Alternatives to Windows Live Photo Gallery: Five Online Picture Storage Services

If we’re talking about picture storage service, Flickr is definitely the most popular. It is a great photo uploading and sharing site, which is offered both as a free service and as an annual paid subscription service. Flickr has all the features that you would need from an online picture storage service. These features include photo album management through Flickr sets and collection, photo tagging, various sizes for viewing and definitely so much more. Flickr also offers integration with various photo editing and manipulation service from third-party service partners. This allows you to do many things to your uploaded photos, which you can later on share with anyone.

Next to Flickr, Picasa Web Album is also a nice online picture storage service. Aside from being a Google product, Picasa Web Album features both a desktop and web interface that sync seamlessly with each other. Picasa Web Album offers up to 1GB of photo storage for free. Despite playing second or perhaps third fiddle to Flickr, Picasa Web Albums continue to evolve with many improvements being introduced by Google. One of its outstanding features is the photo naming facility, which uses facial recognition technology. Just tag a friend’s photo with his/her name and Picasa Web Album will quickly tag all photos of your friend quickly.

I have been following Zooomr since its early days. In fact, I was among the lucky users who got a free premium account with unlimited storage capability. Despite that, I still purchased a subscription from Flickr’s PRO Account and have been maintaining that for two years now. I did so because none of my friends and family use Zooomr and have no idea how to navigate the site. For them, Flickr is still the best online picture sharing site. Don’t get me wrong, though, Zooomr is a great photo sharing, uploading and storing site and it has what it takes to become Flickr’s closest rival. While Zooomr cannot seem to make it into the mainstream, it is still a very good alternative to Windows Live Photo Gallery.

Another industry veteran in the photo sharing/uploading industry is Photobucket. Photobucket has managed to gain a cult following among online forum users who are looking for a photo-hosting site, which they can post on message boards as an attachment and not just a link. However, great as it is, Photobucket seemed to have a problem evolving. It has somewhat failed to adapt to the times. It did not introduce innovative new services and functions, but rather choose to remain offering its users with the same old Photobucket interface. However, if you are really don’t mind this, Photobucket is also a great alternative to Windows Live Photo Gallery.

I have had several Kodak point-and-shoot digital cameras before, and have personally used Kodak Easy Share Gallery for sharing my photos with friends and family. It is a great free online picture storage service, no doubt about that. The only problem with Kodak Easy Share Gallery is the fact that you can’t share it externally by embedding photos to your blogs or websites. To let your friends and family view your photos, you have to redirect them to the actual Kodak Easy Share Gallery.