JOIN PROBUS TODAY!
AUS: 1300 630 488    NZ: 0800 1477 6287

Sharing digital photos

by Jessica Goulburn | 12 Feb 2013

In the past, you’d whip out your camera, load your film and snap away until the roll of 36 was finished. You’d wind the film back, take it out of the camera and head over to a specialist shop to develop the photos. You would choose doubles of certain pictures and physically hand them to your friends and family.

Nowadays, it’s a lot easier to share your photos with family and friends, even those who live overseas. Just share them with others via the internet.

There are a number of ways to share digital photos.

Email

Sharing your photos via email is a good way to engage in a conversation with the recipient. You’re inviting recipients to reply.

There is usually a size limit for individual files as well as one for the whole email in order for it to send. This will differ between the different email programs.

How to attach an image to an email:

  1. Once you’ve typed in the address, subject and some text in the body, just look for a button or option that says ‘Attachments’ or ‘Attach’.
  2. Click the button. A separate screen will pop up.
  3. Select the file you wish to upload and click ‘Choose file’, probably in the bottom right corner of the pop up.

You can upload a few at a time, but remember to be wary of the size restrictions.

Photo sharing websites

There are many websites that allow you to upload photos and share the link with friends. Many are free for example Flickr, and there are some paid sites that give you more functionality, like SmugMug. 

To use the sites, you need to sign up for the service. Simply follow the prompts to create an account.

Once you’re signed in, you’ll be given the option to upload new photos by either dragging and dropping them into an area or choosing specific photos to upload.

It’s important to look at the settings when you create your album. If you’d like the whole world to see your photos, make it public. However, if you’d only like your friends and family to be privy to the images, you can make it private and only those with the link will be able to view the images.  

Dropbox

Dropbox is a free service that allows you to save files in one location and access them anywhere. You can also share folders with other people, making it a safe, secure and easy way of sharing your photos.

The first step is downloading the software from the Dropbox website. This will create a special folder on your computer. Any files that are saved in there will sync to all of your computers and to the Dropbox website. Simply click ‘Download’. You’ll also need to set up an account – fill in the details on the right and click ‘Sign up’.  

Follow the steps below to share a folder of photos with other people:

  1. Create a new folder in the ‘Dropbox’ folder.
  2. Copy all of your photos into the new folder.
  3. Sign-in via the Dropbox website.
  4. Right-click on the folder you’d like to share and select ‘Share link’. A pop-up box will appear.
  5. Input the email addresses of the people you’d like to share the pictures with.    
  6. They’ll receive an email with the link to view your photos.

Facebook

Facebook is great for sharing photos with your friends and uploading photos is easy.

  1. Once you’re on your profile page, click on the ‘Photos’ option in the horizontal menu under your name.
  2. Click ‘Add photos’ in the top right corner and select the photos you’d like to add when prompted.
  3. In the top left corner there is a box where you can title your album. You can also add a short description underneath that, and include the place and date where the photos were taken in the top right corner.
  4. If you decide to add more photos, simply click ‘Add more photos’ in the bottom right.
  5. If you’re done uploading, choose who you would like to see the images, whether public, friends, only you or a custom group.
  6. Then click ‘Post photos’.
  7. You may be prompted to ‘Tag’ your friends. This means including the name of the people who are in the photos. If they’re your Facebook friend, they will be notified that they are in a photo.

Your Facebook friends will now be able to view your album and photos, and they can comment on them all. 

The drawback to sharing your photos on Facebook is that those who are not users of the site don’t have access to your pictures.

Test out your Facebook uploading skills and share a photo with us.  

With the internet and social media sites, sharing photos nowadays is simple and cost effective. However, it’s still nice to print some of those pictures to pop up on the mantle.