Six Online Photo Services & Places to Post or Sell Your Work

On-line photo services have been around for years, and are becoming easier to use. Uploading your photos is now point and click technology, however, the difference is in the editing, whether this be during the initial upload to the computer server, or after the upload to the client. In layman's terms, this means, a person can change the photos anytime during the photo shoot, from while the photos are in the camera, to when the photos are sent to the personal computer (PC), or the online photo editing service.

There are several good photo services on-line, however, some of these are so similar that I am grouping them together. On-line photo services are fun and simple software for end-users to use. These online photo services are regularly upgraded, and are as professional as any in-store kiosck. Cell phone users are using a lot of these online services, and so can you. Try these services - whether you have a children's camera, or a cell phone, or a mobile web cam. If you don't have a digital camera, get one; and if you are afraid to take your expensive digital camera someplace, try getting a cheap one. Places like Craigslist or Freecycle will have one available for you for little or no cost. Digital technology has upgraded so much that obtaining a camera for less than $50, sometimes less than $10 is a relatively easy thing to do. Using on-line photo services, when a person is not a known user, is something to do with photo stock. Photo stock is something on the order of data entry, its quick and dirty (as in mud) and easy to sell. Everything from wrapping paper to greeting cards to textiles to postage stamps uses photo stock.

Please note that I am presently using amateur equipment, and if I get professional results (magazine quality work) even once or twice a day, that is pretty good. Calculating how much memory the online service will allow is pretty easy if one is using a sticker camera, and only posts a few higher grade photos per month to the creative commons. A professional digital camera, with a rating of 10 megapixel (MP) units or higher, will quickly fill up an online album.

It took several months to upgrade my skills of observing light and using the flash to advance to a camera with a small zoom lens and a few features, to the point where using all of these features became automatic to myself.

Associated Content - There is a beta photo album, or slideshow device available here at Associated Content, that allows a user to store and share your photos that are of good, excellent, or superior quality. As of this writing, there are less than 7000 albums posted here, yet, we have over 850,000 articles here. The albums are still in the beta, or development stages, so if we need to edit our work, we have several choices to use, below. There are not a whole lot of features to this photo slideshow at the present time, this is a place to post a few of your best photos in a given category. #1

Shutterfly - Starting from scratch with this photo service that requires a credit card to pick up the photos from Target. The photos are nice, and some people still leave their photos without paying for them at the local store. That's one way of getting exposure for your photography, although, not the best way. Target - It's allright, the photo manipulation tools are great for small editing, the photos are clear, the greens are almost black, though. Flickr also has an option to have your photos picked up at Target Stores. Flickr- I've used Flickr, not much as I would have liked to, thus do not have much of an impression on the service. Flickr is connected with Yahoo! groups. When I got locked out of my Yahoo! account with all of the clubs that I was the moderator of it, I stopped developing the clubs, and stopped using Flicker. You can see my new Flicker page, it's cute, there is a slideshow for it, there are a few photos, that you may use, posted to the account. There are ways of sharing the photos, a license will be attributed to your uploaded photos, which will automatically be "all rights reserved". This license may be changed to some rights reserved, creative commons, or varying levels, to public domain. I'm going back to migrate my content from my Yahoo! clubs, which I have rejoined, just to show how easy it is to take back your own photos from the group albums. There is a limit to the free accounts of three albums, the $24.95 professional account looks to be something for anyone who is actually meeting expenses with their photographic efforts. (This includes diaper bag expenses, or some such family expense.) The sticker camera photos loaded easily, and prevented me from overloading my limit of service for the month, which I would have done on the free service had I been using even a 5.0 MP or a 6.0 MP camera. Flickr is a great service, with the most risks and the most rewards. #2

PhotoWorks - This American Greeting cards on-line album is a cute way to send a greeting card to friends or family. Their reaction to the greeting cards were somewhat positive, nothing "wow", however, nobody became reactionary over receiving a photo from this service, either. Thank you notes for job interviews may also be made using the Photo Works service. This is a safe bet for sharing, although, not the most exciting for special effects. #3

