Look at Us!

Embedded Photo Gallery Reviews...
A Thousand pictures are worth...??? Where should you put those bushels of digital photos for you and your fiends to see? There are many sites that offer free or paid photo sharing and storage. It seems that all have something special going for them and all have something that rates a negative score. Here I will take a look at several of the main competitors.

WINDOWS LIVE does not appear to allow embedded slides shows even though their site gives an "embed" command for an album. The embed code allow you to place  one of three generic links into your blog or web site that merely provides a link to their site to view the slide show from their site. Here is an example of the album link and an RSS link:

RSS Link

Special: 25 GB, yes... GIGABYTES of storage

Negative: No true embed coding

PICASA How do I love Picasa...? Let me count the ways... Picasa is great. It is easy to use since it has an application that you can install locally and import your photos directly into. It will "watch" specified locations on your computer and add any images that you add into your local Picasa Library. You can edit  and organize your photos and then upload them into your Picasa account to share. Their embedded slice shows are great and simple to use. Too bad their free accounts have a mere limit of One GB.

Special:Nicely integrated with the installed Picasa application and tied to your Google account for access. Negative: Free account is limited to One GB of stroage.

FACEBOOK This is a love-hate relationship that doesn't seem to quit. It starts with a close friend or relative and soon grows out of control. Enough about the social aspects of FB. Did you know that you could share photos on FB? It is quite simple to upload groups of photos and later add more to your groups or albums. They are instantly shared with your FB friends. You can easily "tag" your friends in the photos by identifying who is in each image. This then shows up in their info giving a link to your photo of them for all of their friends to see.
 

Link to a FB Album 

Special: Simple and easy to use if you are already in Facebook anyway.
Negative: Cannot embed a slide show, just share a link with others in or out of FB.

FLICKR is a service of Yahoo. It is simple and easy to use simce it is intregrated into many of the photo organizing/editing programs that are available. When you sign up, you get a Pro account for 30 days. If you let it go to the Free version you'll find that only the latest 200 photos that you have uploaded are visable. All of your photos are really there, but you can only see the latest 200 until you pay for the Pro account - $25 per year.

Special:Easy to use with installed photo software. The embedded slide show is easy to use and looks good.

Negative:Free accounts only allow access to the latest 200 photos.

PHOTOSHOP.COM is really cool but it does not share slide shows! This is Online Photoshop. If you ever wanted to buy Photoshop, but baulked at the excessive cost, this may be for you. Many of the full blown features of Photoshop are here in an online java application that can even be switched to full screen, making it look like an installed program on your computer. Photos are uploaded to their site and available to share with others, but even better - you can share with other photo services - Facebook, Flickr, Photobucket and Picasa.

 

Special: Free alternative to the expensive Photoshop.

Negative: No embedded slide show. Sometimes rather clunky to use, especially on an older computer or slow Internet connection.