I just discovered Yahoo! Photos .. what a great site! [If you plan to put some of your own pictures out there, SEE TIPS AT THE BOTTOM OF THE PAGE]
It's the best site I've found yet for uploading a large number of photos in a fairly short time (about 1 picture per minute, as compared to about 3 minutes per picture on this Homestead website). Plus you only download once to get both a thumbnail version and a larger version available to your viewers.
It's better than Family.com, since you can easily make the pictures accessible to a large number of people.
It's a great way to backup your digital pictures and get them output in hard-copy (for you or anyone else).
Until 31 January, 2001, ANYBODY can get 25 FREE 4x6 copies of their pictures from Yahoo!
TIPS: If you decide to put some of your own pictures on your Yahoo! Photos site, here are some suggestions based upon the 20 hours I spent putting pictures on the site.
1 - If you're setting up for a particular purpose (as I did for the MCHS Class of '60), don't put the pictures on your personal Yahoo! name. Re-register with another name dedicated to that purpose. e.g., I set up one for MCHS60 and one for RetirementTips.
2 - If you're uploading a bunch, use the "Upload Tool" option. It allows you to select up to 12 at a time from your disk and presents them in thumbnail for your selection.
3 - When uploading, the "Small-Medium-Large" option refers to the size people will see if they click on one of the thumbnail pictures. I recommend "Medium" -- it's 640x480, so plenty large to see but not so large they take forever to load.
4 - The albums will hold a maximum of 40 pictures. If you need several albums, I recommend naming them so they remain in the desired order. Simply concocting names that are alphabetically in the right order is possible, but I found it simpler to prefix each name with number (01, 02, etc.).
2001 Update: No need to name by numbers anymore -- Yahoo added an option that allows you to re-organize your pictures after you put them in an album!
Good Luck! Email me if you put any out there that I'd enjoy seeing! (rjHoffman@Yahoo.com)
FREE PICTURES!
Sept 2001 - Just checked and learned that offer is now 10 free pictures until 10/31/01 -- looks like maybe they have this deal on most of the time. Click on the Yahoo! Photos logo above to check it our for yourself.
Feb 6, '01 - Rechecked the Yahoo site ... the offer now is 10 free pictures until 3/31/01.
WOWOW! (Saturday - Jan 20, '01) Just got my free pictures and they look great! Ordered them Monday and got them today (Saturday). When you order, the program marks the pictures as "Recommended" or "Not Recommended" depending on the quality of the photo. Even though many of mine were in the "Not" class, they all turned out so great that I might even pay the 49 cents each to get more ... LOL
NOTICE (Monday - Jan 15, '01) : Just finished ordering my 25 free pictures. It was quite tedious and error-prone, so I thought I'd put a few notes here. Firstly, I clicked on the underlined words "25 Free Photos" and it turned out to be a Shutterfly ad -- took me off into never-never land and wanted a bunch of info to sign me up for the Shutterfly photo service -- AVOID THIS! I closed it and came back to the Yahoo! Photos window. Finally figured out the process:
1) Select the photos you want on a single page of photos, then click "Order Prints". This takes you (slowly) to another screen where the pictures are again generated.
2) Go to the bottom of that screen and click "Add More Pictures To Your Order". This takes you (slowly) back to the photo album where you started in step 1.
3) This 1,2,1,2 is repeated until you select all you want. I found you can save some time by writing down (manually -- yuk) all those you want from a particular album, then change from 'View Thumbnails' to 'View List' and click 'Show All'. This allows you to pick all from that album at once.
4) When you've picked all you want and do your last step 1, you then select "Check Out" at the bottom of the screen. This will take you to the ordering area where they want your address, credit card, etc. FINALLY, when you look at the total charges, you'll see they're giving you a $14.29 discount so your first 25 pictures are free. ... Whew! .. Good Luck!
When/if I finally receive my photos, I'll add more comments here.
