Check out independent photo hosting sites
Yahoo Photos, a popular online photo-hosting site, is shutting down on Thursday, after which any images stored there – from your travels, or otherwise – will head into photo oblivion.
Until then, you can buy a CD of your images or download them for free to your desktop.
You can also move them to one of five suggested photo-hosting sites: Kodak Easy Share Gallery (www.kodakgallery.com); Shutterfly (www.shutterfly.com); Snapfish (www.snapfish.com); Flickr (www.flickr.com); and Photobucket (www.photobucket.com).
Most of the above sites are popular corporate options (Yahoo owns Flickr, Fox Media owns Photobucket, Kodak runs the Easy Share Gallery and Hewlett-Packard owns Snapfish).
But what about the lesser-known choices? Here’s a look at four independent photo-hosting sites with which you may be less familiar.
Fotki ( www.fotki.com)
Standard account: Free
Upgrade: Premium, $30 a year
Pros and cons: Free account starts with premium features (unlimited storage, no ads and control over image downloading); after 14 days, account is downgraded to standard or you pay to continue with premium. … Standard account includes only 50 megabytes of free storage. … Billed as a “media social network,” it can store photo and video files and can host your “Fotki journal” or blog. … Backup digital images are stored in several locations. … Ongoing photo contests.
Print costs: 9 cents per 4-by-6; $1.95 for shipping up to 50 images
Smugmug ( www.smugmug.com )
Standard account: $39.95 a year
Upgrade: Power User, $59.95 a year; Professional, $149.95 a year
Pros and cons: No ads … Power users can customize their site and host video clips; pros can set their own print prices, sell digital downloads and apply customized watermarks. … Copies of each image are saved to backup servers in three states. … Unlimited uploading and storage in all categories. … Handy chart compares print sizes for compact digital cameras vs. single-lens reflex. … Will migrate galleries from Yahoo Photos and Flickr, with 50 percent off a standard account.
Print costs: 19 cents per 4-by-6; $1.75 for shipping up to 10 images
Zooomr ( www.zooomr.com)
Standard account: Free
Upgrade: Pro, $19.95 a year
Pros and cons: Unlimited uploads … Sign up as a pro to get rid of ads. … Flickr users will find the interface familiar. … The “zipline” feature lets you track fans of your photos, as well as keep an eye on your favorite photogs. … User comments report repeated bugs in the system. … Recently released “marketplace” tag lets you set prices for your images, plus searches for images displaying similar color palettes. … The “Discover” section shows the “most awesome” 100 photos from the last hour, last day, last week and last year.
Print costs: No print option available.
Zoto ( www.zoto.com)
Standard account: $19.95 a year
Pros and cons: 60-day free trial available. … No ads … Unlimited storage and backup … Light-box options let you control image display. … New features will launch by October, including flash-enabled galleries and sort-by-camera-settings options.
Print costs: 15 cents per 4-by-6 via Qoop (www.qoop.com).