As smartphone cameras continue to improve, camera rolls fill up quickly with thousands of digital memories. To avoid losing sentimental photos, there are countless tools — many free — that allow users to save and manage images. Take a look at the best way to store, organize, and share photos.
What to look for
There are many services available when it comes to photo storage sites. A good site has several features to it: ample storage space to keep photos together in one place for low cost, high resolution quality, easy upload and access, shareability, and printability.
Storage space is important since hard drives can crash and photos can easily be lost. Having a backup of digital memories and a place that can automatically back up mobile photos and store copies is key. Find a platform that is user intuitive and has an interface that makes it easy to upload, caption, tag and organize multiple images at once.
With so many online photo sharing services available, it is hard to know where to start. There are free social media sites and there are full-service paid sites. New platforms routinely enter the market like ibi. What is ibi? It is a smart photo manager that collects, stores, and privately shares photos and videos with friends and family.
With ibi, automatically collect and save photos and videos in one place. Their intuitive app makes it easy to organize and find files, and private sharing means selectively sending albums or individual photos to chosen friends and family. Ibi gives users a generous 2TB of space for a one-time cost, which means no limitations on usage or features.
How to organize
When it comes to organizing digital photos, it’s much the same as storing physical photos. Labeling digital photos with titles and dates makes it easy to look up images and find specific photos as well as related photos. Delete low quality or excess images to eliminate file clutter. Creating folder for photos is the same as placing them in albums.
Change folder names to easily sort photos into searchable albums. To make the transfer process easier, upload memory cards as new photos are added. Not only does this ensure that if a memory card fails the photos are safe, but it also saves time to upload small batches and makes organizing more manageable.
Sharing
Socially interactive photo sites are typically free and offer plenty of desirable features. Of course, most sites offer tiered services from free basic accounts to paid professional level options. When looking at free platforms, keep in mind how easy it will be for friends and family to access profiles, like whether or not a viewer needs to have a profile in order to view.
For those who want a social media experience focused on photo sharing, Instagram is free and allows users to adjust privacy settings and who to share photos with. An account with Flickr is ideal for photo enthusiasts who prioritize high resolution quality photos. Google Photos is great for those who have photos stored on both phones and computers. This service offers unlimited storage for images under 16 megapixels and has both a web and mobile app platform.
For a service that emphasizes sharing and printing, try Photobucket. It has many added features, most notably making physical prints. Anyone who has shared access to photos can view them without an account, download the images and order physical prints. Shutterfly also focuses on photo printing, but with the added feature of allowing users to create a vanity url that viewers can access.
