7 Photos a week for all 52 weeks of 2013

Photo Sites

Are you a photographer that wants to take part in the 7/52 project but don't already have a place to post your photos so we can all see them? Then this page is for you.

Click the website that looks the most appealing to you to get started. All of them allow free accounts and give you more whiz-bang features if you pay to upgrade to their "pro" site.

500px

This is where my photos are going to be. The link on the home page goes there from this site. Why did I choose 500px? Lots of reasons but the biggest is that the people on here are really photographers and I feel like a bum amongst them. They also have an OUTSTANDING iPad app that makes the pics look so good. It is probably the best way I have ever seen to view photos online.

You can get a free account but I lucked into one of their top tier accounts at half off so I grabbed it.

SmugMug

SmugMug is a lesser known photo sharing site, likely due to the fact that it isn’t an addon service offered by a company running a large network of apps and services such as Google and Yahoo!. Don’t let that discredit SmugMug though, as it’s an incredibly powerful service aimed at those a little more serious about photography. SmugMug doesn’t focus on community as much as Picasa or Flickr, but instead concentrates their resources to provide top level features you simply won’t find with free services. I have a good friend who recommends it.

Picassa

Owned and operated by Google, Picassa is not only a site to store photos (when teamed with Google+) but downloadable, free Photoshop alternative.

I am a Photoshop nut so that software has never really interested me. I haven't used their online service because I was using Apple's before they killed it and didn't have the need. I have friends who think it is outstanding.

Dropbox

If you have a Dropbox account you have a way to share photos online. The photos display nicely when doing a slide show and I can't imagine an easier way to upload pictures. You just drag them into the Photo folder on your own Dropbox.

But the two things I don't like is the small limitation on the amount you can store with a free account and even more than that, the fact that there is really no way (that I have found) to add comments to a photo by either a viewer or the photographer. I need that on my site.

Flickr

This is the granddady of all photo sites. Been around since year one. If you already have an account there, that will work great. I myself have never really liked it. It's just a design thing. I don't like the way the site looks and displays photos.

Flickr makes tagging and sharing your photos quite easy. The cons? No desktop application, slide show options could be more stylish, duplicate photographs in your photostream if you upload photos to different sets.

Shutterfly

More of a printing service that hosts photos online, Shutterfly is all about getting you to print your pictures. That's fine if you want to but if I print them, I do them with Apple (for personal use) or MPIX (for professional use).

You can share many of your photo creations with family and friends via email. This printing service does not offer traditional scrapbooking elements such as stickers, word art or borders.With an easy-to-use, professional website, high-qualityprints and comprehensive customer service, Shutterfly is one of the top printing services.

© Jim Bellomo 2013