Online Photo Services: Reviews & Comparison

With digital pictures being just about ubiquitous nowadays, it has become essential for even casual users to find a photo service that is adequate, reliable, allows webspace and sharing, and can deliver hard copy prints or customized items. While there are so many to choose from and most folks will go with the software or company packaged with their camera, I would like to enlighten you to some of the best photo sites on the web today and what they have to offer.

First, is Shutterfly, at www.shutterfly.com . In my opinion they are best there is to offer. They will give you free basic online album sharing with personalized URLs for free. They allow uploading digital photos and managing those uploads with a state-of-the-art viewer. Their service is fast and friendly, however, they do not allow downloading of the photos.

Number two is Snapfish at www.snapfish.com . Their service is free and unlimited as to how many photos you upload. They have an excellent viewer and fast display with plenty of features offering good picture quality and size. Their service supports regular JPG images as well as JPGs embedded in a ZIP file. There is no full-res download but they do offer external linking to Match.com and Ceiva online frame service.

Webshots at www.webshots.com is owned by the world renowned CNET and they come up third on the list. Although their uploading and picture management experience is only run-of-the-mill, their viewer is far above average and makes up for the clunky interface. The pic quality is good and features full-size resolution. Downloads are limited to 5/month with the free service or unlimited for only $2.49/month. The service accepts both JPG and GIF but there is not external linking.

The fourth entry here is Picasa. Visit them at www.picasa.com . This is widely held as the best free photo service existing and it is hard to deny them the title. Their service is free and in a stand-alone format. They allow upload/download unlimited with the best viewer on the market. The only problem is that while the picture size on the viewer is outstanding, the quality is mediocre at best. What they do offer in compensation is accepting pictures in just about every form, including: JPG, BMP, GIF, PNG, PSD, TIF, AVI, MPG, WMV, ASF, MOV, and RAW.

In the number 5 slot, we have Photoworks at www.photoworks.com . Their service is free and unlimited. The Photoworks upload and management is excellent, their viewer is fast and the display has great features, picture size and quality. They allow JPG, TIF, and BMP.

Our last entry is Photo Cheap at www.photocheap.com . Although their service is free, they only allow 200 MB, which just doesn't add up with today's advanced digital photos. Their upload service is also well below par and their view is slow to respond with only basic features. The photo Cheap site also only allows JPG formats. There is no reason to even consider this service. Move on and enjoy one of the top 3. They will keep you satisfied for all your photo needs.