There are many photo sharing programs and services out there, so what are you waiting for?
Many of us like taking snapshots of events from birthdays to graduations but how many of us share those photos with family and friends? In the old days, in order to share photos, you would need to get your film developed and show your prints at the next gathering. If someone wanted to get a copy of a photo, you would need to take the negatives back to the store and order a reprint. Definitely something that required effort on your part. With the advent of digital cameras, taking photos became easier but still if you want to prints, the process is somewhat similar and requires a trip to the store. Some folks print their own photos with a photo printer but at cost of fifty cents per print, the dollars can start to add up quickly. Then what do you do with the prints you have? If you are industrious, you will put them in a scrap book or photo album and look at them once every couple of years, if that often.
However, computers have come to the rescue. Windows and Macs both come with photo slideshow programs that will create a slide show from digital photos you have stored on your computer. These slideshows can be requested on demand or more passively as a screen saver. Screen saver slideshows are great for bring up randomly, treasured photos you took a couple minutes ago to 10 years ago. In Windows, this can be done by right clicking your Desktop and selecting Properties. Click on the Screen Saver tab and select "My Picture Slideshow".
In the window you can choose the folder of photos you want to displayed in your slideshow.
You could choose a specific folder like your last family vacation or go more broadly to your "My Picture" folder which is the folder that Windows usually stores your photos. Once you click OK, you are done. Now when ever your computer goes idle, the screen saver will display photos you have taken. I seen sat not touching my computer and watching the screen saver photos. Even my kids will stare at the photos of themselves when they were little.
Now that's great if the people you want to share photos with are near your computer but what if they live somewhere else? Well, there are many web based Photo sharing sites that solve that problem. Most of these sites offer free services or subsidized services. Most of these sites offer the ability to have printed professionally select digital photos. They even offer other items such as T-shirts, coffee mugs and calendars with photos engraved on them. My favorite services are Photoshow 5 by Simple Star, Picasa by Google and Imagestation by Sony (www.imagestation.com is discontinuing service shortly). They all have the same basic functions of being able to store and display your photos on-line, send e-mail invites to share your photos and print reprints that can be sent to anyone. Since they all offer free service, sign up for the service and try them out. Use the one you like the best.
Road Runner offers free to it's customers, Photoshow 5 by Simple Star (www.photoshow.net) which is normally would cost $39.95. Photoshow has a few unique features which I like and that are not offered but most other services at this point. The first features is the ability to add animated clipart to your photos. They have an assortment of clip art from moving text to animated animals or cartoons. This clipart really can really liven up your slideshow. Photoshow also includes a lot of royalty free music which again really helps to set the mood of your slideshow. Royalty free music is used because copyrighted music cannot be uploaded and used without paying the original artist.
Another unique feature of Photoshow is the ability to share your Photoshow with people who do not have a computer but do have Oceanic Digital Cable box (www.simplestar.com/tv/). Once you upload your slideshow to the Photoshow website, you share your show with photoshowtv.hawaii.rr.com. The folks at Simple Star, the maker of Photoshow 5, view your slideshow to make sure if follows the requirements (no pornographic images, no copied righted material and the length is no longer than 4 minutes). Once they approve it, an e-mail is sent back to you tell you that your show has been approved and will be shown starting on a particular date. All you have to do then, is let people know your Photoshow will be on digital channel 617 as of a certain date.
I hope I have given you some idea of ways you can share your photos with family and friends. It's not hard to do so try it out!
