David K. Israel
5 Other Photo Sharing Sites Worth Knowing
by David K. Israel - April 29, 2009 - 5:26 AM

photographer.pngTo follow up on yesterday’s Picasa VS Flickr post, I present five other sites that offer photo sharing. I’m also going to attempt to rate each (five star max), and definitely welcome comments on my ratings. Anyone using any of these who disagrees? Tell us why.

1. Pikeo

Pikeo offers 1GB of free storage. Like most of these sites, you can add titles, descriptions and tags (who, what, where?) to each photo and locate them on a map, of course, if your camera or phone has GPS.
Printing? Yes, handled by Photobox
Video? Nope. At least not yet.
Mobile phone? Yes, via ShoZu and others

Aperture rating: 3 stars

2. Ipernity

Pen Web Awards named Ipernity The Best Photo Sharing Site last year. Their shtick: Publish whatever you like: photos, videos, audio, anywhere, any time, no limits. You can even upload Word docs. And the good news is there are many options for getting the files to their server, at record breaking speed.

Printing? you can only order prints in Europe (though they’re working on getting them delivered in the US).
Storage space? You’re limited to 200MB – any more will cost you about 24€ / per month
Mobile phone? Yes.
Video quality? Pretty right on

Aperture rating: 4 stars

3. Photoshop

No surprise that Adobe, creator of the legendary Photoshop app, would get in on the act. At Photoshop.com, you can manage all your photos on your desktop with their downloadable interface and sync with your albums online. The Web site itself is intensely hard to navigate, and almost impossible to find any worthwhile info on, which is surprising given the Adobe name. For instance, I couldn’t easily figure out whether you could upload video or not, nor could I figure out what the upload limit is. On the other side of things, Photoshop has some pretty nice editing features online, as you might expect.
Printing? Not that I could tell.
Storage limit? Who knows.
Mobile phone? I couldn’t figure it out. Though the site copy says you can upload from 16 Windows mobile devices…

Aperture rating: 1 star

4. Photobucket

Photobucket is one of the better all around photo sharing sites out there, especially if you’re willing to part with $40/year for the pro version. The regular version is filled with annoying ads and the Web site design leaves something to be desired. But using the Flock web browser, you can upload large batches of pics and vids and it moves pretty fast (almost as fast as your standard FTP, which they also support). You can also edit online with their third-party Picnik overlay, which has some pretty powerful and amazing effects, plus all the basics (cropping, red eye, etc.).
Printing? Absolutely
Storage space? Up to 10 GB with pro
High resolution images? Yes, again with pro: 2240 x 1680 pixels
Video length? 10 minutes with pro

Aperture rating: 4 stars

5. SmugMug

The cream of the crop! SmugMug is for serious photographers, people who want to make money selling their prints, or those shutterbugs who also want to upload big, HD videos. One of the coolest things about this site is the nearly one dozen different ways you can upload photos and video (everything from an interface that allows you to drag and drop folders from your desktop to special plugins). Another great thing: They allow you to edit photos on their site with the Picnik overlay, too!
Printing? Homerun! SmugMug offers the choice of two labs: EZ Prints and Bay Photo, but they t’ain’t cheap folks!
Storage? Unlimited!
Video? Power users and Pro users only (but you can even upload a 500MB vid in HD if you’re paying the pro rate)
Mobile? Shoot, geotag, upload all from you iPhone
Bonus: No ads or spam!
The catch: There’s no free ride here. Time to get serious with $39.95/year for standard, $59.95/year for power and $149.95/year for pro.

Aperture rating: 5+ stars

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Comments (9)

  1. I recently made a photoshop express account, and didn’t find it all that hard to navigate. Some of the folder sharing options take a little getting used to, but it yanked all the photos I had posted on Facebook into my photoshop folders easily, which was nice. I’m pretty sure it has 2GB of free storage, too.

    posted by Jeremy on 4-29-2009 at 10:19 am

  2. I use photoblog.com

    It’s just a blog. Nothing fancy. But it’s easy to use.

    posted by Hannah on 4-29-2009 at 12:37 pm

  3. I’d heard of Photobucket when they were relatively new, and just kind of parked there. It can be annoying sometimes, and I’ve wondered about switching. Just lazy?

    posted by Johnny Cat on 4-29-2009 at 5:04 pm

  4. I’ve always used panaramio.com. The best part about this is the geolocating that’s included, you can put your photos in their proper places on Google Earth and see millions of other photos from around the world.

    posted by Neil B on 4-29-2009 at 6:09 pm

  5. Still no mention of Shutterfly?

    posted by Dawn on 4-29-2009 at 7:28 pm

  6. No mention of Snapfish?

    posted by Megan on 4-30-2009 at 7:41 am

  7. There’s also winkflash.com and ofoto.com they’re both better at photo storage and for ordering prints than sharing, but you *can* share files with people, and do some basic editing.
    The biggest plus side is they’re free and you have unlimited storage space.

    posted by Krista on 4-30-2009 at 9:01 am

  8. Just two remarks regarding Ipernity:

    1. The limit is an upload limit of 200 MB per month, i.e. you can load up 200 MB this month, another 200 MB next month etc…. No limit in storage space (at least none I have bumped into).

    2. The upgrade is around 24€/year (or around 2€/month) – slightly cheaper if you’re paying for 2 years in advance.

    posted by Matthias16 on 4-30-2009 at 1:24 pm

  9. It depends on what the photo is where it goes. I use Flickr for pictures, like actual pictures I’ve taken with my digtial camera.

    Photobucket I use for, well, randomness. Like sharing avatar pics, anime pics, random doodles that I make on photoshop.

    (Captcha “inquire 8:05-10″ inquire what…)

    posted by Dazee on 4-30-2009 at 9:42 pm

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