It gets a bit confusing, however, deciding which site to use. Sure, you can use any of them and most of the photo sharing sites will work fine. However, why not take advantage of some of the other features that are offered? Different sites offer different options, so you can explore and then decide which features are most important to you.

Here are some things to consider:

Photo Galleries and Display

How will your photos be displayed? Do you have a choice? Are there ads on the site?

There are many different types of galleries, some more sophisticated than others. A common display method is to show thumbnails of an album. You can then click on a thumbnail to get a larger view. Other types of displays might be slideshows, collages or stacking. With stacking, clicking on the top photo brings you to the next one. Fotki offers this option, among other choices.

Free and Premium Accounts

Most photo sharing sites offer both free and premium accounts. Premium accounts have a fee associated with them, but they offer more features. So take a look to see if the free account is adequate for you or if perhaps some of the upgrades are important.

Photo Printing

If one of your main objects is to send your digital photos out to be printed, check around because pricing can vary. In addition, different types of papers are used and delivery or pick up times are different.

Printing quality should be checked out also. Some sites will give you free photos on your first order, and this is a great way to try a site out.

Privacy Options

Do you want only certain people to view your photos, or would you like them available to everyone? Sites may or may not offer privacy options, but most do. Sometimes when photos are public, they will also appear in such places as Google Images. This may or may not be something that you want to occur.

Although there are many backup methods, you can use photo sharing sites as a backup system. Look for one that keeps your original file size. Some that do, charge for an Archive CD if you never need to get those photos back.

Communities

Forums, contests, and blogs can all be part of a site. If you are interested in "socializing", look for these features.

Photo Removal

Make sure the site does not remove your photos after a certain period of time. For example, Kodak Gallery has the right to do this if you do not purchase an item (even one 4 x 6 print) within 12 months.

Take a look at a few photo sharing sites to see which one you like. You can try most of them out for free.

Some sites you might consider are SmugMug, Kodak Gallery, Shutterfly, Picasa Web Albums, and Fotki.