Best photo collection and/or printing site

[scrub-jay]

I am terrible about sharing pictures with my family, although good about uploading, editing, etc. But then, they just sit there and my family never sees them. Often, they want me to email "the pictures from your vacation" to the family - *sigh* DH and I take thousands of pictures each vacation and the vacation albums can be huge - far too big to email out! I can narrow down my favorites, but that is still far too big to email. So, with a little one on the way and being that we live 1500 miles from family - this will be a big deal. We are thinking about signing up for one of the photo sites - Snapfish, Shutterfly, Photobucket...etc to be able to upload and share our pics with family. I am hoping for one that:

(1) We can control access to the pictures via password or something.

(2) We can easily order prints - hopefully good quality prints.

(3) Our family can perhaps order prints if they want them. (with permission/access/??)

(4) The website doesn't "own" our pictures once we've posted them. (This one may be impossible to avoid).

If not, we could start a family blog - I am not familiar with the blogging world - but would like to keep in touch with family without making dozens of phone calls every week. This would have to be access-controlled though.

So my question: Does anyone know what the best photo or blogging site out there is? I don't want public access when there are pictures of my child out there - so security is a must. (As long as I know you, I'm okay!) Please, hit me up with your suggestions techy-queens!

Thanks!!

[MarissaNicole]

I use snapfish which allows you to invite users to see your photos, and they can even upload their photos to your page.

They also can order photos.

I don't know if it is the "best" but it is free and I like it.

This kind of explains it.

[poky]

I would look into picasaweb (if you already have gmail, this is a no-brainer), and/or flickr; I know both have security options (if your family already has gmail also, picasaweb would make that *easy* - not positive how flickr's security works, if they'd have to have accounts also or not), and they both have print ordering options, as well.

[migirl]

I've used Snapfish for years now, and really like it. You can share specific albums and pictures, you can set it so whomever you share pictures with has to login. Ordering pictures is easy, and I've been very pleased with their quality.

[Urowife]

I use Smugmug.com and I love it. It's not free, but it gives you your own website essentially. You can password protect, and I think the prints are really good. What I like is that people can view my pics by going to my site without having to join the site (I think with Snapfish your viewers will have to join to see pics, but I could be wrong). I can PM you my site if you are interested.

[MissCrabette]

I was going to second Flickr, but I'm not sure it would be such a good fit for you unless you pay for it. Your friends and family would have to have Flickr or Yahoo accounts (Flickr is owned by Yahoo) and you can set your photo privacy to Friends and/or Family.

The downside is that unless you have a Pro account ($24.95/year), they limit the amount of photos you can upload to 100MB/month and they resize them so you probably wouldn't get very high quality prints unless you upgrade.

[poky]

Oh, right. I keep forgetting I have a pro account there. I think the "everyone has to have a flickr account" is more of a barrier than $25/year, but combined, yeah, forget I suggested flickr.

[NYCHoosier]

I use flickr and LOVE it. But, if you have a lot of pictures, you have to go pro, which costs money ($25/year, I think).
The big benefit is having the ability to post and share really big full resolution photos. I initially did so with my wedding photos and then was happy to be able to with my India photos. I also posted short video clips, too.

Here's the main FAQ page:
http://www.flickr.com/help/faq/

Here's the privacy FAQ:
http://www.flickr.com/help/privacy/#32

Here's the printing/ordering FAQ (I order my pictures through apple, though, and my parents and inlaws both have photo printers):
http://www.flickr.com/help/printing/

Here is the copywright info:
http://info.yahoo.com/copyright/us/details.html

I know there are different symbols that you can use on Flickr to denote what level of access another person can have, whether you just have to credit them or ask permission, or if you can repost at all. I really like that feature.

[houseelf]

I mostly use snapfish. I wait until I find one of their outrageous discount codes at www.techbargains.com I just printed out a years worth of photos for a ridiculously low price just by waiting for the right price.

At Christmas, it is easy to go through and make quick, memorable photo gifts for those impossible recipients.

Also, as some members here will attest from experience, it is nice to warehouse your photos online somewhere in the off chance your hard drive fries.

Kelly

[NYCHoosier]

Oh, right. I keep forgetting I have a pro account there. I think the "everyone has to have a flickr account" is more of a barrier than $25/year, but combined, yeah, forget I suggested flickr.

Well, Flickr is part of yahoo, so if they have yahoo accounts, they can just use those.

I still think it's a worthy suggestion b/c it is so photographer friendly. Also, while I would suggest you get the pro account, your friends and family wouldn't have to in order to view your photos, just if they wanted to post a bunch as well.

[SoonerTexan]

I like smugmug--I pay for the pro version, but I hear their free version is good as well

[oceanchild]

The key thing about Flickr's free version, to me, is that they limit the number of photos you can upload at a time. Which makes big albums a huge pain.

I just put my photos on Facebook these days.

And not that you asked, but don't put all 1000 of your vacation photos up, even if you can. Editing is the key to an interesting album. It was true of physical albums, and it's still true on the web.

[ladymoreta]

And not that you asked, but don't put all 1000 of your vacation photos up, even if you can. Editing is the key to an interesting album. It was true of physical albums, and it's still true on the web.

So true! I have some friends that just dump all their pictures on FB, and end up with hundreds of pictures for just a couple of days. Sometimes I'll open the album and scroll through the pages. Occasionally I will click on one that looks interesting. But if they just post ~20 pictures per album, I'll open it up, read their captions, and probably post comments. Much more fun for all involved!

On topic - I use snapfish. I set up a generic hotmail account, and whenever I send out "invitations" to view my pictures (to people who don't have facebook), I just send them the email address and password. Snapfish automatically saves your credit card info, so I turned that feature off, and I warn people not to order prints from it, but they still do occasionally. Their prints are cheap, good quality, and they arrive quickly. Plus, with mycokerewards, I get a ton of free prints, so I only have to pay shipping.