I had asked a few days ago for some help because Yahoo Photos is about
to shut down this summer. I have so many photos, and Yahoo, luckily has
arranged it so that with a click of the mouse, all of my photos can be
transferred into another service. But where to put them? Once I do
this, it'd be too hard to transfer them elsewhere from scratch. My
choice has to be sure. Many of you might be in the same position as me
and most ferret people that I know are freaks about taking thousands
of photos of their babies. So I thought I'd come back and post some of
the suggestions I received off list and some of my experience in trying
each one out. I should have written this yesterday because I would have
been able to tell you in detail what each service offered or not and
what helped me arrive at the below opinions. I'm really sorry that I
didn't. I apologize.

Photobucket: By far the most popular. At first, I could not figure out
why. It's a very good place! But not "that" good I thought. Much better
than Yahoo's revamped photos section that they installed in the past
year or so. But why is it so big when other providers have some better
points? Ah, movies! Movies are the new trend. And if you are big on
movies, this is a nice place. It holds both albums of movies and
photos. So you don't have to use YouTube and a Photo service
separately. It is unlimited. Free. And for us ferret freaks who take
thousands of ferret photos and have little time, this is perfect. Very,
very easy interface.

Google/Picass: The perks of this place is that for the real
photographer there are lots of bells and whistles. The displays are
nice and big. Slide shows are nice and big too! You get a whole
software program to integrate what you do on your computer with your
photos with what is online. Nice. BUT, not unlimited. So for ferret
foto freaks ...not good at all. You have to pay for full services.
So this was out. For those with little time, it'd be a big bulky.

Flicker: Nice little thing for those who are not choosey. Uploads are
reasonable. Simple lay out. I want great organization features, great
slide shows that you can write stories under and big big displays cause
I love showing off my photos! I can't remember what I didn't like, but
there were a few limits that made it not a good choice for me. Free and
unlimited as I can see.

imageshack.us : Unique, so it's worth looking at. It'll be something
that you love or hate. By far the simplest format. For photographers
its good because it displays views of your photos on plain white
pages ... that are as large as your screen. And that rocks. But, it
lacks in so much else if you need other options and organizational
bells and whistles. Check it out, because it's so diff, it might
really float your boat.

Picture trail: I have not used my account for a good year, but I've
never been pleased with it at all. The old Picture Trail was slow on
its uploading of your pictures, and even slower in having it's pages
come up. I'm sure they fixed it by now, but you used to have to first
load pics in a general area, then move them to or create albums which
took an incredible amount of time. For artists it is nice though. The
displays were a good size and you could add music, etc. I really liked
that. It was where I made my Sean and Rocky Slide show years ago. It's
better than doing something like that and putting it up on Google or
YouTube. If you like making nice slideshows, but you don't have
software and things to do it from scratch on your computer to make a
movie of it ... this would be the site for you. You just upload your
pics and create a show. A nice, large one with the clarity of your
original shots.

There is one last service that I forget the name of. It's the most
innovative sites of all. Brand new. It says that you don't have to open
a browser on the net to work on your photos and and things. It sounds
almost like you have no uploading. Like your computer is linked. I
couldn't understand it because the ideas were so new. I don't like
change very much, so I didn't try it. It's so worth it for you to check
out out, because its so different. Maybe the person here who emailed me
will share with us the name of the site.

Personally, the two I like:

Kodak: It is like the very old Yahoo photos, but better. Like the first
webshots at first glance (but a much, much better interface). The
slideshow shots ... are humongous! So for a real photographer like me
it's great! I love showing off my photos, especially of my ferrets,
so this was one of the most important things to me. An option of a
fantastic, large, fast and easy loading slides show that enables you to
tell a story under each pic. The uploads are fairly fast. You can order
tons of gifts, even more than yahoo if I am understanding it right.
Prints are cheap. You can earn free prints. Organization is like the
older sites. The newer ones, have so much clutter and complexity it's
ridiculous. It takes forever for pages to come up, it takes lots of
button pushing to do something simple, and you rarely have the time to
learn everything that the site offers anyway. This is not like that.
There was only ONE, one drawback to it. However for some, it might be
something that you love. When you share an album ... people do not have
a link option to see your other albums. For many people this privacy
will be desired. For me that shares my life so much, I hate it. I love
hearing from people that write me and say, "I went to the album you
shared, but I also checked out xxx album of yours and OMG it was
great!"

Shutterfly: Now this one is similar to Kodak, but the displays not as
stunning. However, it's better than most! The site is super easy to
navigate and hassle free. I loved it. I was surprised by how good it
was.


There. I hope this helps those of you who have to find a new home for
your large collections of ferret photos. And for those who are not
quite happy where they are and want something much better, maybe this
will help you a tad in where to look. The best thing is to put 3-4
shots in a folder on your desktop. Go to a site and register. Then
upload. By this point you will know if the site is too much trouble or
not. Then send an invite to you and a couple of friends that can help
you decide. See what it's like to visit and view the pics. It's very
fast. And hint, if you cant' do that within five minutes or so ...
quit and move onto another service, unless time and trouble are worth
a good site with more complex offerings.

Happy picture taking!
Wolfy

[Posted in FML 5652]