Snapfish - I like some of the tools, the photo manipulations, the group upload. This service looks just like the York Photo service. The Clark ColorLabs service is apparently the same, too, thus, I am counting it as 1 photo service. Snapfish is easy to upload, the photos can be placed into a group room, with or without further editing. These photos can be given color effects such as rose and white, green and white, blue and white, black and white, or "antique" sienna and white. There is a red-eye elimination tool which works as part of the menu. Most of the tools on Snapfish are very similar to your average photo kiosck center. The borders are effective tools, available on the website, and products similar to those that Cafe Press sells are also available. What I found to be confusing was the "sharing" tool, sometimes users need to become members in order to look at the sent photos, and the "choice" button's appearance seems to be as random as I am. So, instead of spamming all my friends and family with photos, I've created a group room filled with all of my sticker photos, which look completely fake, and obviously digital, as part of a full-sized slideshow. The upload tool accepts photos or works saved with the .jpe, .jpg, .jpeg, or .zip extensions only. #4

Cafepress - After having set up several free shops just for fun, and opting not to develop a marketing plan until being able to afford to purchase my own product, I can say that developing the product is a lot easier than creating a quality product is. Cafe Press allows a person to place a few of their best photos on a product, for distribution as gifts, or for sale, on everything from buttons and magnets to tee shirts, tote bags and socks. #5

Wikimedia - Wikimedia Commons are a great place to go for photos. I uploaded a photo to Wikimedia, and hope to upload a few more. It's a good service, it's a reputable service, and I hope to be able to contribute a lot more to this service as soon as I get the bills paid for, and get another professional camera. This is the way to get exposure for your work. This is also the place to post your work after you have earned your fare from it. #6

Yahoo! groups - The photo albums still worked, despite the fact that I was locked out of my email account by my sales team, who were quickly replaced by Yahoo! administrators, luckily. The photos may be shared with anyone who joins your group, and will be stored as logo-sized or small media sized photos. This may not have photo editing, however, the groups are places to meet people as well as to share your creative commons photos freely. So, I rejoined all my old groups, and posted a few sticker photos to the Associated Content group.

In-house software editing

MS Paint- This free program is very useful for the creation of photographic scrapbook covers to add to the aesthetic nature of your on-line photo albums. As long as the extension for your work is either .jpeg, .jpg, or .gif when you save it, the work should upload. If the formatting is not right for the program, save it again in the format that the program accepts. Microsoft packages, sells, services and develops a lot of photo editing software packages, which are all called in layman's terms, MS Paint.

Place to Post Photos if You Are a Skeptical Inquirer, or Have Too Much Cash

Photo - This service, based somewhere in Maryland, is a service for people who distribute and publish books, more than for photographers. If you have a lot of relatives in Middle America, and don't have postage to write to all of them, this is a good place to post some photos about Americana. If you have thousands of published photos under dozens of pseudonyms and too much cash flow, buy the book - otherwise, don't.

Places where professionals post photos

PhotoSpin - is an advice column covering the basics for photographers, without a lot of the mathematical calculations involved for the f stop, the aperture, the focus, the film speed, the lens, the distance, etc... There's no time to get out a tape measure and a calculator for all of these calculations. I initially received a few recommendations for on-line photo services through my subscription to Photo Spin's newsletter. Thank you, Photo Spin for all your advice over the years! There is also a toll-free phone number listed on the top of the screen, for you to call if you want to make money from your work, posting photos.

MSN First Person - this is somewhere between an on-line sharing service and a professional service. There is a whole editorial department here to look at your photos, which hopefully you will have carefully thumbed through and posted in a few places, such as the ones above, prior to submitting to MSNBC. Of course, don't forget to mention Associated Content when you do, please. This will help to keep our writers and photographers community going.

Triond - I signed up for Triond, and have yet to figure out how to use all of the features here, such as the photo uploader. This is a great place to send all those photos that you think might overload your Associated Content account.

Sources: Photo Spin, newsletter; website to sell photos to; Seagullzilla photos, Yahoo! groups; Racoonzilla photos, Yahoo! groups; Squirrelzilla photos, Yahoo! groups; Guns 'n Roses 'zilla photos, Yahoo! groups; My Flickr page, website; Las Vegas slideshow, Associated Content; Photo Collages, Associated Content; Basics for Using MS Paint, Computerhope, website; Joke definition of MS Paint, Uncyclopedia, website