Drydocked Loc: KCMO

I am a hobbyist and a beginner. I would like to share my photos with family and friends [and anyone who might stumble along]. I am [for now] shooting primarily jpeg images. Easy of setting up, easy of adding photos, easy of viewing, easy of downloading by others, ability to comment would be a plus but ... are all considerations. I have looked at the "big" names and creating a "free" website. Your feedback will help me evaluate the options.
Thanks!

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Nikonian72 Loc: Chico CA

I use Flickr to post all of my photography, and 500px for my marketable photography. Links below my signature, lower left.
"On Flickr, everyone gets 1000GB of free storage, enough space for more than 500,000 photos. Our powerful search technology means you can find them anytime you want. No matter where you are, automatically sync your phone's photos to Flickr. Now you can save a lifetime of memories in one place." per http://www.flickr.com/#section-4

Mr PC Loc: Austin, TX

Please take a look at Douglass' 500px site, it'll blow you away!

JoeDesertrat Loc: Daytona Beach, FL

If by a free website you mean creating pages of your own and having them hosted on one of those free web hosting sites, beware! You are entirely at their mercy. Things may be better now but in the past I have seen hours of work, painstakingly uploaded over a 56k modem connection, just vanish as the web hosts change terms or just disappear. You are better off paying a reputable hosting service for your site.

Deena Snyder Loc: Mesquite, NV

Flicker.com is a great way to share your photos and it is free

Elle Loc: Long Island, NY

I use Flickr and 500 px primarily. I've looked into SmugMug. I enjoy feedback on the images I upload. Although SmugMug offers beautiful sites it doesn't seem to be traffic oriented unless the owner promotes it. Belonging to groups on Flickr generates feedback.. but too often it's "scratch my back and I'll scratch yours" leading me to believe that that the responses are not always genuine. 500 px has a system that registers viewers and "likes", giving an indication of the standing of any photo uploaded. There is a continuous flow of "new" submissions and frequently there are responses in minutes...the problem here is that new submissions quickly overrun your upload and it can wind up being missed. There is also a limitation of how many images can be uploaded within a time period on free accounts.

Stanley Fleming Loc: Maine/Florida

Not sure what you mean by 'sharing' - everyone seems to have their own idea about just what sharing photos means - I all throw out this idea because I think it is a great way to share photos and lots of other info about your photos as well - I wonder if you might be better served if you create your own web site - it is very easy to do these days - take a look at Weebly - it is free with their name in your URL or inexpensive to pay a fee to have it all yours.

Check out a couple of my Weebly sites - www.mainetourismtravel.com or www.acadiavacations.com (a work in progress - a hobby) the Maine Tourism site makes me money :>)

If you need a little help getting started they have great templets and tutorials - and I will be happy to help you with a 'big picture' of how to use it .

Note: I am in no way a representative of Weebly - I just use it and love it. I receive no money for this plug!

Stanley Fleming Loc: Maine/Florida

Joe, I fully understand your concerns, however if you check out Weebly.com you will find an extremely professional organization with excellent tech support that has been in existence for well over 10 years and has millions of users. If you looked at my web site (www.mainetourismtravel.com) you will see a site that has been in existence for 6 years and has thousands of hours invested in it - I did a lot of 'homework' before investing the time, energy and my business in it. Try it, you may like it.

In any event, thanks for providing your input and articulating your concerns.

BillKe

Yes, they do!

DirtFarmer Loc: Escaped from the NYC area, back to MA

As a fairly new member, I can't give much in the way of details, but there's a photo sharing site right here at UHH. You can post photos here. And people without a UHH account can see them. There's a photo gallery, but it's not your private gallery like some other sites, but is one where a lot of people post. To show friends and/or relatives your pictures you have to send them a URL. But it's possible.

I've been on flickr for a while now and you can fairly easily share your photos there with your own photostream. You can limit the sharing to friends and family, but they have to have a flickr account to see them. If you share with everyone, they won't need a flickr account. They do have a free account available, but I believe (as with many free internet stuff) they will put ads on the pages to monetize it. You can pay for a membership to eliminate the ads, but it's something like $50/year. Probably better to start with the free thing and put up with the ads at least until you get serious about it.

flickr also has groups which offer discussions about things. All sorts of things. For example you can join the Adobe Lightroom group and get people to answer questions you might have about Lightroom (if you're using that, which you probably aren't as a beginner -- just an example here). If you're into old cars, there's a group for that. Barns? Jewelry? You name it, there's a group for it. So flickr also offers a learning experience. (But then, so does UHH).

flickr has gotten some flack over the last year or so since Yahoo has been changing the site fairly significantly and a lot of people had their cheese moved. But it does still work.

500px has also been recommended. I did sign up for a free account there a couple years ago but I haven't used it much so I can't say much other than it is fairly easy to upload pictures and share them.

Drydocked Loc: KCMO

I'll check it out and remember the kind offer of help. Thanks

Drydocked Loc: KCMO

Thanks for the information.

Drydocked Loc: KCMO

Thanks ... at times we get what we pay for.

Drydocked Loc: KCMO

Great help ... will probably not explore SmugMug at this point

JoeDesertrat Loc: Daytona Beach, FL

I looked at their site and some other pages about them, they offer basic free and more advanced paid services. They do seem to have long term growth in mind and obviously you are satisfied with them. I just had someone ask about that subject, I'll probably recommend they check it out.
My post was a flashback to earlier internet days, ambitiously uploading a 100+ MB website (sounds like nothing now but on a modem it took many, many hours) created with the free software they offered for download, getting a message at the end of the upload that I needed to pay for an expensive upgrade if I wanted the site to go online, refusing and then discovering that caused their software to destroy the work I did on my PC with their software. My blood still boils thinking about it. Learned a painful lesson about backing up in alternate formats!
P.S. I haven't been in Maine since 1993 when I quit my job and went up to Northern Maine and camped here and there all summer long. Haven't been back but I think about it quite a bit and want to go back someday.