One of the biggest changes brought on by the digital revolution has been the way in which we take and print photographs. Digital cameras and printers have brought the darkroom into our homes, replacing safe lights and chemicals with memory cards and hassle free ink tanks. Those of us who aren't as digitally inclined can benefit from this new technology by having our digital photos, printed and rendered to disc at digital photo kiosks in supermarkets, pharmacies and shopping malls. The latest trend in the digital photographic revolution is the evolution of online photo sharing. Online photo sharing does away with printed media entirely. The photographer who shoots a photo in the morning can electronically publish his photo and can share it with millions of viewers worldwide before lunch. If you are an outdoor adventurer and shoot your photos digitally you should take a look at some of the various free photo hosting accounts available.
Open up a Google search, type in, free photo hosting and you will find pages of photo hosting sites ready to explore. I will walk you through the two sites that I am most familiar with, the number 2 and 3 sites in our Google search, Photobucket.com and ImageShack.us. Both of these sites are free to users upon completing registration. To register simply supply your email address and invent a username. You will receive a welcoming email with specific instructions on how to activate your account.
Although Photobucket and Imageshack differ in appearance and specifics they offer similar functions and features. The service that these sites offer is truly remarkable. Photo hosting basically works like this, you have a bunch of great shots from your latest outdoor adventure and you want to share them with your friends, parents or the world. Your photographic files need to be in a location where they are accessible to web viewers, that is where the photo hosting comes in. Photo hosting sites allow you to upload your photos to their servers and supply you with a link you can send via email or place in text on a web message board or forum.
I currently have 660 photos hosted on PhotoBucket, they occupy 4% of the 1 gigabyte of space my free account comes with. I have photos linked from Photobucket to my fishing sites as well as other sites to which I belong. Photobucket has an account options page which allows members to customize features to suit their particular needs. The software tools available to users allow for some basic image editing tasks such as titling, rotating and resizing images. Photos can be organized into user designated albums or turned into slide shows. One can maintain a private collection of photos and place links on various web pages at their own discretion as I do, or opt to have an album which is added to a searchable image base and open to public viewing. Photobucket currently hosts 2,964,499,765 images a quick search of the term dog yielded 45,569 hits.
I discovered Imageshack as a direct result of operating my fishin247 web sites. I was searching for a way to provide photo hosting for my members and found that Imageshack could be integrated directly into my forums When a member of one of my websites wishes to add a photo to their post they can browse their computer for the photo they want, upload it, then copy and paste the link into their post in a matter of seconds. Imageshack also offers a toolbar that installs into your web browser which has features similar to Photobucket, uploading, drag and drop and slideshows can all be accomplished right from your web browser. To access these and the other features offered by Imageshack you have to be a registered member. I haven’t seen any limits on disc space or bandwidth mentioned while using Imageshack. Based on my experience I don’t think an average user needs worry about running out of room for his or her photos. I would pass along a word of caution; do not to regard your free photo hosting account as an archive for your photos. Always maintain a back up copy on your hard drive and burn a separate copy to disc (CD or DVD) to ensure against accidents.
The web addresses for the sites mentioned are http://www.photobucket.com and http://www.imageshack.us . As usual I have just scratched the surface. The learning curve here is a bit steeper than for the sites I have detailed in my previous articles but the value is great. Once you get the hang of the process it becomes second nature. The possibilities available to the avid lover of the outdoors for sharing and their photographic treasures makes the extra effort well worthwhile and I haven’t even mentioned that they host videos too!
