What site do you use for online photo and video albums?

We've been using Phanfare for a couple of years, and we like it a lot. We get unlimited storage, and the price has always been reasonable for what we got.

This year, though, they announced that they were doubling the price, so we're shopping for a new site that gives us the flexibility and storage of Phanfare.

We upload photos and .mov files to share with friends and family.

I use my own site & there is a cool website for photo arrangement called Jalbum.

Also use Flickr but be sure to read a site's TOS, as some say they can use your images for free.

photobucket

MobileMe gallery.

Quote from burninator : We've been using Phanfare for a couple of years, and we like it a lot. We get unlimited storage, and the price has always been reasonable for what we got. This year, though, they announced that they were doubling the price, so we're shopping for a new site that gives us the flexibility and storage of Phanfare. We upload photos and .mov files to share with friends and family.

There's so many choices out there you might want to specify some specific features in particular you're looking for.

I use Flickr and have the Pro membership. I like having lots of sets (I have dozens to organize the 4,000 photos I store on there).

Quote from RefCache : There's so many choices out there you might want to specify some specific features in particular you're looking for.

We like the ability to specify to whom we want to give access to our galleries. We really like the accompanying desktop utility, which allows you to organize and customize your albums. Our smaller camera records video in .mov format, so we need the ability to upload files of that type.

We upload a lot of pictures, so the unlimited storage was a big plus for us.

I've been trying all day to get Picasa to work, but it trips over the video files and shuts down, so we're moving on.

Quote from burninator : We really like the accompanying desktop utility, which allows you to organize and customize your albums.

That should limit the list of available options. Assuming you're on a recent Windows operating system, have you given the new Photo Gallery component of the Live Essentials Beta [live.com] a look as far as desktop client interfaces go? It can now connect to popular online services like Flickr, so with Flickr Pro you'd get the unlimited storage you're looking for and all the privacy settings you might want, along with a desktop client. I don't think the new Photo Gallery supports "albums" per se. It does support multi-level hierarchical tagging though which at least to me is a more efficient and far more robust way of doing things.

There was a change in how hierarchical tagging is handled in the GUI though from Wave 3 (current public version) to Wave 4 (current public beta version) of Photo Gallery but it's all still there for the most part.

Quote from burninator : We upload a lot of pictures, so the unlimited storage was a big plus for us.

Any idea on some actual numbers? 10GB? 25GB? 100GB? 500GB?

Quote from burninator : I've been trying all day to get Picasa to work, but it trips over the video files and shuts down, so we're moving on.

When first released, Picasa was really quite decent. But I've been disappointed with its development progress given it's over six years old.

Don't get me wrong - for a lot of people, Picasa is great. I'm just disappointed that additional features haven't been added refined.

As far as your specific issue, it seems you aren't alone [google.com].

I have always used Photobucket, but Hotmail has a new one called SkyDrive, so if you have Hotmail, you might check it out. It's supposed to hold Office docs, photos, and stuff from Bing. You can then access your stuff from any computer or your smart phone. You get 25GB of storage.

Quote from thearteest : but Hotmail has a new one called SkyDrive, so if you have Hotmail, you might check it out. It's supposed to hold Office docs, photos, and stuff from Bing.

SkyDrive [windowslive.com] is free for anyone with a Windows Live ID, so it's not just restricted to Hotmail users. SkyDrive isn't terribly new either - it's already been around a few years but it was just recently added to all Hotmail accounts by default I think.

Also the previously mentioned Wave 4 version of Live Essentials Photo Gallery has connectivity to SkyDrive out of the box.

Unfortunately it's limited to 25GB with no option to purchase additional storage now [windowslivehelp.com] or in the immediate future to my knowledge so it may not fit the OP's needs.

He hasn't yet defined how much actual space "a lot of pictures" takes up yet so that last one is a total guess.

Quote from RefCache : He hasn't yet defined how much actual space "a lot of pictures" takes up yet so that last one is a total guess.

We recently ran out of storage on our laptop's 60GB hard drive (yeah, I know), so I moved roughly 6,000 pictures to the desktop, which freed up more than half of that storage space. Granted, we don't put quite half of those on the web, but of course there has to be room to grow.

Late last night I was able to get Picasa's desktop application to finish scanning the hard drive completely (by reloading Quicktime), but I haven't looked yet to see if it actually caught the video files, or just skimmed over them.

Quote from emelvee : I use Flickr and have the Pro membership. I like having lots of sets (I have dozens to organize the 4,000 photos I store on there).

Same here, except my gallery is over 12,000 now.

Quote from RefCache : SkyDrive [windowslive.com] is free for anyone with a Windows Live ID, so it's not just restricted to Hotmail users. SkyDrive isn't terribly new either - it's already been around a few years but it was just recently added to all Hotmail accounts by default I think. Also the previously mentioned Wave 4 version of Live Essentials Photo Gallery has connectivity to SkyDrive out of the box. Unfortunately it's limited to 25GB with no option to purchase additional storage now [windowslivehelp.com] or in the immediate future to my knowledge so it may not fit the OP's needs. He hasn't yet defined how much actual space "a lot of pictures" takes up yet so that last one is a total guess.

Hmm. thanks! I didn't realize that it had been around for awhile. I will probably use it for file sharing with my employees. I actually keep most of my photos on externals HDs. I'm a photographer, so I have bunches and bunches and bunches...

Quote from thearteest : I'm a photographer, so I have bunches and bunches and bunches...

:shakes fist unreservedly: