OUTinkerbelle

Am traveling to Paris and Belgium next month. Would like to find a way to share photos and descriptions of our activities with family and close friends back home. I've been reading a ton of trip reports on this site and everyone seems to use a lot of different sites to post photos/reports.

Any suggestions? I'm not a computer whiz and don't want to spend a lot of time doing this while in Europe. Just some place to drop a few pics and notes for family to see while we are away. I don't want to post anything about our trip on a site like Facebook - some kind of site where I can regulate who sees the postings and who doesn't.

THANKS!
Terri

jent103

I'm a little confused by your last sentence - do you want the site to be open to the public, or do you want your postings private? Facebook, if you set the settings correctly, is limited to viewing by only your Facebook friends (or even fewer people, if you use a list, though most people don't really use that functionality).

I use Flickr and love it. I think it's the easiest site for people to view your photos - no registration required and there's an easy slide show button. You can also limit who views the photos, but your friends/family will need to create an account.

It does depend on whether you want to emphasize the photos or the text, though. If you plan to do mostly typing with a few pictures, or mostly pictures with captions? If the former, a site like Blogger or Wordpress might be better.

uhoh_busted

Actually, you can regulate who sees your posts on Facebook, but it takes a lot of time to set up your security settings (and attention because they often change or add something new).

You might be best served by setting up a simple blog that you can upload photos to. That way you can control access to just your friends and family. I've been going to set up a blog for ages, but never got around to it.

I've HAVE used KodakGallery for years, which isn't a blog, but you can upload photos with captions and add some notes about your doings. You only invite the people you want to see your photos to do so.

alihutch

Wordpress for a blog with photos, Flickr fop just photos

tower

Tinkerbelle:
I've been very happy with Picasa to carry my photos. Lately I've been scanning many old pre-digital pix from dozens of locations. The editing functions on Picasa are great, too. Makes a decent pic out of a bad one...as an amateur that appeals to me. Captioning can help you tell a little story for each pic.
stu

nz101

bookmarking

Suspaul

agree about Picasa - great ability to edit as stated above. take a look
Susan

Nikki

Take a look at the different ones people have used in the trip reports you liked. You can take a look at the sites for the ones you think will best work for you.

OUTinkerbelle

Thanks for all the advice! Sorry - I re-read my post and it was confusing. I don't want to post anything on Facebook and I do want to limit the viewing to family and a few close friends. I think a blog is more what I'm looking for.

uhoh-busted, I've also used Kodak gallery to upload photos and send to family members out of state/country but I was hoping for something a little more for this trip.

Am going to look into Picasa.

Nikki - you are right, I need to go back to the trip reports and pick a few that I like and looking into those sites as well.

Thanks bunches everyone!

RM67

I love Flickr - it's easy to upload stuff, generous allowance, and easy and to later organise sets of pics, galleries etc - and it links into a site that lets you produce cards, calenders and so on from your own pics.

I have posted a link on another thread to some pictures I took in Esat Anglia recently - that will give you an indication of the layout/appearance of Flickr if you want to see it.

KrisTiki

There is some personal preference here--websites such as:
www.picasa.com (my least favorite)
www.flickr.com (most favorite)
www.facebook.com allows creation of albums

Something to note, with any of the above you can then make a travel photo book of your journey afterward. Using Picasa, you can only make THEIR books, and they are very restrictive of layout/content. Here's the thing with Picasa-- If you don't wnat to be artistic about your photos/management/end products after the trip--then this site is for you. It's upload and you're done...

If you want to make a personalized photobook after your trip, or calendar, or any number of products--I'd use flickr.com. Companies like Mixbook.com allow you to download your photos from flickr to their site and use them in calendars and books with many many different themes, 'stickers' and other things to personalize your book. (this is what i like).

So it depends on your needs now and in the future. All the sites compress your photos, and you can email a link to your friends and family to access your pictures during your trip.

Happy travels!

maitaitom

If you have a MAC, you can create your own website on MobileMe. This is mine. You can incorporate trip reports, photo slide shows and videos.

http://travelswithmaitaitom.com/