Picture Sharing tips
Do you own a digital camera? Your camera likely came with software to organize and share your pictures via email or a web album. However you’re not limited to using the sometimes clunky and confusing software that comes with your camera. Here I will describe my favorite way to transfer pictures to my computer, organize them, and share them with friends and family.
For transferring my pictures I prefer to use the Scanner and Camera Wizard that is included with Windows XP. It lets you check just some or all of the pictures you want to transfer, lets you create a folder with a unique name for your transferred pictures (i.e. vacation Jun06, new dog Sept06, etc) and gives you the option to delete the pictures from the camera after you have transferred them to your computer.
When it’s time to share pictures, photos taken with most cameras are too big to email at their original size. Most pictures are between 500-1000 KB (1 MB), and most email services wont let you send attachments larger than 10 MB. So emailing anything more than 10-20 pictures will likely result in your email being rejected or filling up your friend’s or family’s mailbox. And if your recipient is still on a dial-up internet connection it could take them a long time to download and view your pictures.
My favorite way to share pictures is through Yahoo Photos http://photos.yahoo.com. They currently offer free unlimited photo storage to anyone with a free Yahoo account. Getting a Yahoo account is free. If you have AT&T/SBC dial-up or DSL service, you already have a Yahoo ID – it’s your email address.
With Yahoo Photos you simply upload your photos to an album on your personal Yahoo Photos website, select whether you want your picture album to be public or private then send an email invitation to whomever you want to view your pictures. People can view your pictures at thumbnail size, regular size, or download the full-size picture. They can also view your pictures as a slideshow in their web browser. You can also choose to let people order printed pictures which can be mailed to them or picked up at a local store such as Target.
Another benefit of Yahoo Photos is that when you upload photos to the service, you then have a backup copy of those photos. If your hard drive should fail or if something happens to your computer – you still have access to your photos and memories on any internet-connected computer – and can re-download them at any time.
Though Yahoo Photos provides a simple backup of the photos you decide to upload – you would likely be upset if you lost other photos or files on your computer if your computer or hard drive failed. I’d like to remind you of my computer and file back-up tips here. Organizing pictures on your computer is easy if you use a program such as Google’s free Picasa. Picasa will find all the pictures scattered around in different folders on your computer and bring them into one simple interface. It will display the pictures in order by date or you can place your pictures into albums which are groups of pictures that you can create. I also like Adobe’s Photoshop Elements which adds the ability to create DVD slideshows, and includes comprehensive picture editing tools.