints at local Target stores that have in-store photo processing, even within an hour.

Snapfish is equally good, and offers free membership with unlimited photo storage. Members can use their uploaded photos to share and create photo products. To avoid deletion of stored photos, users must order something once a year. Snapfish allows members to download low resolution copies of the images they uploaded for free, but there is a per-image charge if members want to download high resolution or original copies of their own uploaded images. Photo albums, individual photos, animated Snapshows, and Group Rooms can be shared by email, link URL, and to other web services like facebook, Blogger and mySpace. The recipient of a shared link is required to create a Snapfish account to view shared photos, unless the sharer grants them the optional guest access. Snapfish USA supports retail pickup at Meijer, Walgreens, Longs, Staples, Walmart and BI-LO.

Kodak Gallery offers unlimited storage space; after 12 months the purchase of at least one print or gift is required to keep it. Free EasyShare software or their online application provides simple image editing tools and publishing directly to Facebook. You can also share an online slideshow, photo album, or just a few images with an email link to family and friends, and they can view the images full-screen in a high-resolution slideshow. All images are stored at high resolution, and shared photos can automatically appear on Kodak WiFi-enabled digital picture frames. Kodak Gallery probably offers the best selection of photo gifts, with frequent discount promotions. Local pickup service for glossy prints is available at CVS or Target locations with in-store photo service.

SeeHere offers ad-free personalized share pages with optional permissions. New users get 100 free prints, and visitors can download your images full-size. In fact, entire albums or multiple images within an album can be downloaded as a .zip file directly to your computer. The SeeHere Desktop software can be used to create and save prints, posters, gifts, and photo books even when you’re not online. You can test their product creation tools without creating an account, and you can also pick up your prints at Walmart.

MyPhotoAlbum has hundreds of layout and design options, and it’s quick and easy to upload image files. This site is useful for posting to blogs and social networks, and allows unlimited storage of photos and videos. People can print their own copies of your photos. Users must make a purchase once a year or join the “Club” ($20) to remain in good standing. Receiving the 20 free prints offered when you join will qualify as a purchase for the first year. Many additional features are offered to Club members.

Photobucket is a picture sharing service that hosts billions of images viewed by 17 million visitors each month. Basic (free) accounts get 500 MB of storage with a maximum of 1 MB per file (image dimensions up to 1024 x 768), slide shows with up to 10 images per slide show, video uploads of no more than 5 minutes in length, and a 25 MB limit on bandwidth. Images can be easily integrated with social networking sites, and it’s great for eBay photo hosting.

Mejuba offers unlimited storage in folders or albums, and users can designate the albums as private or public. There are no limitations on image size or number of sub-albums. Unlimited storage for both videos and pictures is completely free, there are no monthly limits or quotas. Photos and videos are stored in their original formats and sizes and are kept unmodified for backup. Navigation of the folders is easy with drag and drop, and options include geo-tagging.

Yahoo’s Flickr offers more of a “no-frills” community site that lacks serious presentation options. Users can upload their photos and videos by email, from the web, or their mobile devices. This site offers a collaborative solution to organizing photos, and you can allow your friends and family to add notes and tags to your images. The latest news is provided to users in a blog. In the free account,  images are resized and views limited to the 200 most recent uploads, so you would have to sign up for a paid account ($24.95 per year) to get unlimited storage and full-size images.

Google’s Picasa Web Albums allow Google account holders to store and share 1 GB of photos for free, but it’s not very customizable. Users must download software (available only for Windows XP/Vista) to upload their photos, or use a basic web-based uploader. The site offers a few basic photo editing functions, including color enhancement, red eye reduction and cropping. Multiple edits can be performed without altering the original image, because backup versions are saved in a hidden folder called “Originals” in the same folder with the images. The actual resolution of the photo is maintained, even though a smaller resolution photo may be displayed by the web interface.

With an American Greetings Webshots free account you can upload 1000 photos and 100 videos and monitor the number of views and downloads they get each week. A premium account ($19.99 per year) is ad-free and will allow you to upload up to 5000 photos and 500 videos to your homepage. You can upload your images using their desktop application (for PC or Mac) or from your camera phone, and have some basic editing options like cropping and rotating the images. Custom gifts like greeting cards, calendars, mugs, mouse pads and prints of any photos (yours or any from the gallery) can be ordered through PhotoWorks.

Do you have a favorite photo-sharing site that we’ve missed? Share it in the comments!

Entry Filed under: Shopping