Wednesday, September 16, 2009

Photo Storage

Hey guys! So lately I've found lots of great deals for printing photos online. I haven't officially ordered the massive amounts of prints I've been needing to, but it got me thinking about the best online sources to store and print your photos—which of course you will use for some creative project! :)

My personal favorite site is Picasa Web Albums. First, because it's associated with Google, and I'm obsessed with pretty much all things Google. But second (and so on) because it's a clean, easy-to-use source that offers the best functionality...in my personal opinion. 
Their newest features let you search through your photos and collaboratively build albums, i.e. you and your friends/family can all upload your photos to the same album. 
Picasa easily lets you share albums and even create slideshows. For example, I've had several people trying to rent apartments, who simply put the photos in a Picasa album and send the link—which is shown directly to the right of the album.
Which brings me to another Picasa feature: privacy settings. You can make your albums public (like for renting an apartment), make all private, or select a specific few friends to have access—all determined for each individual album.

PLUS, you can download compatible programs that let you manage and edit the files without the Internet. Believe me, there's lots of other perks as well. Oh, and for you bloggers...if you operate on a Google account, Picasa will automatically create an album that includes ALL of the photos you have ever posted on your blog. Nice!
When it comes to PRINTING photos online, I don't currently have one site I'm dedicated to. Picasa does collaborate with several sites, but sometimes you can find good deals individually. I used to mostly use Winkflash because they offered a flat shipping rate of 99 cents. But that's changed, and so has my preference. I've also used Snapfish a few times. It's nice to get a feel for the quality and service that various photo printing sites offer. Plus, new customers are usually offered an introductory deal like free photos or shipping. In fact, until Sept. 16, Snapfish is offering 50 free prints and free shipping. 
What sites do you like? 
-- KK Signing off
P.S. Keep the Juices Flowing

2 comments:

  1. I use shutterfly, but I don't know if its better than the other ones. I paid about $30 for an annual print plan, which gives me prints for 10cents each, and a free photobook at a $30 value. So pretty much I just bought the photobook and now I get cheap prints! I choose scrapbooking over digital photobooks, but we had family pictures taken and I couldn't choose which ones to scrapbook, so this worked well so I could use lots of them! Thanks for your tips.

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  2. Shutterfly recently offered a free photobook,you pay shipping. Totally worth it. The quality was great and we were really happy with it.
    Walgreens recently had a free 11x14 picture you pay shipping (which was 2 dollars). So we have a new family picture up. Also nice. It'd be nice to know about these specials way ahead of time...or like you suggest, always be ready with your pic uploaded. Great idea!

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