How to Create an Online Photo Album

If you’re still pasting your pictures into a real photo album, consider the advantages of putting them online, instead. With an online photo album, you don’t need to wait for guests to visit before you can show off your latest shots, and you don’t need to bother waiting for prints. Guests can spend as much time as they like looking at your pictures and can even order prints of their favorites.

Once you start with it, you’ll find that it’s a fantastically convenient way to share your shots. The question, though, is how do you get started.

Things to Consider

Several Web sites offer you free online storage to create a photo album. Before you decide on one, you should look into the other features they offers. Not all online albums are equal.

The first thing to look at is the storage limit. Storage has been getting cheaper and cheaper, and some sites, like AOL Pictures, have no limit. That means you can store as many pictures as you like and not have to worry about filling up your online space. You also want a site that leaves your pictures in their original resolution. Some will downsize your photos so that they take up less space. The problem is that downsizing removes much of the information that makes up the image, and results in pictures that have less clarity and detail.

You’ll also want a site that gives you the option of making public or private photo albums. In a public album, anyone can browse through your pictures, usually finding them by the search terms you attach to your shots. Private albums, on the other hand, are password-restricted. Once you’ve set up a private album, send an e-mail to the people you want to see it telling them the URL and the password.

Upload Your Pics

Having a broadband Internet connection is almost a necessity for creating an online album, because uploading your pictures through a dial-up connection would just take too darn long. Uploading a couple dozen pics over broadband (such as a DSL or cable) would take minutes; on dial-up, it would take hours.

Once you’ve signed up for an account, the album site will offer a simple way to upload your pictures through the Web browser itself. You’ll likely need to select the folder containing the photos you want to share, then choose individual photos or upload the whole folder.

With so many people now using phones and smartphones that contain cameras, some sites let you upload pictures directly from your mobile devices. This saves you the hassle of having to transfer pictures to your computer before uploading them, and also lets you create an interesting instant record of your travels.

Setting Up Albums

Once you’ve signed up for an account, it’s time to set up the albums you’ll use. You and your guest will find it easier to browse through your photos if you create albums by subject. Think of having separate albums for vacations, special events like graduations, and a baby’s first few months. You’ll have the option of making some albums private and others public. You might want to make your intimate family photos private, while letting the online community at large see and comment on the artistic shots you take for fun..

When you’ve created an album, the site should give you the option of creating an e-mail to your friends and family telling them about the album. If the album is password-protected, give the password in the e-mail. Many album sites then give viewers the option of ordering their own copies of prints.

Editing

Album sites aren’t just for storing pictures—they can help edit your pictures, too. Many offer built-in editing controls that can help you crop photos, remove red-eye, and more. This is a big help if the photo storage software you use on your computer doesn’t have editing features, or if you’re uploading directly from a cell phone and haven’t had the chance to edit your work.

Keywords

Attaching keywords might not seem that important if you’re only creating online albums for your friends and family, since the pictures are already grouped into folders. That’s because keywords are actually most useful for people you’ve never met. People use keywords to browse public photo galleries, and it can be fascinating to see what kinds of different shots use the same keywords. Try browsing on AOL Pictures using keywords like “nature” or “city” and see what you come up with.

Troy Dreier is a freelance tech writer based in the New York City area.